Frank About Miller

I think it's fair to say that Frank Miller was a polarizing enough figure in comics when he was at his peak in the mid-to-late-80s. That polarization seems to have reached full fruition based on some of the content of his website. Among the recent postings are a dismissal of the Occupy participants as "nothing but a pack of louts, thieves and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness" and his feelings about the value of propaganda such as that contained in his recently released graphic novel Holy Terror. On the latter front, his point seems to be no-one complained about the propaganda element of the acclaimed Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, which Miller calls a "left wing screed", so what's wrong with portraying a thinly-disguised version of Batman (the book was originally developed as a Batman story) tackling Al Qaeda. Reading Miller's postings and the comments that follow in reaction, reminded me of my recent posting on the topic of civility and the way the internet in particular works to short-circuit it. Miller is happy to portray the entirety of the Occupy movement as "spoiled brats" who don't comprehend the threat that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda represent from a shielded online vantage point, but one wonders what he'd have to say if he was face to face with Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen who was critically injured by police or any of the other veterans who are part of the protests. Likewise, I can't help but wonder if the people commenting on the posts who are attacking either Miller or each other would have the same venomous attitude if they were in the same room. The internet can be a useful tool for communication, but like any tool its effectiveness will always depend on how people use it.