Hannah Arendt famously said that the most effective method to subvert authority is to laugh. Political cartoonists have weaponized wit for centuries. As the influence of print media declined, meme-makers took up the challenge, waging ideological war far more swiftly and efficiently than any politician's speech.

The downside is that the elite frequently lack a sense of humor.

'It's the world that's vulgar. It's a dark, yucky world that has to be made fun of. But that's not our fault.'

During medieval and Tudor England, only the court jester was allowed to mock and insult the king; everyone else was imprisoned, branded, and mutilated, or worse, hung, drawn, and quartered. People in power have eliminated those who make fun of them for millennia, driven by narcissism and non-tolerance of criticism. Since the days of Aristotle and Aristophanes, attempts have been made to silence artists by arrest, torture, and death.

In our own time, the hangman, oubliette, and rack have given way to the digital horrors of deplatforming and cancellation. As effective as these have proven, there's a growing sense that "wokeness" is on the verge of extinction.

The linguistic straightjacket of political correctness is beginning to loosen, and artists are emerging from the shadows, taking a well-deserved breath of fresh air, and finally pushing back against what has become one of the most censorious periods in modern history. After being held down for so long, there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s time to Make America Laugh Again.™️

Flip City Magazine has been reporting for duty since its 2020 founding. And while memes may still reign supreme, the Southern California-based crew aims to skewer pretensions the old-fashioned way — with an honest-to-God paper-and-ink periodical "delivered begrudgingly to your door by your woke mailman."

Align recently corresponded via email with Flip City co-founders and editors Scott and Christy McKenzie, who submitted their replies jointly.

ALIGN: Could you tell us a little about yourself with everyone? Who you are, where you’re located, and what you do? How many people do you have working for you?

Scott and Christy McKenzie: We are Scott and Christy McKenzie, editors of Flip City Magazine, an independent quarterly comics and satire print magazine (described by comics luminary Mike Baron as "funnier than MAD or Cracked"), which we have published out of our remote home office in the Southern California mountains since 2020.

Every issue is packed with TV and movie parodies, comics, stories, interviews that don't insult your intelligence. We've hosted and published over 40 writers and illustrators to date. While we bill ourselves as "America's Last Laugh," we have contributors from Sydney to Scotland to SAF.

Flip City Magazine

A: What inspired the creation of the magazine?

S&C: We were coming off a D-list movie project that went sideways. I needed a project into which I could dump every nugget of gold (or, alternately, flaming turd) idea that passed through my head, and this was the best format.

Smart satire magazines had phased out by the early '90s in favor of men's lifestyle mags, leaving a void that nobody thought was worth filling. I don't think anybody has known what to do, with no reason to revive a passé format just to compete for crumbs with the remnants of MAD, publishing more lifeless corporate comedy and Trump hate.

But to resurrect it as a tool of counterculture, that has value. A free America has to have a satire magazine that's independent and essentially populist.

And it's only going to happen here from the looks of things. We are now, as Cracked editor Mort Todd put it, "the world's only satire magazine," for all "in tents and porpoises."

A: What were your influences?

S&C: Early on, Saturday morning cartoons and color Sunday funnies. Which if you missed out on those days, that was some good times, with your bowl of cereal. Later, Cracked Magazine and MAD, "The Dr. Demento Show" for the funniest songs, and in the 1990s, alternative comics publishers like Fantagraphics. "The Book of the Subgenius" might have radicalized me.

A: Can you explain a little bit about the ideas process? How long does it take to go from pen to page?

S&C: It might take a couple of days to write the better part of a feature or a parody once I've got an angle. "Joker 2" (Vol. 23) was a musical parody with five songs, and I took my time to get it right. Readers who expect to hate musicals said they were pleasantly surprised. A musical parody is a delicate thing that can go wrong in so many ways, much like "Joker 2." I'll pass it on to one of our tremendous illustrator talents like Ben Sullivan or Dangerous Dave MacDowell, and they'll reliably send back something that kills.

A: It’s pretty safe to say a more progressive element of the left has had something resembling ideological dominance over the entertainment industry for the last 10 years or so. Did you find it hard to find an audience?

S&C: We were fortunate enough to have a couple of YouTube advocates early on to get us going.

We initially offered Vol. 1 in digital format or in a short print run, and subscribers overwhelmingly chose print. So there is still plenty of demand for physical media.

