Spike Spiegel
Member
Howard Chaykin said:
For those who don't know, Howard Chaykin is a veteran comic book writer and illustrator, an industry legend with a career beginning in the late 1960s working alongside another industry legend, Gil Kane. He's worked for both Marvel and DC, on series like Star Wars, Batman, Conan the Barbarian, Challengers of the Unknown, Wolverine, Punisher and Blade. He's collaborated with others on a number of indie comics over the years, covering a wide range of subjects from war stories to the golden age of television (Satellite Sam by Chaykin and Matt Fraction is a personal fave).
Chaykin is also no stranger to courting controversy, infusing politics and sexuality into his independent efforts. His most famous work, American Flagg!, is a future dystopian cautionary tale about a TV star -turned lawman fighting corruption in a USA controlled by a greedy corporation. His most infamous work (until now, perhaps?) is (or was?) the erotic noir thriller Black Kiss, a story about transsexual vampires in the seedy underbelly of Hollywood. Despite (or, because of) its graphic depictions of violence, nudity and sexual activities, virtually unheard of for a comic published in the 1980s, Kiss gained a cult following through its notoriety, prompting Chaykin to once remark that it was his most profitable endeavor by far.
Last month, the first issue of a new series by Chaykin was published at Image: The Divided States of Hysteria. It tells the story of an America on the brink of tipping into chaos, following the assassination of the President in an attempted coup, resulting in a heightened state of fear and a liberal conspiracy theorist's nightmare: an America under constant surveillance, drones filling the sky, communications being monitored, everyone being watched in anticipation of the next strike. As you can probably imagine from the header, it doesn't get any better as the first issue ends with
a successful suicide bombing being carried out in New York City.
Related: Tripwire Magazine's interview with Howard Chaykin on Divided States
The rest of the first issue spends its pages introducing us to the cast of characters Chaykin has assembled. First up is Frank Villa, the CIA agent whose job is to prevent another terrorist attack from happening. If you're familiar with the works of Chaykin, he'll look familiar; he's the flawed, authority-figure, cog-in-the-machine fuckup who looks like so many of Chaykin's other protagonists. Then there are the others, those four "serial murderers" Agent Villa will end up recruiting.
One is Henry John Noone, an apparent take on the real-life "D.C. Sniper" John Allen Muhammad, whose shooting spree specifically targeting white people resulted in nine deaths (ten counting his partner, gunned down by police) before he was captured. His biggest regret? Not killing at least a dozen.
Then there's Paul Evan Berg, a Jewish man of genius intellect whose get-rich-quick scheme involved electronically stealing millions from unsuspecting rich people attending his fake investment meeting, then poisoning them before making his (unsuccessful) getaway. Berg showed no remorse for his victims, even going so far as to sleep with one knowing she had been poisoned.
Cesare "Little Caesar" John Nacamulli is a serial killer who learned from the mistakes of his "role models" and varied the methods of his killing to avoid capture. Unfortunately for Cesare, he trusted the wrong people with his secret ("no honor among thieves," the saying goes) and one day found the NYPD waiting on his doorstep.
The fourth member of this little cadre of killers, though... that's the one where people feel that Chaykin went too far. That's the one that sparked a controversy.
Christopher Michael Silver was a prostitute working the Vegas Strip, until one night when a group of three hired her for the evening. Back at the hotel, one of the men gets ahead of himself and that's when they all discover that Chris has a penis. They begin to attack her, beating her, and that's when Chris reaches for her handbag, pulls out a handgun, and shoots down her attackers. Police bust in, find Chris on the bed surrounded by bodies, and charge her with multiple homicides.
The scene of Chris's attack is, as you might imagine, brutal. It's a moment of transphobic violence ending in murder, that could have gone the other way. It is also worth noting that as with the other members of the group, the account is told to us by Chris herself, in her own words; there is the suggestion, therefore, of the "unreliable narrator" element at work in her version of events (specifically, that her victims held prior knowledge of her physical attributes).
Also as you can imagine, this scene in particular, out of the entire first issue, sparked an immediate outcry magnified by social media. Critics blasted Chaykin for depicting violence against transgender people, and Image for publishing the offending material during LGBTQ Pride Month, while others came to Chaykin's defense as a liberal artist exercising his right to free speech, in telling a controversial and topical story that pulls no punches. Perhaps because of this controversy the first issue of Divided States quickly sold out, prompting Image to announce publication of a second printing.
The heat had only slightly cooled off when late last week, Image released the solicitation text and cover artwork for Divided States of America #4, prompting more and perhaps even greater backlash and criticism of Chaykin and Image.
I won't post the cover artwork here. If you want, you can find it easily. The cover depicts a graphic scene of racial violence:
a brown-skinned man hangs from a noose, tied to the door of a restaurant on a city street at night. The man's pants are around his ankles, and from the amount of blood on his thighs and crotch one can assume his genitalia has been severed or mutilated. The slur "PAKI" is written on the badge on his shirt.
It's a graphic depiction of racial violence. Seeing it for the first time, I was reminded of an earlier Image Comics cover, for Spawn #30, in which the main character (a black man beneath the mask) hangs from a noose with a bullet through his forehead. The outcry over Divided's fourth issue cover was even more pointed, with renewed attacks towards Chaykin and calls for Image to censor or cease publication of the series, prompting others to again defend Chaykin's rights of expression and decry calls for censorship.
In the wake of this latest controversy, Image Comics has today responded to the backlash with a statement of apology and the decision to pull the offending cover from the issue. In its place, the cover for the sixth issue has been substituted.
EDIT:
Spike Spiegel said:
