See Tom Morello, in Comic Book Form, Praise Dee Snider’s ‘Heroic’ Free Speech Moment

Thirty-eight years ago today, Mr. Snider went to Washington. A new graphic novel, Dee Snider: He’s Not Gonna Take It (due out Nov. 21), illustrates the fateful day the Twisted Sister frontman spoke in defense of free speech, alongside Frank Zappa and John Denver, at a Senate hearing regarding placing content-warning labels on album covers. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello penned a foreword for the book paying tribute to Snider’s heroic spirit.

Publisher Z2 presents Morello as a Spider-Man-like superhero in the panels premiering on Rolling Stone. A headline reads, “Crisis in Congress,” and the Amazing Tom Morello takes it from there.

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“Dee Snider’s heroic appearance before a congressional committee in 1985 to stand up against censorship was a high-water mark of musician activism,” Morello writes. “He stunned Congress and the world by speaking powerfully and eloquently about free speech while looking like the badass heavy metal demon that he is. … His uncompromising stand in his music and on the witness stand were very inspirational to me, and I was so proud of him on that day, and I still am. Like, it’s OK to play kick-ass music and be smart and be yourself and stand up for what you believe in.”

Snider co-wrote He’s Not Gonna Take It with Frank Marraffino (Marvel Zombies). The book, which was illustrated by Steve Kurth (Avengers, X-Force), visually takes cues from the Golden Age of Comics, and it makes good on Morello’s description of Snider, showing him as a superhero. Panels, premiering here, show Snider learning about “The Filthy Fifteen” – a hit list of songs that the Parents Music Resource Center compiled to demonstrate instances where music had supposedly gone too far, celebrating violence, the Occult, drinking, and sex. The band’s rebel anthem, “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” made the cut alongside Prince, Madonna, AC/DC, and Mötley Crüe tunes.

The narrative unfolds from there, involving Tipper Gore (then-wife of then-Senator Al Gore), who was an outspoken PMRC member. It all led to the fateful day in 1985 when the three musicians defended their (and their fellow musicians’) First Amendment right to express themselves and explained how “Parental Advisory” stickers would chill the music economy.

Unbeknownst to them at the time, the RIAA had already volunteered to start using “Parental Advisory” stickers before the hearing. Nevertheless, Snider’s, Zappa’s, and Denver’s day in Congress remain one of the boldest defenses of free speech in the past half-century.

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