However, there are plenty of platforms and influencers on the right who wouldn't touch us. And the reason is that they can't control our message, and many don't want to take any chances at upsetting their viewers or advertisers.

Flip City Magazine

Most notably at the beginning was the Babylon Bee, who dubbed us "too edgy and vulgar" to advertise with them, which is entirely their prerogative. Although at the time, we were fairly clean. It's the world that's vulgar. It's a dark, yucky world that has to be made fun of. But that's not our fault.

People love to complain about the lack of alternative culture but Flip City is actually a solution. It heaps ridicule on people who deserve it, without being preachy. It's the kind of cultural thing that people are literally asking for all the time. And it can be a huge thing and sway hearts and minds if people get behind it, support it, and subscribe. It's just a good old-fashioned, all-American, funny mag, y'all.

A: As a Brit, I envy your First Amendment. My home country is awash with laws and regulations regarding the online regulation of speech. A recent investigation revealed that an average of 12,000 people are arrested each year for sending "grossly offensive" messages on the internet. Have you run into any problems or faced backlash over any controversial issues? Does the threat of cancel culture worry you guys?

S&C: Only subscription cancellations. They seem to peak when we poke the wrong sacred cow. I think our heritage subscribers have been conditioned by now to expect anything and trust us.

New readers aren't sure what they're going to get. They see a slick magazine and assume it must lean left because they've never seen anything else. And I think many are hesitant to believe it could be genuinely funny, despite praise from luminaries like Quite Frankly and James Corbett, because of the right's track record on comedy. So you can't blame them.

A: Do you consider yourself to be an equal-opportunity offender? Are there any targets on the right that you would think would be perfect to send up?

S&C: We've done bits about Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk, and recently a Conservative Blowhard mini-magazine with columns by Tim Poolboy and Jack Poachposobiec. It's clearly a goof on establishment gatekeepers and "Conservative, Incorporated," as many call it. But it probably cost us some readers.

Sometimes, people don't get the joke and think you're the enemy. Everybody's looking for a tell that you don't agree with them about everything. We don't mind shedding readers, to a point. We want the best and the brightest readers.

George Caleb Bingham: The Jolly Flatboatmen (1846) | National Gallery of Art

A: I’ve read a bunch of your spoof pieces, and I have to say, your parodies special edition had me laughing so much — it was hilarious! With all the endless political pandering and progressive messages crowbarred into mainstream culture, would you say Hollywood has become a parody of itself?

S&C: Thanks! Ben Sullivan is a parody illustrator on par with the greats and really deserves to be recognized. Hopefully, our upcoming print edition of the Parodies will get him more attention.

The industry may be a self-parody, but that doesn't make it beyond parody. As long as it sucks, there will be a way to goof on it. A satire-proof utopia is unlikely in our lifetimes.

A: It's been 10 years since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, when Islamic terrorists shot and killed 12 people for publishing a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammed. Is there any subject matter off limits?

S&C: We're not looking for that kind of action, though we do make fun of Antifa quite a bit, so we shouldn't let our guard down.

Nobody wants to hear this, but the limits are determined by what people are willing to pay to read. There is no monolithic block of free-speech absolutists. People will weaponize their dollars against you if your hot takes start to annoy them, and they'll go spend that money on Sydney Sweeney jeans just to show you. You could even make the argument that Flip City is being held hostage by the very readers we sought to entertain! For which the only remedy is more subscribers, to loosen the chokehold of these elitists over our content. And now you see how a print subscription is basically a win for democracy.

A: Comedy is a powerful medium with which to challenge elite power. The ruling class doesn't like to be mocked. It is claimed that Stalin sent 200,000 people in the USSR to the Gulag for making jokes about him and the communist regime. In a recent episode, "South Park" turned its attention to Republican Kristi Noem. How do you think leading politicians should react?

S&C: I think a zero-tolerance policy would yield the best results. We're talking FBI raids, enhanced interrogation methods. Find out who they are really working for. Possible ballistic missile strikes on their Culver City studio. Matt and Trey go to CECOT.

Also Stephen Colbert, he should be crushed under our regime's iron fist and his bones ground into powder to fertilize our crops.

A: What can we expect to see for the rest of 2025?

