Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Socialist Worker: Carlos Latuff, a comic-strip take on Iraq rebellion

Socialist Workers Party, in U.K., published a note about me in its Socialist Worker paper.

"Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist who deploys the style of classic US superhero comics – but for very different political ends.

'I try to use a traditional and established medium to spread the point of view of the anti-imperialist resistance,' he told Socialist Worker. 'Usually the heroes, the good guys, are from the US.'

'I thought it’s time to present a different sort of hero – the real ones, those who defend their homes from foreigner invaders.'

Juba The Baghdad Sniper, Latuff’s latest strip, is set in Iraq. It follows the adventures of a supershot Baghdad sniper and his battles to outfox US occupation troops. 'Juba, as well as the Iraqi resistance fighters, are the modern heroes, just like the Viet Cong were in the past,' he says.

Like many artists, Latuff advocates unconditional freedom of expression – a stance that has led him to take positions that Socialist Worker disagrees with.

But accusations of antisemitism levelled against him by the right are baseless. Latuff’s work stands firmly in an anti-imperialist and anti-racist tradition."