Matthew Rosenberg addressed the responses and reactions to his pregnant Joker story, a non-canonical backup tale featured in DC's The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #4, on his Substack.
The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #4 features a backup story, "Knocked Upside Down," by writer Matthew Rosenberg, artist Francesco Francavilla and letterer Tom Napolitano. Shortly after falling madly in love with Zatanna, "Knocked Upside Down" sees the Clown Prince of Crime become pregnant with a pile of mud he vomits out. The vomit then turns into a mini-sized doppelganger of himself the Joker eventually declares as his son. Despite being similar in tone to previous The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing backup stories and clearly non-canonical, "Knocked Upside Down" quickly became controversial as many reacted, complained about (including Fox News' Joe Concha, who admitted he doesn't know or care about the story's context when speaking about the matter on the air) or defended the entry when discussing it online.
Rosenberg addressed the matter in a post on his Substack, Ashcan Press Comics Corporation, published on Jan. 15, 2023. It reads, "If you don’t get your news from the 'here’s what to be angry about' people you may have missed this. But certain corners of the world are quite mad that the new issue of The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing makes the Joker trans and then they become pregnant and give birth. How could we?! Think of the children!! Only, slight problem, none of that actually happens in the comic. That didn’t stop Fox News, The NY Post, Channel 1 Russia, various internet outrage peddlers, and so many of the other sources of journalistic excellence from going all in on it this past week. This of course made social media somewhat unusable for me because things like this are Christmas for folks who like to get mad at stuff and yell at strangers. My DM’s have never been more exciting! The good news is that I finally made it onto TMZ and I didn’t even have to fuck Pete Davidson like I thought I would.
The Joker's Backup Stories Are Silver Age Fever Dreams
"I should probably explain for those of you who aren’t reading the book. But also, shame on you. It’s fun. So, the main story in the series is about two different men who claim to be the Joker and how their lives violently intersect. The backup stories, by myself with the brilliant Francesco Francavilla on art, are made to be sort of Silver Age style fever dreams of the Joker that explore different, non-continuity explanations of how there could be multiple Jokers and other themes of the main book. So far he’s accidentally cloned himself in a magic mirror, faked his own death so that he could see what people say at his funeral, and accidentally had himself sewn to the body of a gorilla and one of his small henchman like some mythological 6-armed gorilla/circus performer/homicidal clown centaur. In each issue the events of the previous issue aren’t discussed or acknowledged. They are, literally, silly gag strips."
Rosenberg continued to explain what happens in the story before further explaining his intentions. "As you might have picked up from my summary, this isn’t an allegory, a metaphor, or social commentary," he wrote. "It’s a joke. I will say, so this doesn’t come off as some sort of backpedalling, I believe Trans rights are Human rights. I have fundraised and donated multiple times to orgs like TRANS LIFELINE, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANS EQUALITY, and THE TREVOR PROJECT that do incredible work to promote trans rights and protect trans lives. I believe how a person identifies themselves, defines themselves, or presents themselves to the world is their business alone. When someone tells you who they are you can either agree with them or tell them who you think they are, and I’ve never understood why you’d want to be the latter or why anyone should care what you think of who they. With that said, it has nothing to do with this story. This is a story about magical food poisoning."
Read Rosenberg's full post by clicking here. The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #4 is on sale now from DC.
Source: Substack