Maximum Occupancy

In the modern age, comics with a political leaning are not hard to find on the newsstands. It’s not surprising to see major crossovers and storylines mirroring real world events in order to build a more relatable, realistic sandbox for creators. But the Occupy Comics project takes this concept to its logical end conclusion, comics created transparently to raise awareness and support for the worldwide Occupy movement.

Occupy Comics was started in September 2012, and recently concluded its initial fundraising on December 9, nearly tripling the $10,000 goal with a total of $28,640 received in donations. ComicBloc recently got in contact with Matt Pizzolo, founder and editor of Occupy Comics, to discuss the project’s past, present and future.

ComicBloc: First of all, let me say thank you very much for this interview. Let’s get the first standard interview question out of the way: what does the Occupy movement represent to you? The movement has plenty of strong, clearly defined messages, but which called you to take an active role in the movement?

Matt Pizzolo: The main issue Occupy addresses that really resonates with me is the relationship between Wall Street and Washington DC. This is a really unique moment where tens of millions of people across the country (and, really, around the world) are personally feeling Wall Street’s hands in their pockets… that gets past all the academic intellectualizing about class inequality that we can debate endlessly. Right now it’s plainly clear to everyone who’s even just barely paying attention that a small group of ultra-wealthy are extracting money from the economy and we literally can’t ignore it anymore no matter how hard we try. It’s very difficult to remain apathetic right now, which is why I think Occupy and other similar movements have really caught fire and have managed to control their own narratives despite attempts to marginalize them.

CB: Tell me about the founding of the Occupy Comics project. How did you go about organizing such an ambitious project?

MP: Well it didn’t start out quite so ambitious. In the early days of the Occupy movement there was very little news coverage, so I was inspired to help spread the word. NY Comic Con seemed like an obvious place for exposure what with 100,000 people who seem to care about truth & justice right across town from Zuccotti Park. So I started contacting some of my friends in comics to see who was interested in doing something at NYCC that would help get the word out about Occupy… the original plan was really just a quickly produced, zine-like comic that we’d print DiY and hand out at the convention. But before we got very far in our planning, the now infamous Tony Baloney pepper-spraying incident occurred and the news coverage went from zero to madness overnight. So exposure was no longer an issue. We re-strategized to see what else we could offer, and we decided the most constructive thing we could do was to create a time capsule of the movement in comics form and use that to fundraise for the protesters.

CB: At what stage did the project evolve from just an idea on paper into a reality?

MP: I’m not sure when it became more than just an idea… I suppose the Kickstarter is what made it real because that achieved one of the goals (fundraising for the protesters) and bound us all to completing the other goal (creating the time capsule).

CB: How did you approach the various creators, and (without naming names) were there any that turned you down?

MP: In terms of outreach to other creators, I initially just reached out to my friends and people I’d met on panels etc… the first group of people who were interested in the NYCC thing included Steve Niles, Tim Seeley, Ben Templesmith, Brea Grant & Zane Grant. So it started with a pretty cool roster and that made it easy for me to reach out to people I didn’t know. Then pretty soon word spread about the project and comics pros started contacting me saying they wanted to be involved… I guess that’s when it really took on a life of its own.

I don’t want to name names about who turned the project down, but definitely there were a few creators who I really expected to be supportive of the project because they’re known for being countercultural/anti-establishment figures (and they’re well paid for that persona) but turned it down for what seemed like pretty cynical reasons. It was kind of disappointing on a personal level and it would’ve been a real bummer if it wasn’t such a minuscule percentage of the people I reached out to… most people really surprised me by joining the team and being really excited about it. So that was really pretty amazing. The positive response definitely far exceeded my expectations.

CB: The project is one of many upstart projects being crowd funded through Kickstarter, and this surge in fan participation is not just limited to comics.

MP: Well, Kickstarter was unique for this project because one of the core goals was to fundraise for the protesters. If we were to create an entire book of all new works and print it then distribute it the traditional route through book distributors, we wouldn’t see any profits probably until 2013. That’s no good for fundraising. So Kickstarter was really helpful to us because we were essentially able to pre-sell the book and raise a lot of the money upfront, which means we can support the movement in the here and now. Even with that edge, we still didn’t manage to get the money before Zuccotti was cleared so our initial goal of supporting the occupiers through winter didn’t time out, but I’m confident there will be ample opportunities to support the movement in the coming months.