S&C: Our Best of the Parodies 80-page special edition goes on pre-sale starting September 1 on our website, featuring the brilliant work of Ben Sullivan and our send-ups of "The Walking Dead," "Stranger Things," "Star Trek: Picard," "The Mandalorian," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and more! We're also working on new animated cartoons based on our parodies for 2026.

Pistol-packing rabbi targets anti-Semitism in action flick 'Guns & Moses'

Director Salvador Litvak brought "Guns & Moses" to a Jewish film festival in Atlanta earlier this year, and an audience member gave him an earful.

The film follows Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein), who becomes proficient in using firearms after a gunman targets his synagogue.

'Now, in the Jewish community, the term "survivor" has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel].'

"I don't have a question. I have a statement. ... This is not what we need. This is not how we fight — with guns. We fight with a pen," Litvak recalls the woman telling him during a post-screening Q&A.

"Ma'am, I 100% agree with you. Articles, editorials, speeches. We need to be doing that the best that we can to fight anti-Semitism and to build alliances with our friends and supporters," Litvak told her.

"But when a bad guy enters a synagogue intent on killing people, then you need a guy like me and a guy like Rabbi Mo ... to stand between you and that would-be murderer," he continued.

Protect and serve

Litvak, an Orthodox Jew, is part of Magen Am, a volunteer security organization that trains Jews to protect their communities.

"The crowd applaude. ... You could see it was so difficult for her," the "Saving Lincoln" filmmaker said about the exchange.

Pictures from the Fringe/Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

"Guns & Moses" — co-starring Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney, and Christopher Lloyd — offers a timely look at Jews fighting back via the Second Amendment. Litvak, who co-wrote the film with wife Nina Litvak, wrapped production before the Oct. 7 attacks.

The Jewish community already understood all too well the threats against it. Post-October 7, the film's sobering message hits harder.

'Good and meaningful'

Litvak says he decided to make a thriller as his next feature back in 2019. He began watching a classic thriller every day to study the best of the best. Then he read about a California synagogue shooting that killed member Lori Gilbert-Kaye.

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein survived the assault but lost two fingers in the melee. Litvak later interviewed the rabbi.

Goldstein had asked people to make something “good and meaningful” from the tragedy, the director recalls.

"I was very moved by that," he said, and "Guns & Moses" was born.

Fear of faith

The director assembled a sturdy cast, including veteran thesp Lloyd, who plays a Holocaust survivor. Litvak landed on the "Back to the Future" alum — who hired a dialect coach to get his Eastern European accent just right — after being rejected by a series of "very big names of a certain age."

"This older Hollywood [community] is very afraid of faith. ... It's like a peanut allergy for them," said Litvak, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust.

He faced more roadblocks while sharing the rough cut around Hollywood. He recalls screening the footage for a "big agent" who predicted the film would clean up on streaming platforms.

Litvak gently told him he saw the title as a theatrical release, adding that the film's audience will be not just Jewish patrons but Christians and conservatives.

"What are you talking about? Those people hate Jews," he recalls the agent saying.

"My jaw was on the floor. ... Have you ever met the people you fly over? Obviously, you don't know them. I know they support the Jewish people. I don't think this is news."

Shattering stereotypes

The exchange stuck with Litvak.

"This guy is so out of touch. Hollywood in general is so out of touch with half of America," he said.

He hopes "Guns & Moses," which opens in cinemas today, shows the power of self-defense in uncertain times. He also wants the movie to shatter Jewish stereotypes.

"It's a faith-based movie. It's an action thriller, which isn't a typical genre within the faith-based [genre]. It's about an orthodox rabbi who takes his faith seriously. ... It's not about a nebbishy or neurotic Jew,' he said.

"[Judaism] is a beautiful tradition that has so much to share. It's very important to us to smash those stereotypes."

"Guns & Moses" takes firearm training seriously. It's not a matter of showing the hero knocking over a few tin cans in a slick montage.

"In the real world — God forbid you're ever under pressure and in danger and you have to draw a firearm and use it — to hit the bad guy and not hit innocent people ... takes not just skill but muscle memory," he said.

'Never again,' again

The film's subject matter meant Litvak's team had to work around the Hollywood system, not benefit from it.

"We knew that no studio was going to make this movie," he said. What he couldn't foresee was a massacre on the scale that Hamas committed two years ago.

Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"We always thought [the topic] would be relevant. ... Now, in the Jewish community, the term 'survivor' has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel]," he says.

That, plus the "overt" anti-Semitism on college campuses nationwide, rocked him.

