Carlos Ezquerra's Judge Dredd
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ISSUE 26 EXPLOITS MAY 2020 an UN WINNABLE publication Caroline Delbert on BATTLE CHEF BRIGADE COLDPLAY • HUNTERS • GODZILLA (1954) • CARLOS EZQUERRA’S JUDGE DREDD • WOMEN CHARACTERS on the HERO’S JOURNEY Editor in Chief | Stu Horvath EXPLOITS A Magazine Dedicated to the Reasons We Love Things Managing Editor | Melissa King Music Editor | Ed Coleman Books Editors | Noah Springer, Levi Rubeck Movies Editor | Amanda Hudgins Television Editor | Sara Clemens Games Editor | Khee Hoon Chan Copyright © 2020 by Unwinnable LLC Unwinnable 820 Chestnut Street All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may Kearny, NJ 07032 not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher www.unwinnable.com except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For more information, email: Unwinnable LLC does not claim copyright of the [email protected] screenshots and promotional imagery herein. Copyright of all screenshots within this publication are owned by Subscribe | Store | Submissions their respective companies This machine kills fascists. FOR ADORA, LARA and ALL the GIRLS on the HERO’S JOURNEY by Autumn Wright ot everything is about you. Not this time, at least. But before? That was. It all Nwas, actually. But now that your powers have catalyzed the apocalypse and only you know the ancient knowledge that could save us all from calamity, please mind your place. This isn’t the time for heroics. Everything isn’t about you, but everything seems to tell this story. The hero’s myth will only ever be yours if we can blame you for this classic case of narcis- sism. How could you really believe that swinging your sword around would make everything better? You tried that during the finale, like, two seasons ago and look where we are now! Hey, please calm down. I know you’re upset about watching your friends and family slowly march to their deaths as they obstruct your actions to save them, but if this is about you at all, it’s that it is your fault. This isn’t about you. This is about failing to critique the system of gendered vio- lence by sacrificing women. From the moment you were born you were destined to be negged. Maybe if you were a boy, they wouldn’t bother with trying to subvert the masculine assumptions of storytelling, and we’d all listen to your plan that will definitely work, but you’re not a boy, so you don’t get unproblematized power fantasies, which is empowering, actually. And that’s what this faux subversion is really about: you will never hold power on their terms. U MUSIC “TROUBLE in TOWN” – In a fusion of misap- the music video doesn’t use this sample. It’s propriated global sounds overlaid with posh filmed entirely on the streets of Kyiv, which British pop, sonic discord belies the political is a weird way to frame American police vio- dissonance central to Coldplay’s latest album. lence. And all the people are animals, which is The single “Trouble in Town” and its new mu- a weird way to depict race. sic video manage to condense an LP of prob- Maybe Kyiv looked like a cyberpunk Neo- lems into six bizarre minutes. Philly, maybe Coldplay thinks we can’t imag- Everyday Life is the band’s first attempt since ine police brutality in a contemporary Ameri- Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends to can city, or maybe it’s an Allegory, Actually. really try to say something with their music, In case you didn’t notice, the video makes and the two albums make an attractive jux- sure to tell you that this is all an Animal Farm taposition. With its warm and fuzzy guitar allegory. And maybe the animals are . well, tones and grungy French-revolution officer they certainly mean something. Animal/race outfits (a la Sgt. Pepper), 2008’s Viva la Vida metaphors have a long, troubled history in was the band’s most pointed commentary in our media. The crux of their failure is that their large discography until 2019. But while in reinforcing essentialism, they present race many of us have radicalized with disillusion- science-lite to go along with 00’s liberal pro- ment and precarity over the interim decade, gressivism. But in Animal Farm, animals rep- the precocious white men of Coldplay have resent class. And this carries over in part to developed their unique synth tones with the music video’s reinterpretation of pigs. Brian Eno. Pigs represent the Stalinist government of “Trouble in Town” samples a 2013 video of former-leftist revolutionaries turned authori- Philadelphia police racially profiling and vio- tarians. In “Trouble in Town,” pigs