Capitalist Superhero

I have recently developing concept work for my wealthy superhero/ dictator. In response to a traumatic 9/11 style attack, this character uses his capital to invest in surveillance equipment and establishes himself as the protector of the city. I want this venture to represent private military and surveillance groups profiting from the hysteria of 9/11. Perhaps my Capitalist hero could own a private military group contracted to survey the city, intimidate and interrogate its inhabitants. This character will be the embodiment of disaster capitalism and war propaganda, even going as far as setting up false terrorist attacks to further fuel the citizen's submission to his agenda.

I began my development with a mood board. I combined images of the wealthy, with distopian imagery and propaganda posters:

I made notes on the moodboard to help realise some of my initial approaches.

Silhouettes are always a good way to begin when creating characters, as a successful design should possess a recognisable form before the details:

I feel that these approaches look far too authoritative and sinister with the strong rigid forms and Nazi inspired head-ware. After all, I want the citizens of my Manhattan inspired distopia to idolise and worship this figure, and accept him as a symbol of patriotism national identity. 

I next moved on to some facial explorations:

At this stage I wasn't too focused on the age of the character. As you can see my designs range from relatively young to quite old. I ultimately decided on the final design, where I tried to produce a slightly older (mid to late 30s) Patrick Bateman from the American Psycho movie adaptation. On some level I want my audience to recognise this, to help communicate the idea of a successful business man exterior, with a dark fetishised need for control.

After this I began considering cyborg concepts, reflecting militarised figures such as Batman and Iron man. I decided that I wanted my character to glorify the military industrial complex with flashy high tech army and weaponry:

At this stage I felt I was working too polished for this early on in the design process, so I decided to revert back to some rougher silhouettes:

I have started dragging reference images into my work document instead of creating a separate moodboard when developing my ideas. I learned this from concept artist Erik Ryan, and it means I can grab the images quickly and dive in to my sketches, improving my workflow. I used other robot concept art taken from conceptartworld.com. Because of this, I feel my designs look a like generic 'Mech' concepts instead of superhero designs, so I wanted to produce something that combines more of a traditional comic approach.

Working from more interesting real-life reference, I wanted my hero to combine high tech surveillance gear with traditional latex hero approach. I found this interesting night vision goggle design:

I like the huge cyclopse-like camera between the goggles. Reflecting back on my previous designs, I had a running theme of an all seeing eye as a sort of brand logo for my wealthy capitalist hero:

Here, the hero's helmet looks high tech, whereas the rest of the suit is simple and eye catching, using patriotic colours. Perhaps the 'Cyclops' helmet could see through walls, reflecting the open plan city presented in 'Batman: The Dark Knight', where every corner of every office room is visible. In this city, nobody can hide from the scrutinising gaze of the Cyclops (this is a working name that could be subject to change). The helmet is the main focus in this design, so I did a few head studies from different angles. Perhaps I need to include some form of flying mechanism with his suit, as to truly survey the city, he must be able to transcend the metropolitan landscape in a way that civilians cannot. overall, I am happy with this character concept as I feel the presentation is portfolio quality.

With this final piece of concept art at this stage, I wanted to show the 'Cyclops' as the buisness CEO, surveying the city from the confines of his office. I applied a very authoritative pose to the character, making him appear like a bond villain:

In a recent personal tutorial, my tutor and I discussed drawing characters in interesting positions as oppose to the generic t pose. I feel that I achieved this with the seated positions, hands locked together. I also like the strong edge light given from the monitors behind the character. I still need to expand on my concept art for the Cyclops, as well as exploring his nemesis the left wing activist, and also the landscape in which they exist. I also need to further develop the back story of the traumatic event that fuelled the surveillance culture within the western city.

