As I’ve said before, despite the theme and subject matter of the webcomic, WORLD OF HURT, I try to keep my blog a fairly upbeat.  I talk about things I like and enjoy, because I want to share a more positive experience with my readers.  However, there occasionally comes a time when I must depart from my desired path and get a little critical.

Recently, I discovered Obama Action Comics!, a webcomic by Jason Buckley.  Buckley describes it as a “blaxploitation webcomic featuring an Obama action figure.”  Now anybody who knows me knows that I’m a bleeding heart liberal and two of my biggest passions are comic books and politics.  If you check my Facebook status from today, you’ll find me waxing on about creating a Thundarr, the Barbarian comic, and admonishing Sen. Harry Reid to pull the seniority and chairmanships of any Democrat that would support a Republican filibuster of the healthcare reform bill.  Now, it would seem that this would be the perfect webcomic for me, especially since Buckley is a fellow progressive.  Sadly, as promising as the idea is, the execution leaves a little to be desired.

Now this may seem like a bit of territorial pissing, since I have “The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic,” a tongue-in-cheek title I bestowed on WORLD OF HURTwhen I believed there were no other Blaxploitation-themed webcomics on the internet.  Since then, I have discovered John Aston’s gritty and innovative Rachel Rage, and Maurice Fontenot’s humorous Ghost Pimp.  I have corresponded with and befriended both creators and have actively supported and promoted their work.  Obama Action Comics’ creator, Jason Buckley also seems like a guy with whom I’d have a great time.  We seem to share the same liberal philosopy.  I even support Buckley’s outrage over President Obama’s frustratingly glacial progress, or outright reversal, on some of his campain promises, but in terms of “Blaxploitation” and “webcomics,”…Dude, you’re doing it wrong.

There’s nothing inherently “Blaxploitation,” or humorous, about a Black man cussing or threatening violence.  The best kind of celebrity satire plays off or, or exaggerates,  the audience’s established perceptions of that person, and Jason Buckley’s depiction of Barack Obama as a violent, angry Black man is merely a caricature of a stereotype.  This Barack Obama is every Samuel L. Jackson and Dave Chappelle soundbite wrapped up in a presidential seal.  Buckley himself states,  ”I doubt [Barack Obama] goes around pistol whipping right wing talk radio douchebags, let alone referring to them as douchebags. Even in private, he probably has a very clean mouth.”

The image of the first Black President of the United States threatening to “choke a bitch,” even presented satirically from a fellow progressive, just feeds into the paranoid fantasies from the conservatives about how threatening Black men are.  It is only because these fantasies are so powerful, insidious, and deeply rooted in the fabric of the American subconscious, that people could even entertain the notion that Barack Obama would want to kill their grandmothers via health insurance “death panels.”  The humor is occasionally short-circuited by Buckley’s use of conservative frames to portray his subjects, such as the impression of Vice-President Joe Biden as a man who must be muzzled.

In terms of the webcomic goes, it’s a fumetti.  Buckley admits that he is using borrowed images, which he reuses liberally (no pun intended) throughout the course of the strip.  That makes it basically the photographic equivalent of a sprite comic, which are generally held in lesser regard in the webcomics community, because a) you’re merely re-contextualizing images that someone else took the time to create, and b) the relatively low level of skill required to do so.

I honestly believe Jason Buckley has a solid premise here, and I cannot find any fault with his passion for his work or subject matter.  A serial editorial webcomic that speaks painful truth to power about a president you want to believe in would be a fresh and welcome voice in the webcomic community.  However, Obama Action Comics! seems a little obvious and facile in its humor, and when you have to read the author’s blog notes to divine whether his intent was to support or vilify his subject, it is questionable whether the jokes are hitting their target.

- JEP

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