Make Comics Not War

5th Biennial Conference

International Herbert Marcuse Society

Herbert Marcuse, the German philosopher, sociologist and political theorist long-since associated with the 1960s counterculture, is reputed to have coined the phrase 'Make Love, Not War'.

The slogan 'Make Love, Not War' originated in 1965 during the midst of Vietnam War protest rallies and remains a popular and well-known anti-war phrase today. First printed on buttons, it has been reproduced on all forms of memorabilia. 

Marcuse referred to High Art as "affirmative culture" and by this he meant that High Art affirmed the values of the ruling and powerful within society. It did this by defining a vision of perfection, beauty or belief, which the masses could strive for but which they could not attain. 

For Marcuse, affirmative culture needed to be abolished so that a more popular culture could take its place. Marcuse did not claim that artists could produce High Art that would have a subversive effective on the ruling and commissioning classes, but he did believe that popular culture could. Essentially, Marcuse believed that popular culture had the ability to change existing social conventions and assumptions, which is exactly what is happening in the world of popular culture today. 

Copyright © 2003 Chicago Review Press

In the world of popular culture, no one voice is as prominent as that of  "The Maestro of Mighty Marvel" - Mr. Stan Lee - the world renowned comic expert whose Spider-man became the "most successful of all syndicated adventure strips, appearing worldwide in more than 500 newspapers." 

Today, High Comic Art is fetching High Art prices at auction houses around the world. This Amazing Spider-Man sold for $268,875 last Thursday at Heritage Auctions. The sale comes after a record-breaking year for original comic art.

The cover for Amazing Spider-Man No. 328 illustrated by Todd McFarlane sold for $675,250 in July 2012, the most expensive price ever paid for original American Comic Art.  

If that's not enough to catch your attention: the comic book cover for Tintin in America sold for a whopping $1.6 million at an auction house in France on the 2nd of June 2012, setting a world record in the sale of high comic art. (Source: Live Trading News)

Clearly, there is a demand for high comic art.

The original cover drawing to the iconic story featuring the death of girlfriend Gwen Stacy in a fight with Green Goblin.

Post-Whateveritism

Post-Whateveritism

Post-Whateveritism describes the development of the American attitude since the 1990s. Post-Whateverits reject limitations and lame thinking: they continue using slang, thick American accents, distinctive dressing styles, and gansta or television sitcom examples when they want to make a point, taking an individual's personal coolness factor to a whole new level.

The Post-Whateverists were dissatisfied with the triviality of pretty much everything they encountered in life. All they heard was wah, wah, wah everywhere they went. They realized that they didn't agree with mainstream thinkers and mindless followers concerned only with themselves so they set out to restore a sense of order and structure to their responses in order to clearly and distinctly convey the impression that they were so beyond utterly cool that everything else paled in comparison, leaving them with no alternative than to respond with the word: Whatever. 

Although Post-Whateverists often used the word Whatever, they were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement. When asked why, a parrot on YouTube had this to say: 

Whatever...

"For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to say something. I mean really, we couldn't just stand there and drool, so we chose the vaguest and most non-committal word we could think of." 

Admittedly, the term Post-Whateveritism is not a very precise one, though saying "Whatever" when you have nothing else to say is convenient.  Trying to say anything else during one of these moments would be a total disaster. Of course, Neo-Post-Whateverists replaced the term "Whatever" with WEL (Whatever, Loser!). Despite this recent texting modification, "loser" had long since been implied.