The Culture War #10 - GPrime85 Discusses Anime And His new Comic With Razorfist
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So I think the importance of the work you do, especially you have like a kid's book chilling right here, is you make art.
Art is culture.
And you're actually one of the most successful, whether you want to be or not, I suppose, culture warrior artists.
Having made a whole bunch of political cartoons that went viral, my personal favorite actually is the Freedom Trucker flying into the World Trade Center.
The KKK trucks?
Yeah, from the Canadian trucker protest.
And you've also got your own art series.
But yeah, you've been making edgy, I guess, what would you call it?
It's called political commentary, political cartoons.
Yeah, I mean, Twitter, for better for worse, is the newspapers now.
Newspapers have been falling away for a long time.
So where is everybody?
In the morning, I'm having my coffee, I'm taking my poop, I'm going through Twitter, and everybody's doing that.
It's the newspaper of today.
So I'm just a cartoonist who happens to throw self-published things on Twitter, and enough people shared it around that I accidentally grew a lot of followers.
The more quote viral strips that ended up getting shared around the most was me taking a direct quote from some fool and just illustrating literally what they said.
When they were saying that the trucker protest was a bunch of like terrorists, you made a picture of a semi flying through the air into the wheelchair.
The conservatives thought it was actual liberal cartoons.
The perfect move there would be to actually submit that to the New Yorker and get it in the magazine under a pseudonym.
I want to become, maybe I am actually, already a cartoonist for the New Yorker or the New York Times, and I'm intentionally drawing bad cartoons to subvert Yeah, you've had several banned from Instagram too, right?
I had a cartoon banned from Etsy, actually, where I sell my books.
There was this FBI guy trying to infiltrate the alt-right or something, so he's wearing A Confederate flag, and he's like, how do you do fellow Trump supporters?
So that's why I was... I was being half-joking when I said Moronic.
It was trying to be over-the-top, but why use Patreon when we know they do this?
And I was talking to Ryan Long and Danny Palaszczuk.
Yeah, I heard that.
I'm like, why are you guys using this?
They're going to ban you.
Like, hands down.
Dude, Ryan Long and Danny are incredible.
But we had Ryan Long, we booked him for a stand-up show, for a show we did, we had him, I think he closed or I can't remember, but he can't say the jokes he said on the internet.
And everybody was laughing because they knew the jokes were meant to be, they were meant to be dark, they were meant to be offensive, but we know Ryan's a good dude.
But if he said those things, or if someone filmed it and put it on the internet, you know what I mean?
Yeah, well your advice was good, you know, build your own website and stuff, and he was saying, rightfully, some people are not comfortable doing that, but that is a good solution.
So in the, I think of the idea say in the shower or the night before and then I get up in the morning I draw it four hours later it's done I say do I upload this or not as I'm drawing it I'm saying is there is this too harsh is the joke can it be more subtle because you don't want to There's the line.
It's like even with South Park, there are lines they can't cross.
But you can still get the really, like sometimes the best jokes are the ones that are restrained and you have to think about it some more.
You should do one where it's like two big fat middle-aged guys and they're at a barbecue and then they crack open a Bud Light and drink it and then turn into sorority girls.
Well, alright, so for children's books, right, I was doing research because there was, I think last year... Oh, that's cool, a little... Matt Walsh, who I want to call out on this show later... Oh, wait, this is a... Oh, the pages... Pages are stuck together for some reason, George.
Must have been the humidity from... Because it's so hot.
No, it just has a simple, like it's Winnie the Pooh-ish where There's the little main character, he's like a mouse named Strudel, and he's got to find a berry for his dad's cake.
And so, you know, people will talk about, I don't want political indoctrination in my content, and I'm kind of like, I do.
Like, I want freedom, meritocracy, individual responsibility as a subtle message in my content.
However, there is something to be said about all of these kids books that they're making are Over the top.
You know what I mean?
Like, they're not just making a book where it's, like, the mouse fights the evil snake and, like, the snake was hurting people and hurting people is bad.
It's more like the snake was taking the acorns from the squirrels and, you know, 20% of every, you know, harvest... It's two on the nose.
In this case, there is an instance of that where a weasel tricks Strudel into giving him a strawberry and in exchange, spoilers, the weasel gives Strudel a rubber ball instead and says it's a berry.
And so he takes the fake berry home and it's like, oh, I've been tricked by a weasel.
And that's pretty much It's about, you know, hey, you should trust yourself and don't bite off more than you can chew and family values.
And that's pretty much that's my message that I'm sneaking into the book.
And he goes off to go hunting or whatever to do his business.
And when he comes back, he sees his house is all ransacked, and then, you know, his dog was not with him.
He sees his son's crib flipped over, there's blood everywhere, and the dog walks over with blood dripping from its mouth, wagging its tail.
And then, thinking that his dog killed his son while he was out, he pulls out a sword and thrusts it into the side of Gellert, his faithful hound, killing him.
And then when he does and the dog lets out a dying whelp, he wakes up the baby he hears crying and then he rushes over and he throws debris out of the way and there's his baby safe and sound next to a wolf that Gellert had slain.
A lot of the better stories that have survived over the years has some kind of one sentence or two sentence summaries like that, where this story is about don't, you know, And what's happening with conservatives is they've put out like three books where it's like, if you're a giraffe, you can't be a penguin.
And then I said, why don't I take it to the next level even and not even have an outright political message?
Where it's just I think the idea is anyone even a left type would Be able to share this book with their kids and it's just a sweet book But you do want subtle messages in it.
Yeah, but just like not over the top on the nose hitting you over the head I mean a lot of the old Aesop's fables and Grimm's fairy tales had that sort of I mean even Hansel and Gretel's was like super dark with His, the dad had remarried another woman and she wanted to get rid of the kids because they couldn't afford to feed them.
Maybe you should you should Have the mouse there pull out a blade and come after the weasel for revenge like John wick style on this case Kids can't even read the book.
It's designed to be read to them Yeah, it's adorable.
in bedtime and stuff.
But they can look at the happy little pictures.
He's holding a berry and stuff.
It's very cute. - Big strawberry, yeah. - Yeah, it's adorable.
