NRA comic called a hoax, but accusations later withdrawn
RAW STORY
A controversial, leaked graphic novel that may have been produced to bolster the National Rifle Association's agenda was called a hoax over the weekend. But further analysis of the source material appears to confirm that the purported NRA publication, which contains alarming racial overtones, is legitimate.
Last Friday, the website Wonkette published exclusive images from Freedom in Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century. The expertly illustrated graphic novel alleges a coordinated strategy on the part of gun control advocates to roll back the second amendment and strip Americans of their rights to bear arms. Many of the images contained in the graphic novel suggest deliberate racial overtones. Other drawings in the book focus on liberal politicians and celebrities who have made statements the NRA considers anti-second amendment.
(RAW STORY has posted the purported NRA graphic novel in full at this link.)
Word emerged over the course of the weekend that Wonkette's exclusive might be a hoax. A post by the administrator of the website California CCW (a pro-gun forum that is not affiliated with the NRA) analyzed the image files posted by Wonkette and found the word "Ducky" in them consistently. He then suggested that the purported NRA graphic novel may have been a hoax propagated by a literary magazine of the same name.
Wonkette's editors defended the authenticity of the graphic novel, and offered to share it with anyone who believed it was a hoax. At the California CCW forum, another poster explained that "ducky" is an element commonly occurring in Adobe Photoshop files, and would therefore not be evidence of a hoax. The administrator at the California CCW forum withdrew his suggestion that a hoax might have occurred.
A Wonkette reader "Pudge" later revealed that the images in Freedom in Peril were similar to the January 2007 cover of the NRA magazine America's First Freedom. The pictures were drawn by an Arizona-based artist named Chris Gall, whose website reports that he "has worked with diverse clients all over the world."
At this time, there is no statement from the NRA regarding the authenticity of the NRA graphic novel. The graphic novel has been posted in full at the website Boing Boing, and also here at RAW STORY.
Full Version: Download and read the NRA graphic novel
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Second Amendment, Gun Safety and Gun Control
In case you missed it: NRA's wacky graphic novel (UPDATED)
While visions of sugarplums and Wiis danced in your head over the holiday, blogs were abuzz over a promotional graphic novel attributed to the National Rifle Association of America (The NRA).
In short: Wonkette posted jpeg scans from a digital copy sent in by an anonymous tipster. Elsewhere, some at Daily Kos and a popular gun law forum (and, for a while, me) expressed doubts over authenticity (c'mon, it was so far-out! lobsterrorists!). Then, Wonkette shared the original doc with BoingBoing (PDF link), a Wonkette commenter determined it appears to have been illustrated by Chris Gall, and everyone agreed -- not a hoax (though we're still awaiting response from the NRA). Here's a link to the updated BoingBoing post with embedded blog-drama, and there are fresh posts at Wonkette (Link), Kos (Link) and the CA-CCW forum (Link). And below -- readers say Adobe Reader reveals what are apparently hidden notes from the NRA assigner to the illustrator.
IMAGE: Brochure excerpt. Guns will protect you from tsunamis. Who knew?
Previously on BB:
• Fear-mongering graphic novel attributed to NRA (UPDATED)
Reader comment: Josh Larios says Adobe Reader reveals "hidden" notes in the NRA pamphlet:
Vann Hall adds,
While visions of sugarplums and Wiis danced in your head over the holiday, blogs were abuzz over a promotional graphic novel attributed to the National Rifle Association of America (The NRA).
In short: Wonkette posted jpeg scans from a digital copy sent in by an anonymous tipster. Elsewhere, some at Daily Kos and a popular gun law forum (and, for a while, me) expressed doubts over authenticity (c'mon, it was so far-out! lobsterrorists!). Then, Wonkette shared the original doc with BoingBoing (PDF link), a Wonkette commenter determined it appears to have been illustrated by Chris Gall, and everyone agreed -- not a hoax (though we're still awaiting response from the NRA). Here's a link to the updated BoingBoing post with embedded blog-drama, and there are fresh posts at Wonkette (Link), Kos (Link) and the CA-CCW forum (Link). And below -- readers say Adobe Reader reveals what are apparently hidden notes from the NRA assigner to the illustrator.
IMAGE: Brochure excerpt. Guns will protect you from tsunamis. Who knew?
Previously on BB:
• Fear-mongering graphic novel attributed to NRA (UPDATED)
Reader comment: Josh Larios says Adobe Reader reveals "hidden" notes in the NRA pamphlet:
QUOTE
If you use the text selection tool in Adobe Reader and highlight some of the half-page graphics in the recent NRA illustrated pamphlet, you can cut and paste into a text editor to see some of the instructions to the illustrator for those pages. That last page with the tsunami was originally supposed to be very different:
Idea: Good (American values) and evil (anti-American influences) are locked in a final, titanic moment of combat, and the reader must act now.
Concept: Iconic evil non-American figure with blazing torch seeks to overpower and set fire to American flag defended by iconic American muscular warrior. Good guy has death grip on bad guy's throat and on the torch, which has already caused the flag to smolder. The balance of power is dangerously equal; neither combatant has advantage.