Superheroes and Neoliberal Surveillance Culture

Reflecting further on how the 9/11 attacks have influenced politics and the superhero genre, I have been studying the legitimisation of panopticism with modern protagonists. above is a clip from Christopher Nolan's 'Batman: The Dark Knight'. Here, Bruce Wayne (Batman) has used his wealth and access to military technology to develop a device that not only hacks telephones, but also uses the information to map out a virtual environment, giving him an all seeing edge. Dan Hassler-Forest wrote a chapter on theory of this authoritative gaze in his book 'Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal age.' He mentioned that although Morgan Freeman's character vocalises his concern on the ethics of Wayne's intrusive device, the outcome (where batman secures a building full of hostages) clearly suggests that the protagonists controversial actions were necessary. Bruce Wayne is also shown destroying the device after the job is complete. 'Hassler-Forest' also discussed the phenomenon of the 'Cyborg' with heroes such as 'Iron Man' and 'RoboCop' creating glamourous fantasies of future military technology. Iron Man's advanced weapons and armour allows him to quickly distinguish terrorists from civilians, defusing a hostage situation with zero casualties:

Again we are presented with idealistic situations where wealthy protagonists use their advanced visualisation  capabilities to prevent catastrophe. 'Jack Bauer' from the '24' television series is perhaps the strongest example of the media legitimising surveillance. Bauer uses his panoptic capabilities to monitor terrorism, the show also necessitating torture as a means of extracting information. Where these potentially controversial methods could be questioned and explored in the show, they are simply glorified. Bauer never accidentally spies on or interrogates an innocent civilian. Viewers are in fact encouraged to intrust this large responsibility in the hands of the protagonist.

Hassler-Forest went on to discuss Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' graphic novel. With the character 'Adrien Veidt', Moore explores the panoptic gaze of the entrusted superhero and places it under scrutiny. Veidt uses a wall of screens to monitor both television broadcasts and surveillance footage simultaneously. By analysing trends in advertising, Veidt in one sequence decides a war is imminent so tells a servant to invest appropriately. This depicts Veidt as a Neoliberal, partaking in disaster capitalism. Although he is entrusted with his great wealth and power, he ultimately destroys Manhattan and arguably betrays its citizens.

I plan to elaborate on this concept of panopticism within the superhero genre in my extended essay.

Cop 3 Introduction (Key Practitioners)

Over the summer I have been reading texts in preparation for the extended essay element of our 'Context of Practice 3' module. Through beginning to study a combination of both academic texts and graphic novels, I am starting to realise some key practitioners that will prove important in realising my current working title: 'The Politics of Superheroes.'

Firstly, the university professor and author 'Dan Hassler-Forest' has produced a body of essays investigating comic books and graphic novels. I purchased his latest book 'Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders In The Neo Liberal Age', which focuses on post 9/11 politics, and its relationship with the trending superhero movie genre. The book raises various issues, examples being disaster capitalism in response to the attacks and the representation of the traumatised hero, the 'victimisation' of America portrayed through the trend in the origin story (9/11 allegedly launching America into a new age), and the concept of surveillance culture within the 'Neoliberal City'. Hassler-Forest writes with a very analytical style, linking relating political and cultural theories seamlessly with the entertainment genre that is the Superhero movie. His insights will be crucial in exploring the political connotations behind the superhero phenomenon. To gain further insight, I will follow 'Dr. Dan's' word press: http://danhf.wordpress.com/author/danhf/

A second practitioner is renowned comic book writer 'Alan Moore'. He has produced a celebrated body of work within the comic book genre, his most famous being the 'Watchmen' series. He is recognised as a left-wing writer. This contrasts with the alleged right-wing writings of 'Mark Millar', another hugely influential figure in the genre, recognised for works such as 'Kick-Ass' and the Marvel 'Civil War' series. Over the summer I read Millar's 'Superman: Red Son', a re-imagining of the classic tale where Superman lands in Soviet Russia, and is raised as a communist by Joseph Stailin. By comparing and contrasting some of the works of these two writers, whose views lie on both ends of the political spectrum, I can accomplish a broad understanding of some of the themes that appear in Superhero narratives.

I partake in these studies as a person who is relatively new to the superhero genre. I was original enticed by the idea of political undertones within superhero narratives, through Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. Christopher Nolan is a recognised conservative, ideologies which are apparently presented in his movies. With the awareness of political agendas often glorified through this popular action genre, I look forward to analysing both film and texts to produce an analytical and informative study.