In His Own Words: Super-Champion Writer Jakob Free on Making Fascism Lame Again
Main Art by JD Faith & Ben Wilsonham
Update (10/26/2018): Following allegations against artist J.D. Faith, Jakob Free has suspended this campaign. Learn more on the Kickstarter page. In the interest of transparency, we will leave this essay up.
As part of Paste Comics’ ongoing efforts to spotlight worthy Kickstarter projects, we’ve invited writer and former Paste contributor Jakob Free to contribute a guest essay to mark the launch of his campaign for the first issue of The Redemption of Super-Champion Barron Drumpf, his new project co-created with JD Faith and inspired by the grand tradition of political comics.
The Redemption of Super-Champion Barron Drumpf Cover Art by JD Faith & Ben Wilsonham
My grandfather was a sonar operator in World War II. Or the mail guy. Depends on who you ask. And how much they’ve had to drink. Regardless of what he did, my grandfather participated—in some small way—in winning WWII. But he wasn’t the kind of guy to take credit for things like that. He rarely even talked about his time in the Navy. I never once heard him refer to himself as a veteran.
By the time I was old enough to even think about joining the armed forces, it had become a less glorious sort of endeavor. The truth is, I wouldn’t have done it under most circumstances. It just wasn’t something a nice, (literally) small Jewish boy from Long Island did. Or so I thought.
But my grandfather was a nice, small Jewish boy from Long Island. He did his part. And I often wonder why.
It’s probably because, in 1941, Americans were experiencing a kind of national unity that’s hard to imagine in the 21st century. We were facing down an existential threat. We were facing down Nazis. And by god, we were going to fight them together!
But in 2018, I’m no longer certain that we’re all on the same page about Nazis. Or anything really. Now there’s a lot of talk about the importance of free speech. The marketplace of ideas. We shouldn’t punch Nazis. We should let them parade around town, spewing their virulent nonsense, and somehow our good ideas will beat their bad ideas into submission. Goodbye Nazism!