But the idea is that we, as a community who wants to fight wokeness, I think one of the best tricks we can do is just pump out stories that are just good And then you kind of, you have to be a little more subtle.
But apparently it's one of the best novels ever written and yada yada, but I never heard of it.
So I think the risk is you can make a great story, it might not go viral, but years later it'll be considered a classic and then maybe it'll have the impact that it was originally meant to, something like that.
Yeah, like getting people's attention right now is the hardest part of marketing.
We can consider that marketing, letting people know that the book exists and do they want to buy it, something like that.
Yeah, and with everything being the culture war, with algorithms propping up specific trains of thought, it's really hard to crack through with anything else.
That's why we saw, you know, it was like FJB hit number one on iTunes.
You know what I mean?
Because people are fervent right now.
Here's what you do, you know, if you want to compete.
No, we would wear little suits and your Sunday's best, and then I went to Catholic school, so we would do, I think, Thursdays, so you're in uniform, and then Sundays, the family, you dress up.
But I got to tell you, I didn't understand a single thing they had said in church.
None of it made any sense.
They never explained it.
And I think that's one of the biggest failings of modern Christianity, because it's only now that I'm older that I'm learning about philosophy, faith, and some of these ideas that I'm actually like, oh, wow, that's actually profound.
If they'd actually conveyed wisdom, you know, but they didn't have it.
It's sort of outside in superficial Christianity that I always objected to.
So I would go to church intentionally wearing casual clothes with, I was trying to make a statement, like everyone in church was wearing formal clothes.
So I was standing out intentionally, but I was trying to say like, this is my best.
I don't want to go like wearing rings and like fixing my hair up.
And there are some churches where like people will wear almost, I don't want to be too spicy, but they will wear clothes that are inappropriate for church because they think it looks good on them.
Like they're going to the club or something.
It's like, what are you doing?
Why are you wearing that?
So to go back to the Matt Walsh conversation, like the reason that I think, Like, these are the same types of moms and dads who hated Mortal Kombat and Doom because they said it led to school shootings way back in the day.
And what you end up doing is just making yourself look lame and irrelevant to the current generation.
Kids nowadays, like, I don't know a lot of teenagers, but you know, they have a certain way of talking.
Yeah, this is the story that I like to convey from my life was when I started skateboarding, the cool thing was to wear skin tight clothes, punk rock, skin tight, black jeans, stretch jeans.
Not JNCOs.
Not JNCOs.
And some kids would dental floss the pants onto themselves.
They put pants on and then they'd sew them even tighter.
So you'd get stretchy jeans, you'd skate them, and they were really comfortable, it was easier to skate in stretch jeans, skin tight, right?
And the older crowd would wear baggy jeans.
And so when I started skating, they would start insulting us and making fun of us, telling us how stupid we were.
And then we would laugh at him.
We didn't care.
We don't care what you think, old man.
You suck at skateboarding.
What year is this?
This was 2002, 2003.
Okay.
Yeah, the punk rock, indie rock, skin tight stuff.
And so then when I was in my 20s, I'm at a skate park and the dudes that I know are making fun of kids who are wearing, they would wear dickies that were too short for their legs, so they would have this huge ankle, like floods almost.
You know, they'd make like, hey, where's the flood?
You know, dingus, because their pants are too high.
And that was the new trend.
All the kids would wear pants that didn't go far enough down.
I don't want to sound too harsh, but the reason you're losing the culture war, the reason you lost an entire generation of people, us and younger, let's say, You're not even relative.
Like, they say video games are for kids and stuff.
So like in Horizon, for those that aren't familiar, spoiler alert, I mean, the original game is now like, what, seven years old or something.
It's basically, there's a military industrial complex guy They build self-replicating war machines.
They lose control of them.
They then calculate that, at a certain point, these things will consume all organic matter.
They'll consume organic matter to the point where it destabilizes the ecosystem, causing a global collapse.
And so, the plan they make is building big underground facilities.
That once the machines die, once the machines shut down because of a lack of ecosystem to support them, they kickstart and reboot the Earth and then clone and create people to repopulate the Earth.
So in this game, you're going around to, you know, thousands of years later, abandoned facilities.
It's fascinating how they visualize people's development, tribes, it's like future tribalism.
There's relics of ancient technology but they're still very early tribalist because they don't know how to make a computer so they can make a ballista but then you find old recordings and it is really really fascinating how they talk about these ideas that we're talking about now with the The imagination, like imagining what would happen.
So in one instance right now, there's a guy who runs a space mining company and there's a disaster.
They're pulling asteroids closer to earth to orbit so they can mine them in outer space and then one slams into earth or something like that and like causes problems.
It doesn't like wipe the earth out or anything like that.
But the video game is basically explaining complex ideas in storytelling so that kids can understand what it means.
But outside of that, I'll say this, cause I love the post-apocalyptic stuff.
The idea like Superman, right?
I grew up on Superman and Batman.
Batman is the best.
I like Spider-Man, but I felt like Batman really was...
That reminds me of like an anecdote of, let's say you and I are archaeologists in Spelunky world, and we're finding a cave, an ancient cave, tens of thousands years old, and we find some drawings on the wall.
And we're like, wait, we can, if we look at them in a sequence, we can see that they're telling a story.
Or if we go to Egypt and we find hieroglyphics and it's like all these pictures, if you look at them in a certain way, it's telling a story.
It's like, it's almost like humans tell stories through pictures and it's almost like pictures existed before language itself.
Cause letters are just really refined pictures and any Asian, you know, language, especially, you know, Chinese, whatever you get, like the symbol for rice patty or the symbol for person.
So it was pictures were conveying ideas, but it was writing.
So to them, they see an image, they're conveyed an idea, but think about the complexity.
So that was, I think that's true.
Cause there was this old meme where there was a video online where a woman is explaining Mandarin or something like that.
I think it's Mandarin.
And she's like, here's a symbol for a woman.
If you put two of them together, it's now women.
And that's easy to understand.
And if you add a third, you get argument.
So, think about what that means.
Back in the day, when these dudes were creating language to convey an idea, they drew a picture of three women and then nudged their buddy like, you know what I'm saying?
Because the more you refine, the more people are literate.
Like, if somebody can't draw, they can't make a comic telling a story about three women arguing.
