Batman writer Chuck Dixon turns his attention to the Clintons
Foreign money in politics is the bane of his existence
During his prolific career, writer Chuck Dixon-best-known for his comic book work, wrote about tough heroes like the Batman and the Punisher. Along the way, he created villains like King Snake and, most famously, Bane.
Now, he's gone from a fictional character who broke Batman's back to real-life characters who broke the bank.
"Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel," adapted by Dixon and artist Brett R. Smith from the book by Peter Schweizer, follows the allegedly shady connections between Clinton Foundation donors, paid speeches given by Bill Clinton and actions approved by the U.S. State Department while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
"The reaction has been astounding", Dixon exclaimed to Comics Guy Jerome Maida. "We hit No. 5 of ALL books on Amazon and are No. 1 on the New York Times list for graphic novels beating out a popular Batman book. And we haven't gotten started promoting it!"
So how did Dixon go from superheroes to what is now a popular-and polarizing-graphic novel about the most powerful political couple of our generation?
"Brett Smith is the godfather of this project," Dixon said. "(He), approached the Breitbart people who worked with Regnery Press to make this graphic novel happen. Brett insisted that I was the ONLY comic writer to bring this book to graphic novel form. I'm a life-long conservative with a long history of scripting comics."
"I think that the antics of Bill and Hillary are something the public should know about," Dixon said. "Peter's book reached a lot of readers. But the graphic novel is a way to bring this appalling story to even more people who might not pick up the original It's a comic book force multiplier!"
Dixon says Smith and he did not have much contact with Schweitzer in the adaptation at all-but what Schweitzer saw, he liked.
"I wrote some sample pages for Peter to look at so that he'd know the direction I wanted to go in," he said. "He gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and has been nothing but encouraging all the way. Surprising to me because we really went crazy with the material in his book."
Dixon says he felt this project was important enough that he didn't care about possibly being blacklisted by the comics industry, which he claims is very liberal.
"I'm on the s--list of every company that has a list like that. My bridges, and the access roads leading to them, were burnt long ago," he said. "I still do plenty of work in the indies (IDW in particular) as well as work for European and Indian publishers and my own line of novels published through Amazon. I'm writing a graphic novel right now for the U.S. Navy."
Indeed, Dixon says the success of "Clinton Cash" has made more people aware of him-and resulted in more offers.
"I'm certainly getting calls and offers from folks I never expected to hear from," he said. . "There's interesting work ahead!"
That, in the end, is why Dixon took on "Clinton Cash".
"Well, I'll give any comic a try! It has the colorful and audacious nature of comics that make it appealing. But I hope the reader comes away educated and outraged," Dixon concludes. "This unholy hybrid of big business, foreign money and politics has to be brought to an end."