{"id":220373,"date":"2014-01-25T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-25T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reason.com\/2014\/01\/25\/the-libertarian-stain\/"},"modified":"2014-01-25T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T19:00:00","slug":"the-libertarian-stain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reason.com\/2014\/01\/25\/the-libertarian-stain\/","title":{"rendered":"The Libertarian Stain"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"alignright\"><\/figure> <p>The most recent graphic novel from the much-lauded cartoonist Paul Pope is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1596431458\/reasonmagazinea-20\/\"><em>Battling Boy<\/em><\/a> (First Second), a modern take on a youthful hero sent from an Asgard-like land of gods to protect a city from ghouls and monsters. <em>The Comics Journal<\/em>, a leading organ of comics criticism, likes the book. But because Pope has produced explicitly libertarian-themed comics in the past, reviewer Charles Hatfield complains that Pope's \"broadsides against corrupt authority\" are \"acrid,\" adding: \"Pope's libertarian streak reveals itself, again.\"<\/p> <p>The authority in <em>Battling Boy<\/em> isn't really corrupt so much as it is striving to grab control of things outside its scope. More important: Fighting against corrupt authority is a longstanding adventure-story trope for kids, stretching from Robin Hood to <em>Star Wars<\/em> and beyond. What kind of bureaucratized soul would think a hint of anti-authoritarianism deserves censure? The kind, evidently, that needs to make sure anyone he can associate with libertarianism in any way knows he is eyed suspiciously.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most recent graphic novel from the much-lauded cartoonist Paul Pope is Battling Boy (First Second), a modern take on<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2014\/01\/25\/the-libertarian-stain\/\">&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":2291920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_integration_method":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[101504,100424,5,1],"tags":[100242],"newsletter":[],"ttd_topic":[],"coauthors":[{"display_name":"Brian Doherty","id":300132,"user_id":132}],"class_list":["post-220373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-comics","category-culture","category-politics","tag-libertarian-history-philosophy","print-article-type-briefly-noted","issue-february-2014"],"acf":[],"subtitle":"","categories_and_tags":[{"name":"Politics","id":1,"taxonomy":"category"},{"name":"Culture","id":5,"taxonomy":"category"},{"name":"Comics","id":100424,"taxonomy":"category"},{"name":"Book Reviews","id":101504,"taxonomy":"category"},{"name":"Libertarian History\/Philosophy","id":100242,"taxonomy":"post_tag"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2291920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220373"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter?post=220373"},{"taxonomy":"ttd_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ttd_topic?post=220373"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reason.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=220373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}