'From Mohammed to Ayn Rand'

My interview with Front Page Magazine, on ProPiganda: Drawing the Line Against Jihad, The Infidel & Pigman. An Excerpt:

From Mohammed to Ayn Rand

DS: As an ex-Muslim creating a graphic novel about an ex-Muslim who creates an anti-Jihad superhero is there an autobiographical element to The Infidel? Are characters inspired by you and people you know?

BF: Yes, clearly there is that, and what came to me during the writing of the story was that, in a sense, I've split myself in two with the twins, with Killian representing my best, and Salaam my worst. It's more complex than that, but their responses to the attacks tell you who they are more than anything else. Pigman is also a big part of me, the part that wants to see the enemy get what's coming to them. Initially, the Pigman character was mainly a trigger that sets off the brother's conflict, since I was more interested in showing what kind of man would create such a character as Pigman in this PC world we're living in. But Pigman has become such a big part of the book that his own story echoes Killian's, though on a far larger scale as he battles his archenemy, SuperJihad.

DS: What prompted you to abandon Islam? Could you discuss the circumstances behind that decision?

BF: I didn't so much abandon Islam as fade away from it, and I didn't have much faith to lose to begin with. It's tough to say you've left something if you've never really embraced it. Hugh Fitzgerald is right in saying "the atmospherics of Islam" can affect even the least devout Muslim in a detrimental way. A strong thrust within Islam is to see any and all things outside of Islam as worthless, most particularly non-Muslims. When we did go to mosque there was never any real sense that something important was taking place. The majority of us who were involved in this pretense had no idea what to do, unless we followed the imam's prayer moves (and many in attendance were fooling around anyway). "Islam" was the name of the thing that was held as 'the good' in my household, and it was that vagueness which helped keep it at bay. It was only when I started taking morality seriously that I realized Islam had nothing to offer me.

DS: You say that Islam had nothing to offer you. What did you find that did? What are the schools of thought and who are the thinkers who have most influenced you and your work?

BF: I found Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, first by watching the film version of The Fountainhead, and then by reading her novels and nonfiction works. I felt at home reading her work. It was the first time in my life that I saw the concept of morality being taken seriously outside of religion. A morality that was based in reality and had more to say about life on earth, freedom and the individual than anything I had read before. It was only fitting that my favorite storyteller in comics, Frank Miller, was also influenced by her work, as was another favorite of mine, Steve Ditko, who has spent most of his career expressing Objectivist ideas through his work.

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