But if I draw the woman symbol three times, let's say, But anyway, all this is to say that pictures existed and maybe that's why manga is so popular in like Asian countries because they understand the value of pictures as a tool of storytelling and maybe they respect it more than say us here in the West.
Whereas, you know what even Protestants would say that paintings were like Sacrilegious and stuff.
They didn't want paintings and religious icons in their churches.
It was based on, loosely, there was a student protest in Japan in the 60s, I think.
It was like the communists, the students, were taking over and like having riots.
And it's about like the, a dystopian future where the only thing that can stop the constant riots is like kind of a fascist police force where they put on armor.
I know you've seen the image, like the, it looks like the... Probably.
Hell... What's it called?
What's it called?
Jinro, J-I-N-R-O-H.
Um, but it's, it's about a police officer who has PTSD after shooting a civilian who he thinks was.
So, for those that aren't familiar, in Death Note, there's, uh, uh, Reapers, Grim Reapers, they're called, in Japan, they're called Shinigami, have notebooks where they write your name down, you die.
They can write how you die, and then they absorb your life force, and they live forever or whatever.
So, a human teenager gets a hold of the book, and he is an authoritarian... I-I-I don't know what you'd call him, I think you'd call him probably...
So it's genius, but like, I'm assuming Walsh is coming at this because he hasn't seen something like Death Note before, but you can't say anime's bad, you can't say cartoons and comics are bad, or games, because again, you're gonna lose the next generation.
They're gonna say, oh, who are the only adults talking about these things as if they're, you know, cool?
When I was a kid, I don't don't tell me the psychology of it.
I don't know why.
X-Men was awesome.
The idea of being a superhero was so cool.
The idea that you could be you have this power and you want to save the world and you got to check you have these challenges.
I was just so cool.
You want to be a superhero.
Batman, Superman, they never killed no matter what.
And then, you had these stories that were written that explored what if they had to, what if they didn't, and you end up with the story arc, I forgot which one it is, but maybe you know, where Superman kills the Joker and then becomes- Injustice.
So I don't know, like these things are fantastic and they explored these ideas.
So I'm a kid and I'm seeing the philosophy, the pros and cons of these different moral ideas laid before me.
Then we got in the early nineties, The first time, not necessarily the first time, but in the Batman Animated Series with Mr. Freeze, the motivations of the villain was sympathetic.
So dark.
For those that don't know, originally Mr. Freeze was a one-dimensional comic book villain.
I'm going to freeze the world!
And then in the Batman animated series, they made it so that he was committing these crimes because he needed resources to save his dying wife.
So I had the opportunity to show Goofberry Pie to some kids in a school, let's say, but you know how, you know, the trans stuff and they're going to schools and drag queen story hour and stuff.
I was tempted to like brag about, Oh, I read this to kids in a school.
But then I was thinking, no, I'm an, It would be weird for me to brag that I got to read to some kids, but they loved this book just because it was fun.
They loved the pictures.
They were going bananas, man.
I'm telling you.
All right, so I was there.
I'm reading and I got up.
The teacher has this thing where there's a camera above a sheet of paper where you can draw and it's projected on the wall.
And they were saying, oh, draw Strudel, draw this, draw that, draw a firetruck.
And I'm drawing a firetruck really badly and they are losing, can I curse?
I don't want to curse.
They were losing it laughing.
They were having the best time.
And just because an adult came and took the time to draw and have fun with them.
And it's like, okay, now you guys draw, show me your drawings.
And my God, I have a pile in my house.
I got to show this off sometime.
They all drew like fan art.
Of Goofberry Pie, because their teacher took the time to read it to them over a course of a week.
Dude, it's so annoying because, you know, I'll be playing D.Va or something and the annoying thing to me is We're playing Capture the Point, and I think this is relevant in terms of culture stuff, so hear me out.
We'll be on attack, and we'll be trying to take the point, and it'll be like, take the point and then followed by like an escort.
This means, for those that don't know the game, you have to sit on a specific location, uncontested by the enemy team, for what is it, like 15 seconds or something?
And then after you do that, you'll either gain control and a timer starts going up, and once you fill the percentage meter, you win, or a vehicle that you have to escort comes out.
Every time, I'm always on the bad team, I just don't understand why, whatever, random cues.
The enemy team will be standing in front of our base, and all of my team will be fighting there, and I'm like, guys, just walk past them.
But my team is always just running around randomly, and I'm like, please, just go on the truck, just stand on the truck, like, you're fighting, your healer's there, and then you lose, and you're just like, why was I the only one?
I was just playing that new, um, Talantis or whatever map they released for the, uh, arcade mode.
And it's like, the enemy team successfully convinces them to fight off point, and I'm just standing there by myself, and I'm like, why am I the only one trying to capture this, which takes a long time, and then they kill me, and then we lose.
Anyway, my point is this, now that I've vented on that.
A bunch of people responded to me when I said it on Tim Castellaw, they were like, Tim, it's because you're 12 years old.
Look, even my wife teases me because I like Overwatch because she says the art style is cartoony or something.
Yeah, it's Blizzard.
I like a big boy games anyway.
But no, alright, to make a real point though, going back to the Matt thing even, if they say games are for kids, but we're speaking in the language of people who play games, everybody our age and younger will understand what we're talking about.
There are some people who are just lame sauce and they don't understand what a C9 is.
Don't senile the point, get on the point.
And it's like, oh, what is he even talking about?
That sounds demonic.
And it's like, you are completely detaching from an entire generation of kids.
It's like a youth pastor who doesn't know how to use movie references to tell a sermon.
Have you seen this movie called Harry Potter where there's a bad guy named Voldemort?
And now it's like, oh, he's like Thanos.
Can you imagine that?
And I'm sure there'll be some other pop culture thing that we can connect to, but you have to, If you want to influence a generation like I'm reaching at our age and let's say lower maybe up until 18 and I don't care what other kids are doing But like I want to be able to speak in the language a because I enjoy games and that's not going to change B I want to make references that people are going to understand if Biden uses Palpatine lightning.
That assumes people have seen Star Wars.
Yeah.
I have to use the metaphor that people understand or else it's too obscure and I get comments of, what is this about?
But that's why, Mr. Matt Walsh, I want to debate you and discuss why it's so important to get in the culture, make culture and also understand what these references are.
