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Always With Honor

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Tuesday, Sep 10, 2024 - 21:36
Czar Nicholas II, as drawn by Alex Wisner.
Czar Nicholas II, as drawn by Alex Wisner. 

Challenging An Ideologically Captured Industry 

In yesterday's post ("The Gift"), I mentioned one way the American publishing industry had become woke: by excluding talented white, male, heterosexual writers and giving preference to nonwhite female ones. 

Another way the American publishing industry is ideologically captured is in what it publishes--and what it doesn't publish. You see evidence of this whenever you walk into your local Barnes & Noble: their table of "banned" books includes ones like To Kill A Mocking Bird, which have been assigned in schools for decades, but not important books that had gone unpublished in America for years, like Always With Honor, the memoir of Pyotr Wrangel ("The Black Barron"), the Russian general who fought the Bolsheviks. 

Regular readers may recall ("Tucker's New Favorite Book Is A Warning") that an independently re-published edition of that book was a favorite of Tucker Carlson last year. 

As Tucker said then, 

Tucker tells the story of Pyotr Wrangel and the Russian Revolution: "The country is in complete chaos. He goes into a movie theater and everyone in the theater is completely absorbed in the movie, like there's no revolution happening outside.

He's very close to the Romanovs, the family. He goes back to Moscow and he notices about 80% of the women in the Romanov family are wearing red ribbons in solidarity with the Bolsheviks who wound up murdering them. How is it that this country is being devoured by a violent revolution and the people are refusing even to acknowledge that it's happening and the ruling class against whom it is aimed are sympathizing with it? If this doesn't remind you of BLM, I don't know what does.

I was reading this like wait I live in that country. That's happening now. This is a revolution. Its aim is to hurt you."

How One Publishing Start-Up Is Fighting Back 

Passage Press has been fighting back by publishing current and classic books by writers on the right, by hosting events where sane readers can meet current authors, and by experimenting with new media, such as a comic book version of Wrangel's memoir, Always With Honor. Below is a guest post by the founder of Passage Publishing about that comic. Before we get to it, a brief trading update. 

The Short And Long Of It

In yesterday's post, I mentioned taking advantage of the up day to add some short positions. You can read about those here. 

Today, we zagged and added a long position. You can read about that here. 

And if you want a heads up when we place our next trade, you can subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below. 

 

You can also visit the Portfolio Armor website for all of your hedging needs. 

Now on to our excellent guest post. 

 

Authored by Lomez of Passage Press [Emphasis mine]

Why Are So Many People Buying This Comic About The Russian Revolution?

General Wrangel, as drawn by Alex Wisner.
General Wrangel, as drawn by Alex Wisner.

Last week, Passage Press (for full disclosure: a company I founded and run), announced a crowdfunding campaign for a comic book adaptation of a relatively obscure book about the Russian Civil War, Always with Honor, the memoirs of General Pyotr Wrangel. The enthusiastic response to the crowdfunding campaign was instant and overwhelming. We achieved our one-month fundraising goal within 12 hours and doubled it within just three days. The campaign reached the front page of Indiegogo and brought us attention from every corner of the right. The campaign could very well reach $100,000 by the end of the month.

It’s a beautiful comic. The artist, Alex Wisner (@AlexWisnerArt) is a remarkable stylist who’s depictions of Wrangel are instantly captivating, even if you know nothing at all about Wrangel or the Russian Civil War. But the enthusiasm around this crowdfunding effort has still left us asking ourselves: Why is there so much interest in a comic about the Russian Revolution?

It is perhaps because Always with Honor speaks to a larger cultural and political shift that transcends niche historical interest. We have also seen this week a renewed debate over the causes and motives that gave rise to World War II. There is a feeling that our collective understanding of the 20th Century––its tumult and horrors––is incomplete, and that we must produce a better story to tell ourselves about how we got here. At its core, the response to Always with Honor is about this desire. This is not just a book about Wrangel himself—a relatively minor figure in the grand sweep of history—but about the clash of competing worldviews at the dawn of a new age, individualism and tradition against collectivism and radical change, and its lessons are as relevant now as they have ever been. 

Wrangel’s rise to prominence came during a period of immense turmoil. Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Russia descended into a brutal civil war that pitted the communist Red Army against the White Army, a coalition of monarchists, nationalists, and moderate socialists who sought to stop the spread of Lenin’s radical vision. The conflict, often described as a “war within a war,” was not merely a fight over territory, but would become the breeding ground for the ideological horrors that would subsume all of Europe in the coming decades.

In the fog of these bitter military and political conflicts, Wrangel stood out as a beacon of moral and tactical clarity. His military genius was evident in the series of victories he led, despite facing overwhelming odds. At a time when his anti-Bolshevik White Army was faltering due to internal discord and lack of coordination, Wrangel’s leadership in the southern front brought a renewed sense of purpose to the cause.

Czar Nicholas II, as drawn by Alex Wisner.
Czar Alexander II and family members, as drawn by Alex Wisner.

But even Wrangel’s brilliance was not enough to overcome the devastating internal divisions that plagued the White Army. His efforts were undermined by disunity, conflicting loyalties, and a lack of external support (both the British and the Americans were much too late to recognize the Bolshevik threat). By the time Wrangel assumed supreme command of the White forces in 1920, the anti-communist resistance had already begun to crumble. Nevertheless, Wrangel’s final act of defiance in leading the evacuation of over 150,000 soldiers and civilians from Crimea stands as a testament to his character. Rather than abandoning his post, he secured safe passage for these refugees, sparing them the brutal reprisals that awaited those who remained.

This story of noble resistance has obvious appeal to today’s political right. Too often the depravity and violence of 20th century communism is obscured in the potted histories we are delivered in our classrooms and in mainstream media. The Russian Civil War in particular, despite its tremendous historical importance, is little understood by the average person.

Moreover, putting Always with Honor into comic book form taps into a burgeoning dissatisfaction with the comic book industry itself. Once a medium that celebrated complex heroes and rich narratives, comics have, in recent years, fallen victim to left-wing ideological takeover. Established franchises have been altered to promote overtly “woke” themes, often at the expense of storytelling quality. Characters once celebrated for their depth and relatability have been rewritten to conform to a narrow ideological agenda, alienating long-time readers.

The story of General Wrangel offers something different—an escape from the ideological flattening that has come to dominate mainstream comics. Wrangel’s life is filled with themes of honor, sacrifice, leadership, and resistance against an oppressive force. The success of the crowdfunding campaign for Always with Honor shows that there is a significant audience craving stories that speak to these universal themes, while also providing a powerful metaphor for today’s cultural conservatives fighting an uphill battle to preserve tradition and freedom.

In the past, those who were ostracized from mainstream comics had few options. The major publishers held a near-monopoly on production, and there was little infrastructure to support independent projects. However, the rise of crowdfunding platforms, and new media projects on the right has changed the game. Always with Honor: Issue 1 is the flagship for our new initiative, Passage Labs, which aims to support experimental, artist-driven projects that transcend the boundaries of the literary world where we’ve traditionally found our success.

Through campaigns like this, we hope to restore the integrity of the comic industry and create space for works that speak to both historical significance and contemporary relevance. Supporting Always with Honor: Issue 1 is more than just buying a comic; it’s part of a broader effort to reclaim the creative freedom that once made comics great, and to reclaim an important episode in modern history. 

 

 

 

 

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
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