Matteo Pizzolo recalls a day back in early 2016 when he was driving his son to preschool and looked over at the Silver Lake reservoir.
It was dry.
“It just looked like this barren wasteland and it brought into stark relief for me how much of a precipice we’re all on environmentally, how we could just one day not be able to provide water for our kids – and at a time when no one is able to work together at all,” said Pizzolo, author of the politically engaged comic series “Calexit” at the Black Mask Studios booth at Comic-Con International on July 21.
“Calexit” tells the story of a near-future California, following the election of an authoritarian president, that erupts into a civil war between its red and blue factions over how to respond to an executive order to deport immigrants. “So California is embroiled in a civil war, the National Guard is deputized and Homeland Security is sent in to occupy California and bring down the violence and that’s where our story begins,” said Pizzolo.
He said the political moment of 2016 was as important to the story’s creation as was the dry reservoir. Pizzolo described the then-current presidential primaries as “toxic” on both sides – the left put like-minded groups at odds while he found the debates on the right “awful.”
“Everyone was at everyone’s throats about political ideologies, not solving problems. And that’s where the germ of the story came from,” said Pizzolo.
Things changed after the presidential election, however.
“We felt a different responsibility after the election because a lot of our readership was feeling more at risk. So before, when it seemed in a certain way entertaining to go into a dystopia, we no longer wanted to wallow in that. We didn’t want anyone to feel depressed by the book, based on what was going on in the real world,” he said, adding. “We’re not writing a polemic, we want it to be a great story.”
To address this, Pizzolo decided to add a non-fiction element to the issues.
“We added a non-fiction section in the back where I interview people who are doing inspiring work: grassroots organizers, political activists, people like that. I just talk to them about what they’re doing and what people who are not normally engaged in politics – but who suddenly feel a responsibility to get involved – what they can do right now,” said Pizzolo. “I make it real simple, actionable interviews, and as a result I learned a lot.”
The author said he also learned from these conversations with young organizers, such as about the importance of local elections. As for engagement, Pizzolo had a voter registration drive for people on the Comic-Con floor and even put a voter registration form on the cover of one of the comics. As well, Black Mask published a surprise San Diego edition of the comic this week and will donate all profits from it to Rapid Response San Diego to help support families separated at the border.
“It made me feel like local politics is the new punk rock,” said Pizzolo, who, along with comic writer Greg Niles, is co-founder in Black Mask Studios with Brett Gurewitz, guitarist for Bad Religion and honcho of Epitaph Records.
One element of politics he’s not involved in, however, is the current California secession movement, which has been dubbed Calexit by some. “To my knowledge, [the movement] was not using the term ‘Calexit’ before our book came out, so we don’t have anything to do with that campaign,” said Pizzolo. “I’m not pro-secession…The whole point of the book is that people need to work together.”
California, though, does have a certain part of its character that is resistant to whoever is in the White House, he said.
“Whoever wins the election, there is a vocal contingent who want to secede,” he said, whether it’s Bush or Obama. “The book is about celebrating the spirit of resistance and California just has that in its DNA. You see it in Apple Computer, you see it in NWA, you see it in ‘Star Wars,’ so many of the things that are exported out of California and go all around the world are about resistance, disruption and shaking things up, not just listening to authority. I think that’s something that’s very special about California and it crosses both partisan lines.”
So is he hopeful about the future?
“I remain,” he says with a wary laugh. “Hopeful.”