It's just, the conservatives are very logical in their approach and they're very rigid.
Cold.
I mean, I don't know if cold is the right word.
I just mean it's like very matter-of-factly.
Like, in this book, Johnny wants to be a walrus, but you can't be, you understand, right?
Instead of making, you know, a comic about a mad scientist who begins turning people into animals, and then the superhero has to defeat the mad scientist and explain why, you know, and then the people, you could do stuff where a person's like, I don't want to be a tiger.
No, what's happening to me?
And like, you know, conveying ideas through these kinds of stories.
I guess the issue is for a lot of conservatives, they view the world in a very binary way.
And I don't think it's an accident that, like, you and I are rather center-ish, and we grew up around left-leaning people, and the arts are traditionally left-ish.
Which is ironic, because if you go to Barnes & Noble right now, the manga section?
Massive.
I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday at the mall up there, and there's like, let's say 20 shelves of manga, and maybe two, three shelves of Western graphic novels.
Manga is crushing Western comics, and what's crazy is you'll get conservatives that will just say, I don't know why.
It's like, okay, ask your kids.
Ask your kids why they're reading Death Note or Jujutsu Kaisen, is that what it's called?
Granted, Boruto is kind of over the top and Naruto kind of went off the rails in the end.
With aliens and whatever.
Sure.
But, it's really simple.
I think Black Clover is an amazing story for kids.
For those that don't know, in this world, people who have magic will eventually get a grimoire, a book of spells.
It appears before them or whatever, it chooses them or something, like comes out of the library, I don't know.
And this one kid really wants to be a, like a, he wants to serve the kingdom and be a knight or whatever in one of the famous knight teams.
He's got no magic!
He's got no magic.
Alas.
So he can't.
So what does he do?
He physically trains to the point where when he goes into the recruitment training thing, I love that scene in the beginning, in one of the earlier episodes where the people with magic powers are supposed to fight each other to show how strong their magic is to in one of the earlier episodes where the people with magic powers are supposed to fight each other to He has no magic.
And then as soon as the fight starts, it's just like, it's like an explosion of speed and he slams the guy and just knocks him out and they're like, whoa.
And what I love with this idea, what's being conveyed, even if you don't have the gifts, even if you are on average or like you're not as good as everybody else, you can work hard and become something powerful and useful.
- Yeah. - You can if you find your path, but you have to work hard. - You can meet or surpass people who are quote, born with it. - Yup.
The message of that and Naruto, Naruto is a story about an orphan kid who's a screw-up and he goofs around and he's really bad at what he does.
Sasuke is the cool kid who's just super talented and then Naruto becomes basically the president.
But again, look, you and I are talking about this.
I'm in my late 30s, mid to late 30s.
I happen to just be basically literate about all these things.
So if a young person, let's say we're at a church setting, starts talking about Shonen Jump, Black Clover, My Hero Academia.
I can talk to them about, oh, so you remember that the main character can train and maybe they read the story, but they didn't connect the dots of I can become great too if I work hard.
Yeah, Shueisha is the overall publisher, if I remember, and then there's Shoujo Comics, Shoujo Beat here in the States.
Shoujo is for teen girls, and then... Oh, right, right, Black Clover is Shonen Jump.
Yeah, there are stories for older women, there are stories about, like, divorce, but that's aimed for older women, where Erika Sakurazawa, for instance, makes stories for women who are I guess what you would now call like cat moms.
But like, I don't even mean it pejoratively, like she makes stories about like, she had bad luck and love and stuff.
And she's just trying to find her identity, even though she's in her late 30s, early 40s, she's not married.
And you know what, women like to read stories like that over there, because every demographic, every age group, and each of the sexes, I'm not gonna use the word gender, Uh, has certain tastes on average.
I happen to like all comics because I'm a nerd, but a man right now in our age, let's say like I make, if me and Razor are making Ghost of the Badlands, mostly our demographics is going to be men, 20s and 30s and maybe 40s who remember old Westerns or their grandpas showed them old Westerns.
Like I used to watch John Wayne movies with my grandpa.
Now we're seeing a bunch of memes and posts about kids who are rejecting this stuff on the left.
There was a video in Canada of kids protesting a drag queen thing at the school because, look man, I don't think conservatives have the ability to make something uncool by being against it because there's not enough cultural force behind them.
So when Amazon, Walmart, Target, and the government says, drag queens, the only thing to rebel against is that!
Coming from skateboarding, There will be a dad who has a five-year-old son or daughter, and they will ride around on their board holding their child's hands, riding with them.
Those kids grow up hanging out with their dad at the skate park, and they love it.
When kids would apprentice, would be the apprentice to their parents, they were deeply involved and would learn and inherit those abilities and those morals and those ethics.
But now we completely sever ourselves so that parents are off at work and tell the kid to go off and do your thing.
Now the kid's getting this influence from other places.
And there are adults who teach these influences, like let's say a college professor or even a creepy teacher in school, who will just get a little too close to the kid and try to mentor them.
They need to make sure their kid is doing things with them.
If you're a, like, Matt Walsh should have his kids coming to work with him whenever possible.
And then, and I tell people here at TimCast too, like, within reason, like, bring your kids.
And that's like, within reason for me is pretty wide berth.
You know, we don't want kids running around screaming, making a mess, but have your kids here, let them see what you're doing, and be involved and learn to be adults.
Because what's happening is parents are being like, I'm going to work, bye, and the kid goes to school, and the only thing the kid has to rub off on, to absorb, is these wacko leftist teachers.
I've been, this is kind of a rabbit trail, but there's a painting by Francisco Goya, the titan eating his son, you know that famous, like he's like, ah, he's like eating the head of his, it's Saturn eating his son, I think it's Saturn eating, it was one of Goya's black paintings.
The image of that is so relevant because a lot of parents of our generation are sort of eating the next generation because they want to... It's a Rubens painting.
So in response, he ate all his children when they were born.
And I was thinking, you know, that's not only is that a story, but that's also a relevant story to humanity in general.
Nowadays, like say even abortion, Part of the reason why we are not necessarily eating our children, but we are sacrificing the next generation so that our lives will be better, whereas an admirable parent will give themselves to the children and sacrifice themselves so that the future will be better.
