Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Red City Update:
"I work in Alpharetta, Georgia in a very Red area. I just went out for lunch to get the emissions tested on my car. Took it to a place where, when you walk in, the first thing you notice is a copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall.
Outside: Old white man who is testing my car sees the “GLBT For Obama” sticker on the back of my car.
“That sonofabitch better win!” says he, with a smile.
Maybe there is hope. Of course, I’m sure he didn’t know quite what the GLBT meant."
Splash Page » How Would Comic Book Characters Like Iron Man, Hulk And X-Men Vote? Their Writers Respond!:
"...how would our real-life candidates fare in the comics world?
We posed that question to various comic book writers, asking them how some of the characters they’re well-known for scripting would’ve voted in today’s election. Here’s how they responded:
“All of the X-Men voted early either in person or by mail for Barack Obama,” said “Uncanny X-Men” writer Matt Fraction.
“Astonishing X-Men” writer Warren Ellis didn’t exactly disagree with Fraction’s assessment, but he did tell MTV, “God, you wouldn’t want those people to vote. Have you seen how they dress?”
However, Ellis said that there wasn’t any doubt about the candidate of choice for one of his most popular characters, the gonzo-style journalist Spider Jerusalem from DC/Vertigo’s “Transmetropolitan.”
“Spider Jerusalem would in fact vote for Obama,” explained Ellis. “If for no other reason than damage control and the fact that John McCain will sell his wrinkly ass to anyone who looks like they might be buying.”
...Fraction, who also scripts the ongoing adventures of several other top-tier Marvel characters (including “Invincible Iron Man,” “Punisher: War Journal” and “Thor: Man of War”), weighed in on the voting style of a few more familiar heroes.
“Iron Man/Tony Stark would be 100 percent for Obama. Men of vision always recognize their own,” the writer explained. “Thor would post OBAMA/BIDEN signs on every yard in Asgard if he could. He’d respond to the careful and reasoned leadership this great young man shows, as he understands those same pressures, and has faced them himself triumphantly. And as a warrior, he’d despise any so-called leader that exercised sabre-rattling as a tool of diplomacy.
Lest you think every character was firmly entrenched in the two-party system, Fraction added that Frank Castle, Marvel’s gun-toting vigilante known as Punisher, wouldn’t be favoring Obama or McCain.
“Frank’d vote way down ballot,” said Fraction. “Starting with Bob Barr, libertarian, for president, and heading into arcane party territory from there. Not sure he’s elligible to vote with his record, though. He probably wouldn’t risk it, but should check on that via an anonymous Internet connection at, say, the public library.”
...Across the pond, however, Ellis has always had a slightly different take on politics and government — especially US politics — than many of his stateside peers. As he pointed out, for many of his best-known characters, the question of where their votes would be cast isn’t relevant for one reason or another. But that doesn’t mean he he shied away from explaining where they’d stand on today’s options.
“The Authority would in fact have banned voting by this point and Jenny Sparks would be choosing our local leaders for us,” said Ellis of the team in his wildly popular superheroes-as-government series. “However, Obama would stand a good chance of being selected as America’s community organizer. Mind you, Jenny Sparks was an infamous drunk, so, frankly, so would Jesse Ventura, John C. McGinley or Bubbles from ‘The Wire.’”
Ellis noted that John Constantine, the star of DC/Vertigo’s long-running “Hellblazer” series, is not only a British citizen but also “an old Labour man.”
“He’d be rooting for Obama just because he’d want the GOP thrown out of power,” said Ellis. “However, Obama would be somewhat to the right of John Constantine, and many things about the man would irritate John, not least his avowed opposition to gay marriage. See, what you guys call a leftie, we call a centrist.”"
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