Lately the world seems to be overflowing with miserable cultists creating nonstop, needless chaos. Their lies and actions inflicting pain, suffering, and yes, even death is totally unacceptable. Fueled by outdated, and very unwanted beliefs and agendas, this way of thinking has no place in modern society, and we at THOIA aim our middle fingers high, equally condemning all wannabe tyrants and so-called kings and rulers who pointlessly crave the ruination of our lives, as well as the lives of our brothers and sisters. With that said, let's take a look at a similar form of historic, though no less Hellish hypocrisy-- The Inquisition, from the February 1974 issue of Skywald's Nightmare #17. And yes, this is also yet another gruesome glimpse / expose into how certain untrustworthy news media outlets spin and spew their garbage narratives completely out of control. (The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same, no?) And if you're one who still doesn't believe that things are in fact, very out of control today, then you my friend are simply not paying attention.
(Last scan below: "The Inquisition" oil painting on canvas by Victor Schivert, 1900.)
6 comments:
The comic "What's in the West Wing?" posted here back in November 17, 2013 sums it up best
The stuff written on the bottom of the "news article" on what's inside this issue, had me laughing. "Artist Maelo Cintron does not exist, he is a mechanical wind-up toy!" was my favorite one.
Along with Glowworm, I really liked this pitch perfect impression of grocery-aisle "gossip rag"-style articles.
But I wonder if everybody would get the joke, here in our current landscape. The salient point--alongside the harsh elements of the plot, of course--is the conflation between the tabloid press and the work of real journalists for legit newspapers. In the seventies, anybody could make this distinction. But at the turn of the twentieth century, when newspaper moguls handcrafted sensationalism in the pursuit of politics and profit, they might not have been able to. By the seventies, journalism had become a vocation governed by a highly-evolved set of professional ethics. That began to reverse itself in the nineties, when televised news entertainment muddied the waters for some viewers. Then the internet came along to elevate anyone with a hot take into some kind of anonymous celebrity legitimacy. And now we have returned to a age in which manufactured press is indistinguishable, for some, from gossip and bias and nonsense. And so now this joke is harder to detect.
No kings.
The only kings that should be accepted in the US are those found in a deck of cards.
Or Elvis. I was going to add King Kong as well, but we all remember what happened last time he was in America
Skywald, squeezed between Marvel and Warren, tried really hard and had some great artists, some decent stories and some not so decent ones.
This is one of the great ones. It's clever, it telegraphs the ending without giving it away or being unfair, and I love how nonchalant our gossip rag reporters are -- because it gives you the idea that they've been out there murdering for a lot longer than just this story -- and, in fact -- are just doing it for the money, not any real ideology.
Which is also relevant for us today with all the grifters and fake personalities making money off of hate and division and that easiest to manipulate human emotion of them all -- fear.
No Kings. One queen, though, Lynda Carter, and one princess, Dawn Wells. Maybe Marie Osmond can be a duchess or something, but that's stretching it.
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