In this episode, Chris and Steven confront highly disturbing revelations about the CIA and American global politics, courtesy of the explosive whistleblower comic, BROUGHT TO LIGHT (Eclipse Comics, 1988), written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. Buckle up, folks. This is a wild one. BROUGHT TO LIGHT really is the most dangerous comic book ever published!
COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! is a deep dive into ‘80s comic books (plus a few notable exceptions) in a weekly podcast format. Screenwriters Steven Bagatourian (AMERICAN GUN) and Chris Derrick (STAR TREK: PICARD) discuss their favorite books, runs, and creators from the Bronze Age.
SHOW NOTES
0:00 - CRYB! theme song
01:07 - The origins of BROUGHT TO LIGHT: The Christic Institute, Eclipse Comics, Cat Yronwode, Dean Mullaney, Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz, Warner Books, the CIA, the U.S. government, and the target on everyone's back for even telling this story
14:49 - “How America Was Robbed...”
17:17 - An American eagle walks into a bar... A discussion of the audacious narrative conceit of this comic
23:42 - Swimming pools of blood as a visual metaphor ...for the horrifying worldwide death toll caused by far-reaching immoral CIA covert operations ...and for the U.S. government's secret involvement in a multitude of global assassinations and coups = “An infographic from Hell”
28:47 - “I want to talk about Sienkiewicz’s art.” “We need to.”
38:55 - A reading from the gospel of our CIA eagle-agent guy and his squawkings about the assassination of JFK
44:35 - “An assault on your whole belief in America.” In the spirit of Noam Chomsky & Manufacturing Consent
46:29 - The suppression and burial of BROUGHT TO LIGHT
57:30 - Peak Alan Moore and peak Bill Sienkiewicz -- reinventing comics with everything they do at this point
1:02:08 - Our eagle agent contemplates suicide with a gun to his own head; the brilliant juxtaposition between Moore’s words and Sienkiewicz’s pictures
1:15:00 - Things get meta. The eagle goes after The Christic Institute with vitriol and makes his final desperate case to us, the readers
1:21:17 - Creators who risk infusing their art with their own deeply held political beliefs
1:28:14 - Sienkiewicz’s stunningly-wrought hand-done lettering on BROUGHT TO LIGHT; Steven's eternal soliloquy raging against the dying of the light, as the scourge of font lettering comes over the hillside like a plague of end-time locusts devouring modern comics, etc.
©2024 Comics Rot Your Brain!
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©2024 Comics Rot Your Brain!
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