CB: What has been the best and worst part about using Kickstarter for the project?

MP: I think the best part of the Kickstarter campaign was the direct contact with the supporters of the project. I’ve released dozens of projects through mass media outlets and nationwide retail, you never really get a sense of who’s buying it. With Kickstarter, you interact directly with the supporters and that’s way more fulfilling.

Also, so much of the trend the past decade has been the devaluing of content… charging less and less as if a cheaper book or a cheaper DVD is ultimately a better deal–ignoring that these aren’t commodities and if you want unique, risky art then that requires a level of financial support. Kickstarter is so unique because it’s about art that people want to support, and so pledgers pre-buy something before it’s even made and they pledge an amount that’s generally significantly higher than the retail purchase price would ordinarily be… that’s so important and so antithetical to most of the thinking out there. I keep reading blogs about how much a comic should cost and personally I’d rather pay $10 for an amazing comic that makes me think and see the world differently rather than $1 for a piece of crap that makes me feel dumber for reading it. So I think Kickstarter is really developing into a pretty incredible thing.

What was the worst part of Kickstarter? I don’t know… it really worked out well for us. I’ve got nothing to complain about, which is completely uncharacteristic of me. I guess the worst part was how everyone would make fun of me whenever I got an alert on my phone of more money being pledged because I don’t actually get a nickel of it. So my friends who’ve used Kickstarter for their own personal projects thought that was just hilarious.

CB: Were any alternatives ever considered?

MP: We didn’t really consider any alternatives. Kickstarter was an early solution to the problem of fundraising with a comic book… comics don’t generally profit enough to raise much money unless they’re turned into movies and that didn’t seem like a viable approach. So the strategy was designed with Kickstarter in mind.

CB: Frank Miller recently issued a statement on his website in which he railed against the Occupy movement, calling protestors “nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists”, and stating that the movement was simply “an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves”. It is certainly worth noting that the statements have received significant backlash from fans, creators, and the media, but how do you react to something tantamount to libel?

MP: When I read it I was so confused that I couldn’t even get angry… my brain just flashed back to being a kid reading Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil and Sin City and all Frank’s stuff and basically re-synthesizing everything I *thought* he was saying with what I now realize he must have *actually* been saying. So it was very disorienting. It’s like when the twist comes in Fight Club and you instantly replay the entire movie in your head with this new information.

I like to think the whole thing is a prank Frank concocted at the start of his career for a 30 year-long supreme [mind screw] of every comics reader across 3 decades. He’s like “okay now that I’ve got all your brains in my clutches, let me tell you what I REALLY think!”
CB: Do you have anything to say to Frank Miller and others sharing anti-Occupy sentiments? One of the consistent goals of the protests, as mentioned by de facto Occupy celebrity Jesse LaGreca, is to simply get a conversation started; many of the issues that are being protested have been largely ignored by the mainstream media prior to the first Occupation last fall. How do you propose getting these conversations started?

MP: Well I think the point is Occupy successfully started that conversation, which is why Frank and others felt they had to articulate their views in reaction to Occupy, and then people responded and continued the conversation. Plenty of people agreed with Frank and many disagreed, so it sparked a really exciting, fresh, vibrant conversation about topics I’ve never seen discussed broadly in my lifetime. As per its initial stated goals, Occupy has already been enormously successful. Shockingly successful, in fact. Not despite the people running around shouting “Lice! Rapists! Tuberculosis!” but because those crazy trolls and their lines of lunacy-rhetoric are so obviously out-of-place alongside the very intelligent discourse people are now having on both sides of the issues.

The mainstream media never really covered the fundamental issues, even while they were covering the protests. So just because the media isn’t covering it now doesn’t mean the conversations aren’t continuing… and I don’t think the mainstream media has seen the last of the Occupy movement, there should be plenty for them to cover in the coming months.

As for what I’d say to Frank, well I’ve mentioned before that I should buy him flowers of appreciation for all the outreach his rant did on behalf of Occupy Comics. We got so many creators reaching out to us after that saying they didn’t feel comfortable taking a public position on Occupy until they read Frank’s post and then felt morally obligated to participate if for no other reason than to demonstrate that his perspective isn’t reflective of comics as a whole. It also didn’t hurt with fundraising. So once again I say “Thank you, Frank Miller.”

