Comic-Con: Superheroes vs. Westboro Baptist Church

"They've faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con."

Photo gallery at Comics Alliance.

(thanks, Georgia)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

I guess that’ll learn WBC to harrass people who have even more zeal and time to kill than they do. Nicely served Comicon!
Blaine

I’m not a doctor and even if I were I would never diagnose someone without first hand contact… but some cursory internet batman-ery makes me question of the the protestor’s sanity.

The fifth picture down, with the CIA hand crushing someone’s brain?

I tracked down his site and he sounds like he could have a diagnosable condition. Not sure if it’s schizophrenia for anything.

http://simplestmusicnotation.weebly.com/ciasurveillanceproofs.html

He has many ‘examples’ of how the CIA has recruited the cable guy, the dialysis companies and his wife to spy on and torture him.

“Effectation: Many days, after driving my body becomes a magnet. Things such as paper cups, clothes, etc can be stuck in my hands. This shows there is a transmitter in my car. Electromagnetic rays from the transmitter cover my head and they can make me become a magnet.”

” That is just one of thousands examples of how CIA and medical staffs in dialysis clinics turned their surveillance information about me to abuse and torture me mentally.”

“Picture A: This man’d grasped his penis right in front of me to abuse me. When I took a picture, he crossed his legs immediately.”

I’m partially fascinated and part of me feels bad for him.
- mdh
  
  eek, he’s liveblogging a meltdown.
- membeth
  
  The guy with the sign about the CIA is not a Comic Con participant/counter-protester. He sets up camp across from the federal courthouse in San Diego every day, except, apparently, when he hangs out at Comic Con instead. I’d been wondering where he’d been the past couple of days.
Anonymous

Wow, Phelps is changing his message, too. It’s not just about God’s hate for f*gs any more. “GOD HATES AMERICA” (while draping the entire delegation in American flags, mixed messages anyone?), “GOD IS YOUR ENEMY”, “GOD HATES YOU”.
Anonymous

The most hilarious I’ve seen is someone working their way into the westboro crowd with an “Ezekiel 20:23″ sign. Priceless.
Anonymous

Actually, the best signs are the ones that cause a good satire: “God Hates Jedi” and “Kill all humans” come to mind in particular. Some of the others are simply feeding the trolls. Remember, it’s funny if you can spin it back with a smile. When it becomes a shouting match back and forth everyone gets to compete on how much of a dick they are.
Anonymous

I like this and find it funny, but most people don’t realise that the Phelp mob is a money making machine, they protest the most absurd/volatile causes they can find in the hope that someone will assault them, and then lawyer up and cash in. As billstewart above said, don’t feed trolls, they don’t care about the cause they claim to unite under, it’s simple greed.
SteveT

“Is This Thing On?”

Ladies and Gentlemen – we have a winner!
Pres

Nostalia Chick video about this: http://blip.tv/file/3920245
pKp

This is WIN. Love the guy in the Bender costume with a “Kill All Humans” sign.
mauzzz

Good nerd fun! It is however a violation of the Prime Directive to interact with the pre-warp ‘Westboro Baptist Church’ entity.
Anonymous

I was hoping to see a sign saying “CTHULU HATES US ALL” or “CTHULU HATES US MORE THAN YOUR GOD”. But these were absolutely brilliant anyway! Good job, superheroes!
billstewart

What it really needed was one guy with a sign saying “Please Don’t Feed The Trolls!” and a bunch of people not feeding the trolls. Because that’s the business Phelps is in – not religion, but trolling.
sixta

the ‘God hates Jedi’ guy is the winner here.
Is he single? ;-)
Anonymous

So proud of being a nerd right now!
DonBoy

cjp @17: In the event that you’re not from the USA, I’ll just mention that that’s not how free speech works over here.

