("Tea Party Comix," issue three, as found and posted by Comics with Problems.)
The question of whether the Tea Party is racist -- is! -- is not! --- keeps hitting our national funny bone, and not in a funny ha-ha way, either. Just ask Shirley Sherrod, or for that matter, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Back when Sherrod was still a somewhat obscure USDA official and Vilsack majored in not saying much, Comics with Problems -- our new favorite website -- began posting the "Tea Party Comix," a kinda crazy, photocopied production featuring President Obama as Sambo. Racist, certainly. Really, actually from a Tea Party supporter? Not known.
Ethan Persoff of Comics with Problems tells us he picked up the first two edition of "Tea Party Comix" from an "enthusiastic Tea Partier in Corpus Christi." The seller apparently meant to reach customers in a gas station. Adding: He got the second edition through eBay.
Now Persoff's got issue three of "Tea Party Comix." He writes that he found it in his mailbox "in an envelope so stiff and reeking of cigarette smoke that we're concerned it's flame retarded." Also, in addition to the comic's being patently racist and utterly offensive, Persoff says, it's "actually pretty good." Much of the third edition consists of parodies of classic covers. Persoff points to this take on an old Spider-Man, with President Obama as the Vulture:
We still don't know who's creating these things. We're actively searching. If you've got any clues, please let us know. We want to meet this person.
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The webpage at http://www.ep.tc/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
Please fix the linky
the cowards have brought down both websites. guess someone must have told them that it might seem racist.
Isn't this a violation of copyright law? Marvel should sue.
I agree!! This is an affront to the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko [ co-creators of Spider-Man]. Besides I think it is copyright infringement. I do have to say it does display the originality of Tea Party thinking; at least some of the TPers anyhow. Sad to realize that after 40 + years we still are skittish about race. I wonder what Dr King would make of this. I am ashamed.
It,s a parody probably no case there but I would check with legal!
Seems likely to me to be a parody of the Tea Party rather than a product of one of its members. Likely, but not certain.
Here's the correct link: http://www.ep.tc/tea-party-comix/index.html
Sorry the links are giving people grief. They're working for me. It may be from too much traffic.
-- Ethan Persoff's post about the third edition
-- Gallery from the third edition
-- Gallery for first and second edition (link updated by Sally Davis)
Oh, wow.
The links are working now, thx.
It really wasn't worth the trip though. The author doesn't really have much to say beyond "Free Abortions" and "Tax And Spend". I got as far as page 20 before I realized it was all the same stuff. If I missed anything funny, even a little bit, let me know.
The world would be a better place if we got over this stuff and took solving problems seriously and spent energy and creativity doing just that. It is so immature, and paranoid and .. unintelligent to hate due to color of ones skin or their religion or their birthplace etc etc. My gosh it is the year 2010!
So, I'm guessing they did the parody of Marvel because of this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100211/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1129
But then, not all of the parodies are Marvel. Green Lantern is DC, Richie Rich is Harvey.
Whoever it is, it's someone who really knows comics. The parody of Zap Comix is especially interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zap_Comix
And he/she is a heavy smoker
I see folks talk about getting these comics on ebay, and here is a seller you probably should look at as a possible originator of these because he has a BUNCH of them, which is a pretty good sign that distribution is going on from this particular seller, Tom Kalb, which certainly would be a good way to track the origination http://cgi.ebay.com/TEA-PARTY-COMIX-1-2-3-CONSERVATIVE-UNDERGROUND-COMIC-/310223115399?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item483abd1487
You sure are right on that one Quantum M - Tom Kalb is all things 'Conservative', 'Underground', oh what the hell, in-your-face racist comics...and apparently in bulk. Where I started laughing my @ss off (needed a little humor interface to stem the anger) was when I got to where he hails from - he's out of Mesa, Arizona...you just can't make this crap up...