Link. Also if you play it backwards, the brochure says "Paul is Dead."Idea: Good (American values) and evil (anti-American influences) are locked in a final, titanic moment of combat, and the reader must act now.
Concept: Iconic evil non-American figure with blazing torch seeks to overpower and set fire to American flag defended by iconic American muscular warrior. Good guy has death grip on bad guy's throat and on the torch, which has already caused the flag to smolder. The balance of power is dangerously equal; neither combatant has advantage.
Vann Hall adds,
QUOTE
I downloaded the complete PDF and noticed 'placeholder' comments still located 'beneath' some of the images. (Quark layering, perhaps?) In any case, the artist followed most image concepts pretty closely, although he *did* un-Jewify (or maybe un-Scrooge-McDuckify) the recommended Soros image a bit, and what is now the closing 'guns against tsunamis' image was originally imagined as a bit more Captain Marvel-y. Per-page text, and my comments [wvh], follow.
(4) Idea: George Soros (God like) sitting on stacks of money, guns burning all around him. [wvh: Final image is a falsely pious Soros; actually looks more like a liver-spotted Walter Mondale.]
(6) Idea: Globalist one-world anti-American types want to reduce our quality of freedom to that of the rest of the world. Concept 1: Globalist holding blue earth in one hand and crumpled-up Bill of Rights in the other. Concept 2: Globalist holds globe, from which the U.S. land mass has been plucked, oceans pour into the resulting void. Cutline will help explain this. [wvh: Concept 2 was the one used.]
(12) Idea: Brutal, door-to-door, armed gun confiscations. Concept: Four burly armed SWAT-equipped pol body-slam a fragile 71-year-old lady to the floor of her modest kitchen to wrest and recover her opened, non-threatening pearl-handled revolver. Cutline explains this illustration depicts a true event that happened in post-Katrina New Orleans (see attached frame grabs).
(14 - 15) Idea: When disaster triggers collapse of society, all that stands between your family’s security and chaotic crime is a firearm. Concept: Night scene of a horrifically ravaged middle-class neighborhood – by hurricane or tornado or riots or terrorist act – abandoned by police and left powerless against violent mayhem by roving gangs. A lone father stands guard over his home, wife and children with a shotgun.
(20) Idea: Criminal gangs are in all communities and of all races. Concept: Clearly Asian, black, white and Latino gang members. [wvh: Not sure which one of these brownish individuals is supposed to be white, though.]
(29) Idea: Good (American values) and evil (anti-American influences) are locked in a final, titanic moment of combat, and the reader must act now. Concept: Iconic evil non-American figure with blazing torch seeks to overpower and set fire to American flag defended by iconic American muscular warrior. Good guy has death grip on bad guy’s throat and on the torch, which has already caused the flag to smolder. The balance of power is dangerously equal; neither combatant has advantage. [wvh: Final version has nice, white, nuclear family (albeit 1.1 kids short) peacefully watching an approaching tsunami in the final moments before it sweeps them away.]
(4) Idea: George Soros (God like) sitting on stacks of money, guns burning all around him. [wvh: Final image is a falsely pious Soros; actually looks more like a liver-spotted Walter Mondale.]
(6) Idea: Globalist one-world anti-American types want to reduce our quality of freedom to that of the rest of the world. Concept 1: Globalist holding blue earth in one hand and crumpled-up Bill of Rights in the other. Concept 2: Globalist holds globe, from which the U.S. land mass has been plucked, oceans pour into the resulting void. Cutline will help explain this. [wvh: Concept 2 was the one used.]
(12) Idea: Brutal, door-to-door, armed gun confiscations. Concept: Four burly armed SWAT-equipped pol body-slam a fragile 71-year-old lady to the floor of her modest kitchen to wrest and recover her opened, non-threatening pearl-handled revolver. Cutline explains this illustration depicts a true event that happened in post-Katrina New Orleans (see attached frame grabs).
(14 - 15) Idea: When disaster triggers collapse of society, all that stands between your family’s security and chaotic crime is a firearm. Concept: Night scene of a horrifically ravaged middle-class neighborhood – by hurricane or tornado or riots or terrorist act – abandoned by police and left powerless against violent mayhem by roving gangs. A lone father stands guard over his home, wife and children with a shotgun.
(20) Idea: Criminal gangs are in all communities and of all races. Concept: Clearly Asian, black, white and Latino gang members. [wvh: Not sure which one of these brownish individuals is supposed to be white, though.]
(29) Idea: Good (American values) and evil (anti-American influences) are locked in a final, titanic moment of combat, and the reader must act now. Concept: Iconic evil non-American figure with blazing torch seeks to overpower and set fire to American flag defended by iconic American muscular warrior. Good guy has death grip on bad guy’s throat and on the torch, which has already caused the flag to smolder. The balance of power is dangerously equal; neither combatant has advantage. [wvh: Final version has nice, white, nuclear family (albeit 1.1 kids short) peacefully watching an approaching tsunami in the final moments before it sweeps them away.]
Interesting story. I'm personally not familiar with it, but will follow any updates.
As for tying gun control with black America, here's an interesting article.
The Dark History Of Gun Control
As for tying gun control with black America, here's an interesting article.
The Dark History Of Gun Control
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