So we're a generation of Saturns eating our children, metaphorically speaking, and it's stupid because I... the reason I bring that up is because I was drawing... Naruto.
The story of Naruto is that when the nine-tailed fox demon was about to destroy the Leaf Village, the Hokage, basically the mayor, sacrifices himself to eternal damnation to save the village.
So, quite literally, to eternal damnation.
What does he do?
In order to seal the demon away, he commits his soul to the belly of death itself.
Because he couldn't deal with all of it, so half of it goes into his son and half of it goes into the belly of death, which is a whole other story.
But anyway, sorry to derail, just the point of the story is the start of Naruto is the leader of the village sacrifices his life to stop something from destroying his village.
But yeah, there's um, but again, we're we're using what we're doing right now is how you tell people morals and ethics.
Throughout human history, we tell stories to each other.
And unless we're making new stories and reinterpreting it for new generations, the lessons and ethics will be lost, you will not have a way To tell people like, hey, if you work really hard, like Rocky, if I say, we've got to be like Rocky, you know exactly what I mean without even, because we've both seen the movie.
We've both loved the movie, but instead I... It's the Eye of the Tiger, man.
Right.
And we know what Eye of the Tiger means, but to someone who didn't see it, we have to make another Rocky movie about the Eye of the Tiger, but it's not called Rocky.
I think it's a very, I mean, at risk of stepping out of my lane, as they say, like it's a relevant story for...
Guys who grew up without their dads around, like Young Creed, his dad died obviously in Rocky 3.
No, 4.
And, you know, he didn't have his dad around.
He just sort of, he's very, you know, he's living the kind of life where he doesn't know who he wants to be.
And I feel like a lot of guys who grew up in inner cities, let's say, have a similar background where I don't know what a man is because I didn't grow up around my dad.
I feel abandoned.
So I'm going to look up to bad role models and try to be a tough guy.
And then part of the story of Creed is he meets Rocky and it's like, oh, I want to connect with my, how can I know what kind of a man I want to be unless I have positive role models?
So a lot of guys our age who didn't grow up with, I mean, I'm not going to speak for other people, I didn't grow up with my dad around, let's say.
So I would collect male role models in my life and say, I want to be like him in this way.
I want to be like him in this way.
I admire that.
I'm going to adopt a little bit of that.
A lot of younger people, like, again, the stories that connected with me are the stories where, like, Naruto, there's a panel that really touched me, and this sounds silly.
A bunch of kids were having their parents come and see their, um... I don't know, it's like... A progress report or whatever.
Yeah, and then all the parents were, like, hugging the kids.
Oh, son, daughter, you did such a great job, and Naruto's an orphan.
And so there's this panel...
It burned itself in my memory, this panel.
He's just staring blankly at all the kids with jealousy.
I'm like, oh my god, I know exactly what that feels like.
His first teacher when he was a little kid, like the preschool teacher, was like a low-level ninja or whatever, who the first person to actually be nice to him and take care of him, he wouldn't let it go.
It's like he had to experience something that no one else had.
And then there was Sasuke, whose brother massacred his whole family, who lost it all.
And there was that contrast to it.
But the important thing to understand with Naruto is you have this kid who he grew up without knowing the love of his parent because his parents had died sacrificing themselves.
You know, I think I forgot how his mom died.
I think similarly.
His dream then is to become the Hokage, which is the president, basically, and protect everybody and not lose what he has now gained when people start to respect him and see him for who he is.
And I think the important thing to recognize there is that he is a powerful young man with spiky blonde hair who desperately wants attention, much like another world leader with blonde hair who really wants attention and will stop at nothing to save this country.
I've told this story before on IRL, but I'll tell it now for everybody because it is a masterpiece.
Naruto is being trained by Kakashi, a very famous anime character who's got one eye covered.
And after the trio advance, all three, so there's Sasuke, Naruto, and... Sakura.
Sakura.
And they each get trained by one of the three legendary ninjas.
Jiraiya, the Toad Ninja, then there's Tsunade, the Slug, and Orochimaru, the Snake.
They're not really those things.
They have those elements.
They're ancient Japanese legendary characters.
The story of Jiraiya saving Tsunade from Orochimaru is a famous Japanese legend.
So, these three main characters go on to train with these three legendary ninjas.
The story of Jiraiya is that he was traveling during the Great Ninja War, and there was a country in between the other countries that was basically used as a battleground because of its location, and it was just wrecked and destroyed.
It's the land of, I think, rain.
And he comes across these three kids who are orphans, who are fighting and desperate for survival, and he says, I'm gonna train you, because what's happened to your country is wrong.
One of the kids' name is Nagato.
And this kid is, like, naturally gifted and has this ability, which is shocking to Jiraiya.
Jiraiya trains him.
One day, Nagato says something to him that inspires Jiraiya, who goes on to write a book, basically about this kid, called Naruto.
Jiraiya, having been the teacher to Naruto's parents, named their son after the character in the book.
Later on in life, when Naruto is trying to fight this evil globalist organization.
I kid you not.
It's called Akatsuki and they're globalists.
They want mass power to unite the world under their boot.
The main guy, his name is Pain.
And he has the ability to basically control corpses.
When Naruto finally confronts the actual dude.
Let me slow down.
Jiraiya goes to confront Pain.
And dies.
When you first encounter this character, Pain, it is, you know, like, it's a bunch of different weird people, all seemingly under the control of one person.
Naruto eventually confronts the real Pain, who's puppeteering these corpses.
Yeah.
And it's Nagato.
And he's, like, gaunt and frail, because he doesn't use his body, he controls others.
Naruto defeats Nagato.
And when he does, he refuses to kill him and then espouses a quote about his ethos, about how, I don't know the exact quote, but he basically says, my ninja way, I will save the world.
I will be the hero to stop hatred once and for all.
And then Nagato, who is desperately trying to kill Naruto because he's an evil globalist, has this profound moment where he says to Naruto, where did you hear that?
Like, why are you saying that to me?
And then Naruto's basically like, Jiraiya, my teacher, you know, instilled these ideas in me.
So Nagato, who is now his evil globalist, Is beaten and then hears a kid say to him exactly what his ideals were and it rips him to shreds.