are poli- lently harassing a black man. The video was ticians that have a debate in the background uploaded to YouTube (and now the top com- and they start to fight . like animals . get ments all praise Coldplay for bringing atten- it? Politicians are all animals and we all have tion to this apparently little known issue). But to watch out for ourselves (cops included) is, MUSIC I guess, the take. It’s a bad one too, when the PLAYLIST lone critic of America’s police state in the “Combat Rock,” by Sleater-Kinney debates we just lived through was a Jew who the media preferred to cast as white. When in “Baby, I’m an Anarchist!” by Against Me! praxis everything is always already political, “The New World Order,” by Defiance, Ohio trying to “be political” the way affluent art- ists like to isn’t a radical position. Or I don’t “Never Been Quite Like This,” by Bruce Lee know, make the cops pigs instead of snow Band leopards next time. It’s this I can’t get over: “Trouble in Town” “Alright,” by Kendrick Lamar is ostensibly about American police violence, “Yes All Cops,” by Worriers but the music video transplants America’s unique system of white supremacy into the “No White Flag,” by Gouge Away capital of a war-torn, post-Soviet nation “This Is America,” by Childish Gambino and metaphorizes race away. It’s like blam- ing rape accusations against the former Vice “Not My Friend,” by Grey Matter President on Russian interference instead “Water,” by Black Dresses of admitting that the progressivism of the last decade actually led us here. Actually, so “I Don’t Trust U Anymore,” by Left at London much of Everyday Life’s themes make sense “Masculinity Is a Prison,” by Pity Party through this decade-long view. A call for some ambiguous sense of global/national/ “Masculine Artifice,” by G.L.O.S.S. party unity, with no account of power or cir- “MariKKKopa,” by Desaparecidos cumstance, doesn’t land when there’s blood on the beat. “Ballad of a Politician,” by Regina Spektor – Autumn Wright “Road To Peace,” by Tom Waits “Nonphysical,” by Moon Hooch “Casket Pretty,” by Noname “I’m Illegal,” by Team Dresch “King Park,” by La Dispute “The Way It Was,” by We Are The Union “Violet Hill,” by Coldplay Listen now on Spotify BOOKS The APOCALYPSE WAR – Carlos Ezquerra heat and East-Meg battlecraft rained bullets in was able to perform a magic trick, where he foxhole pocked streets. In the end, the turn- could fill simple shapes with infinite detail. ing point doesn’t come with a bang, but with From his early work in Battle Picture Weekly to a click. In one of the defining images of Judge his last strip in 2000AD, you can always recog- Dredd’s career, he launches multiple nuclear nize a piece of Ezquerra art. If you want a treat strikes against East Meg One. for your senses you can’t do much better than The act is framed in three panels. From picking up a copy of the Judge Dredd historic different angles, yet Dredd’s hand and out- mega-epic, “The Apocalypse War.” stretched finger passes seamlessly from one Unlike the strips that preceded it, “The Apoc- panel to the other, mirroring the movement alypse War” wasn’t a police action and adven- of the action. Dredd himself is silhouetted ture story. This was a full blown war comic. The against the background in a thick dotted line action covered the breadth of Mega City One that often lent Ezquerra’s characters a pres- and violence reached dizzying new peaks, with ence that demands attention. It draws your Carlos bringing his earlier war comic experi- eyes to them. These still images, ink on paper, ence to bear for the full 25 issues. His work had burst with energy. You don’t hear a click. You defined the character of the city and its judges feel the leaden thud of the button press con- in the strip’s infancy. City blocks weren’t just demning millions to nuclear holocaust. It’s colossal tenement buildings. They reached weapons-grade art. into the heavens on thin support struts, with It’s a finale that continues to give meaning bulbous platforms and living quarters emerg- to modern Dredd strips. Just like the events ing from odd angles. He knew the cities of the he drew, Ezquerra’s influence will live on future should be somewhat alien and therefore through 2000AD. He may be gone, but Mega a little magical to a contemporary audience. City One will always be Carlos’s city. Now he was destroying it. The tangled web – Corey Milne of superhighway arteries shattered in nuclear BOOKS The CITY WE BECAME – Like most tour- ists, I’ve only ever seen the facade of New York City, the gleaming towers, thunderous subways and frenetic delis.