In the event that you are from the USA, I’ll yell it: THAT’S NOT HOW FREE SPEECH WORKS OVER HERE.
Forteto

Good god! Please somone tell me whoever made the god hates f*gs webpage did it as a mockery. A joke. Please. It’s almost funny. Partally. But if they did that seriously…… what the (bleep) people?
benher

Where are Jesse Custer, Cassidy, Tulip, and the Saint of Killers when we need them most?
- Felton
  
  Heh! I wonder what Jesse would command them to do…
  
  “Shut up, go home, and never watch Fox news again.”
MadMolecule

It’s definitely not a joke. That’s the site of the Westboro Baptist Church. A for-real “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
Felton

Hah! Buddy Christ was there! I love it.
- Anonymous
  
  And I actually KNOW that particular Buddy Christ! Right on!
  - Felton
    
    And I actually KNOW that particular Buddy Christ! Right on!
    
    I don’t know him personally, but I told him I liked his costume at DragonCon one year, assuming it’s the same Buddy Christ. Seemed like a really nice guy.
Yuba Dude

Jerry Falwell, rarely the voice of moderation, reacted to the Westboro Baptist Church’s picketing of Matthew Shepard’s funeral. Fred and his family held up, in addition to their familar “God Hates F*gs” signs, a large photo of Matthew Shepard engulfed in flames, with the caption, “Matthew Shepard is Burning in Hell.” Falwell said that Phelps’s action was cruel toward Matthew’s parents, and that God loves everyone.

I guess Phelps got the last word, because he eventually took advantage of the opportunity to picket Falwell’s funeral.
Sekonda

What’s with the binary image in the top right? I figured out it’s a cesar cypher in Binary but what’s the point.
- Sagodjur
  
  I imagine it’s just a cute little game for the curious. If this one is [insert what the plaintext says here], then maybe there’s another one somewhere else on the site?
Wardish

It’s time for a lot of questioning, a lot of posting, and especially a lot of searching.

Did Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church rape a 9 year old girl in 1992?

Why won’t Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church deny that he raped a 9 year old in 1992?

Now I’m not saying Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church did rape a 9 year old in 1992 but people have a right to know if it’s true.

Enjoy
- Anonymous
  
  “Now I’m not saying Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church did rape a 9 year old in 1992 but people have a right to know if it’s true.”
  
  ah, don’t rip off Gilbert Gottfried. write your own jokes.
- Anonymous
  
  Are you asking /b/cause it’s true?
cjp

I would love to see some harassment lawsuits being leveled against the WBC. Some of their stuff is bordering on hate crime IMP and I can’t imagine anyone being allowed to pursue these actions if the word ‘f*gs’ was replaced by ‘Jews’ or ‘Blacks’. It’s shocking that this is not illegal in the States. It’s not free speech, it’s hate mongering.

On behalf of all sane humans everywhere, Comicon protesters, we salute you!
C White

Comix shows up Religion once again.
TypoBoy

Better picture here (Pharyngula) http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/07/comic-con_reacts_to_fred_phelp/wbc_comiccon1.php

Captures stuff not in the gallery like: “Jesus was nailed to a cross. Thor has a hammer.” “Support fiction: read the bible”.

I actually have seen more creative counterprotests. Like the guy who meatspace rickrolled a Phelps protest. Stood physically next to Phelps family playing “Never Gonna Give you up” on a CD player.
- Anonymous
  
  Ah, I totally misread that as “physically meatspinned” the Phelps. That would have been impressive. Need more sleep…
adwkiwi

â€Ž”God needs a starship” – ouch. You know you’re on the wrong side of an argument when you get
pwned by a reference to Star Trek V.
Anonymous

Ha.. i actually know the cat that rick roll’d the phelps family. He went to school with me back in Kentucky. I believe the protest he rick roll’d was being held in Florida.
Anonymous

Oh actually another little back story, the school the rick roller and I went to was protested by the Westboro church. Boyd County High School. The protested us because of a club that gained some notoriety (a joke on jay leno, protests by wacko churches) called the Gay/Straight Alliance. I’d always thought it was a little pointless though, figured its objectives were already covered within the Human Rights Club.. but oh well.