That moment was just like a culmination of all of this writing that clearly was planned out and was masterful.
The name Naruto.
So I'm just thinking about imagine being a dude in your 30s and you're on this mission of conquest.
And then you come across a kid who is named after you without you knowing, who then tells you your own ethos back to you, reminding you of how you've abandoned goodness to become evil.
And then this triggers a turn.
Like, it's just fucking masterpiece.
That reminds me- I just can't.
I can't even.
And then Pain, Nagato, changes and immediately helps Naruto and says, I can't believe what I've become.
Like the embodiment of all of his ideals standing before him.
There's a quote that I like to, it reminded me what you just told me is the pain ends with me.
There's like, um, there's people who have a lot of bitterness in their lives or whatever, because people were mean to them or they were bullied or even abused or something.
And they have the option in their adulthood, let's say they were, they were hit as a kid or something.
Instead of sort of just taking it and holding it and never passing it on, the psychic pain is so much that they have to pass it on because it feels at the time like it's going to be a relief or something.
But what you end up doing is passing it to the next generation.
So there's this generational... let's say alcoholism or something.
If someone's father was an alcoholic or they were abused in other ways, you have...
It takes superhuman discipline and self-control to say, I'm going to end that cycle that has been passed on.
If someone's dad was beaten when he was a kid, I'm just using extreme examples.
Right, so there's examples of somebody who has a psychic wound that they received when they were a kid.
It's not their fault that they had it, but they can or cannot, they might not pass it on.
I would use an extreme example of, you know, people talk about the grooming things and that's why the Drag Kid Story Hour freaks out so many people.
A lot of, I want to say this with sensitivity because I don't know if it's true, they say a lot of people who are in those, the LGBT rainbow stuff, were hurt as kids.
But the best way, like, it's not your fault that you were hurt as a kid, I want to tell them, but like, just don't let yourself be in a setting where you can pass it on.
Imagine if you were saying, like, no, no, no, you shouldn't be allowed to be inspired by these stories of masculinity and strength.
The story of Naruto is, whenever he confronts a villain, he tries not to kill them.
He tries to turn them, to convince them, and then he's successful in many regards.
The same thing is true for Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z, like, almost all the villains somehow become good guys.
Like, even Frieza has an arc where he teams up with them.
It's amazing.
It's funny.
Yeah, I mean, with Dragon Ball Z, they convert all their enemies.
Krillin was a rival to Goku, then they're best friends.
Vegeta tries to destroy the Earth and then literally becomes the second greatest hero.
I love how they do that.
If you're saying these stories of, like Dragon Ball Z, let's talk about that.
Goku trains at 100 times gravity to become strong enough to save his friends.
Don't worry about the names of the characters, just the bad guy kills his best friend and then Goku loses it and then his power tremendously increases out of rage.
You don't want young boys to learn the lesson of...
Struggle, become stronger, improve yourself, be the hero, sacrifice.
What are they going to get if they don't have that?
What they're going to get is it's going to be RuPaul's Drag Race.
They're preventing their kids from watching things, like you said, from the very things that will make them have the values that you want to pass to them.
I had a church friend corrupt me back when Adult Swim and the Sci-Fi Channel had like old Appleseed and Dominion Tank Police, even before Ghost in the Shell became hot.
And he corrupted me with all this like, look, I can download all this anime for free.
I'll burn you a CD with Berserk on it.
I'm like, what is Berserk?
Oh my God.
And I was way too young to be watching this stuff, but it was still awesome.
Akira Ghost in the Shell is not for kids, but as a kid I watched it and I was like, this is the coolest.
But if they do happen to watch Berserk, first of all, it's pimp and it's the bomb and whatever.
But that's where...
Kids want to see things that maybe the parents would not allow them to see because They're attracted to the idea of what's this forbidden knowledge that I'm supposed.
I'm ready.
I'm ready to learn about this stuff I'm ready to watch gore and learn about sexy stuff or whatever, but I'm too embarrassed to ask my mom and dad about it But the danger is instead of asking someone who might tell you a responsible answer.
They're going to creepos online Yep And that's why I'm scared of, like, kids being exposed to, like, there are certain types of YouTubers who are the cool, creepy, youth pastor types who do watch these shows and tell- but they'll guide them to, like, places where, no, you shouldn't be going there.
I mean, some kid is gonna go to their parents, or they're gonna be around their parents, they're gonna say, I found this thing I like, and the dad's gonna be like, no, that's bad.
You got that dude, I don't want to say his name, who has those videos where he's such a Pennywise the Clown character and he's like, Tell your parents no.
Pre-screen them and find the cool ones if you want to.
But do not let your kids just float around the internet finding stuff that That can lead them into weird, like that, I don't remember that guy's name even, but I know exactly who you're talking about.
And he'd go into his workshop and he'd be like, son, get in here.
I need a pail of water.
Yes, dad.
And the kid is with his dad the whole time, learning from his dad.
The daughter's with the mom.
And as a family, they're learning and working with the community.
We got to this point in industrialization where it's like, I'm going to work and you will never see what I do.
That moment, separated.
Parents, from instilling their skills, values, and assets to their children, and then we put kids in schools, institutionalized learning facilities, so that government could train them.
When I'm on a plane and I hear a baby crying, I don't get angry about it.
And I hear the mom saying, like, I can hear, like, the parents trying to get the baby to stop crying, stop crying.
It makes me laugh.
I'm like, this is life.
These are humans.
This is what babies do.
So if someone has kids, those kids should periodically visit work.
I understand some things can be disruptive.
You can't have little kids running around knocking over milk and stuff like that.
But within reason, at a certain age, especially like, once a kid's like nine years old, they're old enough to watch their parent work, whatever that work may be, and be involved.
I probably have this in me because my family opened a coffee shop, and I am nine years old, and I am working the register, I am refilling the chili, I am stocking the muffins, and that's how things used to be.
You worked with your family, and so you learned these values, and you earned something from it.
So I'm a little kid.
I bought Pokemon Red with my own money.
I had to wait a tip jar.
The only thing I'd get was tips.
And then once I had, I think it was 40 bucks, I went and I bought Pokemon Red and it was mine.
Like, kids are very... I've... Alright, so I have lots of family members that I've watched grow up, and they are so curious and...