I'm looking at these comics and wondering if they are legitimate OR if this is someone's parody of Tea Party beliefs. We may be looking at the political version of Poe's Law. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
That's what I suspect to be the case. It's like the Onion though, the parody ends up becoming the reality, because those being parodied are imbeciles.
Not very many places to get these comics on ebay, which makes me wonder how ol' Tom got so many...
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=Tea+Party+Comix&_sacat=See-All-Categories
You're just encouraging the little bastards. You're driving up demand and, thus, their profits. You're the best thing that ever happened to whoever writes this crap.
You've got a point!
Rachel.... Tom Kalb is listed here as a "supplier" of comic books, all sorts of them.... Would make sense that he knows enough to create them, too... Check it out, looks like you have a lead :-)
http://1188.yippie.biz/az/mesa/
Interesting... I'm from Mesa, and I've driven by the address listed here for Tom a million times (it's a dying strip mall), and haven't noticed anything.... Looks like it's time to go check it out again!
Careful Carli - he already warned us on his web site he doesn't like us 'liberal commie types'. Never know what he might have in store if one of 'us' showed up..at his dying strip mall store.. might want to camoflaug yourself first before heading out... maybe one of those full body hairy chewbaca outfits - with that more urban flair, for that dying strip mall store effect... :)
Mesa, Arizona- And he calls himself a yippie? LOL, it figures. Has anyone from T party mentioned this anywhere? Denounced it? Interesting.
PS: Rachel, when are you coming back? New guy is ok, but we miss you. Hope you had fun on vacation.
I used to live in CC. I'll ask my SIL if she's seen these around.
it is offensive, without a doubt, but it seems that the author is acutely aware of it and is using racism as pointed commentary. these are not devoid of humor once you get past the initial shock. as a comic geek i'm able to enjoy the references to the history of comics in the same way i was able to read offensive stories in the underground comix of the 60's and 70s. in fact, there's so much similarity in styles that my bet is these ARE a political parody of the tea party. if so, it hails from the same fountain of subversive humor that underground artists of all media have drank from for decades.
you know, there isn't really any question about the intent when you consider the tea party comix parody of the cover of zap comix #0 from 1968 (i think)...zap was all about offensive, subversive humor that parodied middle class white america. for those who remember zap let me remind you of robert crumb's fake canned food ad in zap #1 that included 2 white kids asking their mom for, "n!@@er hearts for lunch".
the inclusion of the zap cover was definitely a wink and a nod as to the real intent of this comic. no tea party member would want to include a reference to sex, drugs and debauchery in their own literature.
You're probably right, but as I said, beware of underestimating the stupidity of people in groups. Some of them PROBABLY WOULD absolutely believe this type of @!$%# and take it seriously.
Okay, it's become painfully clear that I live in my own little hippie world raising my kids and trying to commit random acts of kindness.
I can't believe there is freaking crap out in the world like this...
Well, it appears that being racist in America is alive and well. The leaders of the right wing have allowed their people to scream their hate out loud. The leaders want this, a race war because it takes away from the fact the we have a President who, with the help of the right, could help our society on many levels. The right wing leaders and some left chose hate instead. Sad so sad...
Tea is the least of the toxic beverage these loonies are ingesting. Caffeine gives you the abiliity to stay up late thinking of ways to disgrace the office the President of the United States of America, but it hardly vindicates you for naming yourself after something that links you to a group of crankshafts who couldn't even last a month in prison wiht Manuel Noriega. Columbia is for coffee, tea partiers are for anarchy in their districts! Become American, if you please, and if you need advice, meet me at Morning Call, not Morning Joe. Louisana is in worse shape than Pensacola, where Joe hosts his BP gripe show!
Like the earlier poster I have to call Poe's Law on these, it just seems too "racist" to be real. Then again I'm more likely to laugh at this kind of stuff than find it offensive (I also have horrible taste).
The wonderful aspects of the online world aside, unfortunately it also gives equal air time to every nut case out there. In pre-internet days these people would be laughed out of town or at least confined to their private little circles with little influence.