“To fight for the right, without question or pause.
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.”
Hello, folks.
Today, I wanted to take a break from posting official things and speak to you, our audience, directly. My name is Jude Profit and I am a cofounder here at Absurdist Press.
This project has been going on in the background of my life for nearly a decade, and I often get asked about it in various ways. One question that I have always prepared myself for but rarely ever get is the question: “Why exactly are you doing this?”
To put it simply; to put it bluntly, the world deeply saddens me. Things like the news of yesterday (In case you’re reading this on a day that’s not today, I am referring to the Georgia High School shooting which occurred on September 4th, 2024.), the constant debate as to which members of our species deserve personhood and agency, and just plain old violence that cannot be explained logically, rationally, or with any regard for the victims of said violence. These things make me lose hope. These are also the things that plague our daily lives now more than ever. The world has very real problems, and bad people do exist. Unfortunately for us in depressing reality, there are no heroes.
At least, that is how it may seem. To be frank with you, dear reader, while all of the things listed above are true, real, deeply horrific things that folks are dealing with; to paraphrase Tolkien, “There is a little good in this world and it is worth fighting for.” Every day, walking around my adoptive hometown of Pittsburgh (I was born in Ohio, but don’t mention it to anyone.), I see people living their lives and helping their neighbor to the best of their ability. This is shown in my own interpersonal relationships as well as simple observation of passersby. While human beings have a capacity for evil, they must also have an equal capacity for good. Only a Sith deals in absolutes and all that.
Listen: I do not mean to disregard the real human suffering occurring all over the planet, concentrated in pockets of disenfranchised communities with the boot of the world state on their neck. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I can think of no measure more desperate than hoping that a dude in a cape will fly down from the sky and fix all of our problems. Except, the superhero, as a concept and genre conceit, mean more to me than flashy fight scenes and dazzling costumes and the glorious artwork of Jack Kirby. Dear reader, I tell you this now, without the superhero, I would not be here typing this message for you.
In school, as a young queer adult with a pitiful amount of language to explain my situation, I never felt understood by my peers. My parents tried their best with what they were dealt. They worked hard (in retrospect, maybe a little too hard) and provided for me, which I will be eternally grateful for. They weren’t the most warm and cuddly parents, but few are. The point is, growing up, I felt alone. I felt like the world was too big for me to handle. I felt a loss of hope. Everything was changing, like the ground was shifting out from underneath me. Technology has made exponential leaps and bounds within my lifetime, which only filled me with a dread as to whatever our overlords will come up with next. Slowly, the America that folks were used to started to disappear, taking the middle class with it. Last but not least, my body was changing in ways that I didn’t want but couldn’t articulate why I didn’t want it. The real world taught me that humanity is a bunch of slimy idiots who will do anything to make a quick buck or get off on the pain of others.
But then, there was the constant in my life: Superman.
The first and the best, Superman’s whole deal has basically remained unchanged through his eighty years of loosely established continuity. Sure, he couldn’t always fly or shoot lasers from his eyes. His home planet wasn’t even named in the first issue of Action Comics. The consistency of the character, the values that he represents, stood to me as a monolith of hope regarding the state of the world. After all, a perfect world does not need a Superman. These characters, these heroes, they were always there to remind me that the world can change if we put in the effort, that people deserve grace and decency, and that, together, humanity can accomplish anything.
So, we are smooth sailing through the 2010s as I am going through high school and leading into college when something happened. Namely, Avengers (2012).
These heroes were always there for me, even when the world wasn’t there for them. I know this may seem crazy to hear, especially for our younger readers, but when I was in middle school (circa 2011 if I’m going to date myself), people threw things at me because I was reading Batman comics. I was made fun of relentlessly. I was told “those things are for kids”. When Avengers released, I remember sitting in a crowded theater, surrounded by people enjoying the thing that I’ve loved for so many years. I even recognized some of my classmates at the screening.
After Avengers premiered, and especially after it made a billion dollars at the box office, the world shifted out from underneath me again. Suddenly, folks were asking me about the comics I was reading. I thought it was finally time. But, over the decade and a half post Avengers, as we’re all aware, the superhero market became oversaturated and homogenous, turning into the same drivelous wasteland devoid of thought that we had in the genre during the 1950s.
Print hasn’t been much better for our caped and tighted friends. For those unaware, there is a problem in the comic reading community that I will refer to as “Crossover Fatigue”. Essentially, the big two companies, Marvel and DC for the folks that just got here, put out massive, gargantuan, and convoluted stories that involve essentially every character in their decades-long rosters. These crossover events happen like clockwork, pretty much every six months to a year. Some of these stories rewrite the continuity of characters, places, events, and even the whole universe from time to time.
This has become common practice in the industry, which is actually what it is; an industry. Marvel and DC, more accurately Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, are not in the business of inspiring the masses or dreaming of a better tomorrow. Nope! They are simply in the business of printing something, anything involving these characters every month. This way, their contracts don’t run out and the creative rights to these characters aren’t given to the original creators or their estates. Does Bill Finger ring a bell to anyone in the room?
Anyway, over the years, I have become disillusioned by the superhero genre as it exists now. It never seems like our heroes are fighting real injustices or solving real problems with real solutions. Not that every story needs to be on a soap box, but not every story should be a revenge thriller grudge match either.
When you lose what the superhero is about, you lose the bones of what makes it work as a concept. These heroes, much like the faceless, thankless heroes we see acting today for a living or otherwise, teach us that there is a better way. That people deserve dignity and respect. That no person should go hungry or die because the system wasn’t there for them. That there are no lost causes, even Gotham City. When our structures crumble and our infrastructure fails, we only have each other.
The superhero is not a solution to real world problems. Real problems require real solutions, and frankly, I just don’t have the power to move those rocks. However, I can offer something that might help you along the way; an impossible dream where everyone experiences respect, dignity, and justice. The Absurdist Project namely exists to accomplish two goals, one entirely selfish and the other less so by a tad. For one, I want to see my heroes come to life in the minds of others. As a writer, there is nothing quite more rewarding than someone telling you that your story or characters really resonated with them. I am chasing that dragon, no doubt about it. However, for two, folks deserve an alternative to the barren and thoughtless landscape of the superhero these days. They deserve stories with satisfying conclusions, real characters, and a sense that it all meant something at the end of the day.
That, in a nutshell is why I’m doing this, being the Absurdist Project. Not to say that I’m acting alone. I have a wonderful team of people working with me to help make this dream a reality, and I couldn’t be more grateful. At the end of the day, I invite you to dream of a better tomorrow with us.
Good fortune to all of you.
Excelsior and all that.
-Jude Profit, September 5th, 2024