They're passionate about everything when they're that age growing up.
They want to ask you a million questions.
They want to shadow you.
I've had, I'm not going to say what kind of family members out of privacy, but like when I'm working at my desk drawing, they will hover.
What are you doing now?
How are you doing that?
How do you draw that?
Hey, look at this drawing I made.
They're so interested just because they're seeing an adult do it.
And their mirror reflex, we're all born with it.
I want to copy the thing that I'm fascinated by.
If they're just, they will osmosis anything they're around.
So why not have them around, that's a great idea, have them around the parents, have them around a vocation, and they will learn those things instead of whatever garbage they'll find from strangers.
I say a large portion because I understand there are things inappropriate for kids, and if Matt is targeting high-level, you know, adult subjects, obviously not that.
But having your kids around, I'm not saying he doesn't do this, I'm just saying, using him as an example, you should bring your kids to work and tell them, sit and watch, here's how I work.
And unfortunately back in those days a lot of the kids you know they got like really sick and they would die of starvation or something but like I'm not and we're in the generation where that kind of thing almost can never happen.
And it's like, I would love to, you know, whatever, pray for me if you guys are of that.
So it's like, yeah, I would love to.
And it's like, it hurts my feelings when I see people our age saying bad things about their kids.
And it's like, you don't know how blessed you are.
You look at people who can't have kids or are struggling, and man, maybe it's a grass is greener kind of thing, but- The grass is greener, no question, hands down.
But at the end of our lives, it's so much better to be surrounded by family.
And then you're just sitting on this bed, waiting to die, staring at the wall.
Or, you can be like Murph in Interstellar.
And the doctor will say, I'm sorry, it's terminal.
And then you'll be holding the hand of your husband or wife or son or daughter with all of your children and their grandchildren around saying, we love you and we're here for you.
And you can smile knowing that everything you hold dear, all your values, your dreams and ambitions have been imbued in these people that you have created who will carry on your vision for eternity.
Or you can die in a sterile environment knowing that you masturbated and did drugs at six in the morning.
You know, I could tell a personal account of that.
Last time I visited you guys, back in August, I was in a rush to get back home because my grandmother was in hospice care or something.
Like, there are places where they can put you in a home, but it's like, you're dying, you're not gonna make it.
Right, hospice.
She had like stage four cancer or something.
And in the few weeks after I came back home, it was in September, we took turns, all the grandchildren and all of her children, my grandmother had, I'm not going to say the exact number, I guess, but there was like 15 people taking turns visiting her in her house, taking care of her.
And man, I think she was so proud.
I mean, there's obviously like little family, like...
It wasn't perfect, but like we took turns taking care of her.
My grandma, like the sweetest woman you've ever met.
She was 90.
She was like losing weight.
She was, you know, it was very sad, but she's like telling me, I'm sorry that you're here and that you have to take care of me.
It's like, you took care of all of us and now it's our turn to take care of you.
And that is probably one of the best ways you can go.
But it's such a huge, it's very painful, I'll tell you guys that.
People want to avoid pain in our generation especially, I get that.
We're very avoidant of pain.
But I'll never forget these memories of I was holding my grandmother up, she was lying down on the couch, we had to pick her up, And she would like drink water and just like little sips of water.
She couldn't even eat.
It's like we were crying like nonstop, but it's like we honored her so much.
But people are in a generation because they're afraid of the pain of doing that.
Selfish, but that's yeah, a child is innocent and avoids pain adults have to bear responsibility and Because we're such as such a fragile generation Adults are piccolo standing in front of Gohan absorbing the blast sure save him.
That's the meme you'd see this the wolf spaghetti.
No, there's a so in Dragon Ball Z manga and anime Piccolo is previously an enemy.
You know what I'm talking about now.
Previously an enemy of the main character Goku, and then in Dragon Ball Z in the beginning, the villain tries to kill Goku's son, and Piccolo stands in front of the blast, absorbing it to save the child.
The issue with skateboarding though is people's response to that is, you got the video?
And it's like, no, it's like, well, show me the video.
There was one dude, I won't say his name, famous pro claimed he did this massive trick down this massively famous location.
And the response from everybody was prove it.
And it was never proven, so nobody believes it.
That's the thing.
It's like, there's a reason we film it, to prove it.
But the other point is, in skateboarding you learn After you land that trick, finally, you've been trying for so long, you get about a second or two of feeling joy, and then it's gone.
And then the question is, what now?
You have to keep on this journey, working hard every day to keep that feeling going.
Because you can't just do one trick and then wrap it up, put the board away, and be like, I'm done, I did it, because that feeling's gone.
And then when you finally landed, everyone in the park would go, Yeah, no, I'll cheer for you.
Because skateboarding, it's only somewhat about being the best.
If someone comes in and they're really good, everyone's cheering and clapping for how good they are.
But I'd say literally 100% of the times I've been at a skate park, you see, I'm 18 and there's a 50-year-old guy, and he clearly isn't that good, and then he finally ollies over the curb, everyone starts clapping and cheering, they high-five him, like, you did it, and what did you do?
You overcame yourself.
That was the accomplishment.
Today, people want to just appear like they've done a thing, so they're posting on social media, they're trying to fit in, they're trying to emulate things or imitate things.
So when I go to a skate park, if I overcome myself, people cheer for me.
If I don't, nobody cares.
I show up to a skate park, I'm skating at Wilson Skate Park in Chicago.
I go full speed, ollie up, do a nose grind on this high ledge, nobody cares.
Why?
Well, because I'm good at it.
Because it's something I'm really good at and it's just another day in the skate park.
Yeah.
But then I try to kickflip into it and I'm screwing it up and screwing it up and everyone's starting to like watching like, come on bro, and they'll be like, all right, you got it this time, they'll fist bump you.
Then you land it, then everyone's cheering for you because it could be the best trick in the world, but you accomplished something, you overcame yourself.
Nowadays, just go on social media, post a picture of your ass and get a thousand likes and each of those likes is someone fist bumping you.
The reason we admire Batman in general is I think we're attracted to the, uh, But there is something about Superman that we, the godlike power and the restraint.
So when they do create the injustice storyline where Superman becomes a tyrant, it was to explore what if.