CB: On that same subject, how do you envision Occupy Comics being utilized by protestors? The project has the potential to become anything from informational literature to an Occupy manifesto, and you’ve previously referred to the project as a time capsule or microcosm of the different energies and momentum within the Occupy movement. How do you see the project being used in the here and now?

MP: It’s hard to say, it has a lot to do with what each contributor chooses to create and how that fits into the mosaic of the whole book. We’re just starting to get pieces delivered, so it’s too soon to tell. I think it will ultimately continue the conversation while also crystallizing some of the deeper themes that are better conveyed through art than through the news or social media. The key component to the whole thing is that it’s an anthology with dozens of points of view. It wouldn’t be as relevant if it were a polemic or manifesto written by a single person, that’s not what Occupy is about. So I think it’s critical that this is a chorus of voices all sharing their own unique points of view and I hope that will ultimately make the whole more transcendent than the sum of its parts.

CB: In early December, news broke that the Occupy Comics project would be including a contribution from the legendary Alan Moore, in addition to the previously announced contribution from David Lloyd. What is it like to be working alongside such legends? It is safe to say that the Occupy Comics project will be historic regardless of A-list involvement, but does bringing big names on to the project reshape the direction in any way?

MP: In terms of the content itself, Alan Moore and David Lloyd are obviously both brilliant creators, so a project that was already ballooning with incredible talents nearly exploded when they came on board. It’s incredibly exciting and I kinda feel awkward for being involved in it at this point.

Alan Moore is writing a longform prose piece so that could very well be substantial enough to affect the shape of the whole thing… which is exciting because he really operates on his own level. Even just reading his response to Miller in that Honest Publishing interview, he smacks down Miller in paragraph 1 then immediately gives one of the most articulate descriptions of Occupy I’ve seen before jumping across a series of complex topics from governmental control by elites to the derivatives market versus the real economy to currency manipulation… and he did it so effortlessly and cogently. How do you take “louts, thieves, and rapists” seriously by comparison?

And the fact is the Alan Moore vs Frank Miller smackdown was covered really extensively in the mainstream media… but I didn’t see a single article that quoted Alan Moore past the first two paragraphs when he really started digging in on the fundamentals beneath these contemporary waves of populism. I hope Occupy Comics can be a forum where we can dig into some of the deeper layers of all this… exposure for the movement isn’t a problem now, but so much of the exposure is superficial and ignores discussing the actual issues at the root of all this. If you turn on the news, you’d think these were protests about police brutality–after all, it’s easier to sell newspapers with pictures of bloody cops than with pictures of banksters dismantling our economy and selling it for parts.

CB: Have you spoken to the leaders at any of the Occupy general assemblies? What has the feedback been like so far from the various Occupy camps not only across America, but worldwide? Has the group looked into donating any copies to the People’s Library at the initial Occupation site?

MP: I’ve spent time at Occupy Wall Street as well as Occupy LA, but the book wasn’t discussed at any of the general assemblies. Any feedback I’ve gotten from the organizers within the movement has been through Twitter, and everyone has been very supportive. We’ll certainly be donating books to the People’s Library and more broadly to whatever forms the Occupy protests take by the time the books are printed. The movement changes so quickly whereas the process of creating and publishing a longform creative project is so glacially slow that we have to just play the details by ear and be prepared to adapt as the situation on the ground changes.

CB: Have you seen any in-progress work for the anthology yet? If so, what has impressed you most so far about the work you’ve been presented with?

MP: We’ve started getting pieces delivered for the book, and I’m very excited to report that it’s already blowing away my expectations. I think comics is a unique format to convey Occupy through, and there are some true masters of the craft working here. Some of what I’ve read so far has already altered my own perspective of Occupy and what it means… I can’t imagine what would be a stronger endorsement than that.

CB: And finally, in what ways, if any, will the Occupy Comics compilation be available to readers and Occupiers outside of the initial fundraisers? Is there a tentative release date for these non-exclusive releases?

MP: We’re working out the details of that right now. We should have an announcement in the coming weeks of how Occupy Comics will be released and how it will be available to everyone who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign.

ComicBloc.com would like to once again extend its thanks to Matt Pizzolo for his insightful interview on the Occupy Comics project. For news and updates on Occupy Comics, visit OccupyComics.com. To view the Kickstarter for the project, visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1817933359/occupy-comics-art-stories-inspired-by-occupy-wall. Fans of Matt Pizzolo can visit his official website, xzolox.com.