When I was in junior high, my English class was assigned to read George Orwell’s 1984. It was a pretty engaging read, but despite our teacher’s best efforts, it was difficult for most of us to take its deeper messages seriously. Big Brother and the Thought Police were terrifying for sure, but no more so than the likes of Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. They were fantasy villains from our point of view, impossibly removed from our real lives, where we were forced into daily battle with the true horrors of Midwest adolescence — teenage classism, 80s fashion, and our own deep self-loathing.
Now, as a 40-something in the 21st century, Orwell’s warnings are both utterly preposterous and terrifyingly real. It seems outrageous to imagine that in an age when civil liberty is so loudly trumpeted and treasured that a person could be arrested, imprisoned, and legally stigmatized for life because of his or her thoughts. Yet cases such as that of Brandon X prove this to be not only possible — but even likely — if those thoughts are being expressed and shared with others in the form of comics. more…