But I really do love, they screwed up the movie, Batman versus Superman, in my opinion.
They had a really perfect opportunity.
So in this movie, which I'm sure many people have seen, Batman fears Superman's god-like powers, and then he flashes back to when Zod was destroying, you know, I think Metropolis, and he's like, he must be stopped.
Total wasted opportunity in storytelling, and this is the problem of modern storytelling, in my opinion.
Batman wants to kill Superman for that, just that what?
What should have happened is...
Batman has Superman on the ground.
He's holding the kryptonite spear.
And then Batman should have said to Superman, let this be the day you never forget, the day I defeated you.
And then he throws the spear aside and walks away.
The purpose being, Batman never wanted to kill Superman.
He wanted to instill the fear in Superman that he was not an undefeatable God and that he had to recognize, you know, that his power was defeatable so that he would never become evil.
Well, look, anybody could say, if I work hard enough, I can make enough money and then I can achieve X goal.
I have a certain goal that like, I really want to be an author.
So I'm going to look into every way that I can become an author and then I can achieve that goal.
That's a story that is very meaningful for anybody and inspirational.
Like if I try hard enough, even someone who's dumb, like I was saying, like myself, if even though I'm not smart, I can seem smart if I do X, Y, and Z, if I work hard.
And then I can get there.
If my goal is to get respect, I can earn respect through these ways.
So, like, say Victoria's Secret or something is doing ads with people who are overweight.
And I'm not going to act like I'm skinny or anything, but like the reason they're doing those ads is because they want to reach that demographic through marketing.
We're just looking at strict marketing.
They want those people's money.
Yep.
Because we're already making the money of skinny people.
So that's what happened with the Budweiser issue is we already have those rednecks.
We already have their business.
So let's get this other demographic who we can't even touch.
But they didn't realize there would be this backlash.
I think The issue is that as we all start saying stuff like, you know, live and let live, people will then say, okay, if the easy path for me in social acceptance is to just eat whatever I want, be morbidly obese and lazy and stupid, they'll do it.
And that drags all of us down.
Maybe we need to stop.
We need to say, hey, no more, no more fashion ads.
Like I will boycott your brand if you put morbidly obese people in, you know, for your, for your fashion clothing line.
What's the difference between persuasion and force?
So I've always felt that laws are too forceful and it will create people like will dig into their beliefs just because it's like a hard reaction, whereas art is more persuasive and gentle.
I'm finding, like, I don't know, there's somebody... I feel like it's callous to say to a person who is morbidly obese, you know what, do whatever you want.
It's mean, but it's also, you have to look at what's the motivation underneath why I'm trying to make an ad supporting this lifestyle.
It's because I want your money.
It's like all these Robert Greene books that I love so much.
The reason why you would compliment someone is to try to befriend them, let's say.
Um, but I really dislike it when people compliment me personally.
So when I feel like someone's trying to, uh, Hey, George, you are so good.
And then they're trying to like befriend me.
And then it's like, they wanted, they just want the sneaky backdoor of now you're in with me.
Um, I realized that there is.
In marketing, you notice patterns of, Hey, you're perfect just the way you are.
And I also want to also, Hey, now that we're friends, I want to give you, I want to tell you about this investment opportunity, by the way, now that we're best friends.
So they're finding ways, like really superficial 15 minute ways to quote, seduce somebody or to get in with them.
And the reason is a, I want to sell something to you, or B, I want to impregnate your mind with this meme I have.
So the LGBT stuff is just a Trojan horse.
Um, and I shudder to think what the Trojan horse contains.
Uh, yeah, but it could also be like, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
They believe their lifestyle is beautiful.
Love is love.
Fine.
All right.
So I'm going to start thinking like them.
The reason they think that way is because when they were younger, someone shamed them for being homosexual or For having certain fetishes or something, okay.
And so the reason they want to normalize their fetishes and stuff is because they want to not feel ashamed.
They want to live openly.
I can understand that.
But now, if society starts seeing and normalizing this behavior, Uh, it has a lot of, it comes with a lot of creepy baggage.
You go from, hey, um, there's that meme of if you accept gay marriage, then all this other stuff will never happen.
And the pie chart is only that they'll get married, but then, you know, The irony is that like, not necessarily like those things are because of gay marriage, but if you let in this one thing, the Trojan horses, now you're allowing all these other things.
And the reason that there's a quote of, if you move a fence, you have to ask why it was there in the first place.
And the reason that, uh, I guess society always considered homosexuality weird, not, I'm just guessing.
It's not that that itself, if you allow homosexuality and like, um, Normal society, something like that.
It's not that it's going to lead to World War III, but the attitude of we're now going to denormalize the nuclear family is now leading to potentially lower birth rates.
More permissive attitudes towards things that maybe should stay in private adult places.
Whereas, you know, the Drag Queen Story Hour freaks people out for good reason.
I think it's a provocation, so you have to be careful how you respond to that.
Well, it's a manipulation.
The purpose, I think, of Drag Queen Story Hour is so that when they do overt sex performances, they can Motten Bailey you.
And so what happens now is, you've got Kevin Bacon being like, hey man, they're trying to ban drag.
That's not okay.
No, they're trying to ban adult lewd performances for children, and you're using drag as the shield.
Unfortunately, the only way that society may snap out of that is if you get instances of bad things happening, which it is happening, but you don't hear about it so often.
Um, so some people are like with, uh, trans, um, surgeries, getting people who have regrets there when they start suing their doctors, you're going to see it coming back.
Unfortunately, some, yeah, some kids going to say, or some adult is like, yeah, I was, I had a drag performance in Austin 10 years ago and you know, inappropriate things happened.
Unfortunately, the best thing on an individual level that parents can do is just keep their kids out of the way it's going to happen.
I don't know if we can stop it.
Because the more you legislate it away, it's just going to pull the rubber band and it's going to snap.
I don't necessarily agree.
It's polarizing the country.
Like Dwayne Wade said that he fled Florida with his transgender daughter, his biologically male son, because of the laws there.
It's really sweet and then goes to the Badlands is funding right now in Indiegogo and Yeah, I appreciate everyone's support and goodwill and I'm just gonna keep making I'm not making as many political comics as I used to but I'm still drawing.
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