"It was at least considered inappropriate or impolite to call for the death of Jews on national TV," he said. "Democrats will not walk back support for 'globalize the intifada,'" he added, alluding to New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.

"We're living in such times," he said. "'Never again' means we have to take responsibility for our safety."

Dean Cain scores with family-friendly sports flick 'Little Angels'

Dean Cain’s father gave his son valuable advice at the dawn of his Hollywood career.

“Don’t tell too much about yourself in interviews. Let them watch you on screen,” Cain recalls his father, veteran director Christopher Cain (“Young Guns,” “Pure Country”), sharing with him at the start of his Hollywood career.

'My closest friends are teammates from Princeton,' he says. 'I know what they’re made of. ... You learn so much about people by being teammates with them.'

Dean Cain heeded Dad’s wisdom … to a point.

Cain learned firsthand the inequities of the nation’s divorce laws while fighting for joint custody of his then-young son. Later, he traveled the globe and gained perspective on his home country’s woes.

It’s why he started speaking up on important issues and sharing his right-leaning views. It also explains his pivot to independent film projects over the past decade.

“I’m sure it affected my career,” Cain tells Align of his political views. It’s a risk he was willing to take. “Not speaking up is crazy to me. … If you have something to say, speak the truth and hopefully make the world a better place.”

From Superman to soccer coach

Cain continues to work steadily on film and TV projects, from faith-kissed stories (“God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust”) to his latest feature, an underdog sports story he wrote and directed.

“Little Angels" opened nationwide earlier this month and continues to expand to new theaters — thanks to a feature on its website allowing users to request a screening in their area.

The movie finds Cain playing a disgraced football coach forced to oversee a girls' soccer team. It’s the ultimate indignity for his character until he sets his mind to turning this ragtag bunch of athletes into winners.

Cain’s fans may find his foray into screenwriting surprising, but he’s been telling stories ever since he was a boy. The “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” alum recalls his father nudging him to tap his creative side.

A writer at heart

“My dad started me as a writer,” Cain recalls, and he warmed to the task. “We’d go on vacation at our ranch house, and when it was raining, instead of watching TV I’d make up stories about our family.”

He later wrote episodes of “Lois & Clark,” but his bustling acting career took precedence. “The demands on my time were intense,” he recalls.

“Little Angels” allowed him to tap into that skill set, and along the way he leaned on the classic writing maxim.

Write what you know.

Pinnacle Peak Pictures

Team player

Cain was a first-team All-American and two-time first-team All-Ivy for Princeton in the late 1980s and had a brief NFL career with the Buffalo Bills before a knee injury ended his gridiron dreams. He also ran track at Princeton and was its volleyball captain.

He assembled his youthful cast amid pandemic restrictions, forcing him to skip chemistry reads and trust his instincts. The young girls bonded on the set, becoming faux teammates and real friends along the way.

Cain knows the feeling.

“My closest friends are teammates from Princeton,” he says. “I know what they’re made of, what they’re like in stressful situations. I know what their characters are like. You learn so much about people by being teammates with them.”

“It’s akin to what happens in the movie. They learn to stick up for each other,” he adds.

'Truth, justice, and the American way'

Cain’s “Superman” days remain an indelible part of his legacy, and he remains invested in the character. He’s hoping James Gunn’s “Superman,” opening July 11, captures the Man of Steel he modeled his own performance on — the "aw, shucks" Christopher Reeve version seen in four films.

Lou Perez

“He’s my Superman,” he says of the late actor, who captured the essence of the DC Comics superhero, a fictional character who means plenty to Cain. “He is truth and justice and the American way. That is really important. Hard work. Dedication. Being honorable. … I know it’s cynical now, but it still plays and resonates with many.”

“Little Angels” marks Cain’s feature-length directorial debut, but he’s been soaking up information from film sets for decades.

“I watched [my dad] go through his process as a director. He’d have to make his movies on a shoestring budget,” he says, adding that family members helped flesh out scenes along the way. He recalls his uncle holding a boom mic to make some scenes possible.

“I’ve always been around it,” he says of the filmmaking craft. Now, he can’t wait to do it again.

“I’m hooked. I want to keep doing it,” he says. “I like the process. It didn’t feel much like work.”

'Naked Gun' creator David Zucker offers 'Crash' course in comedy

David Zucker helped invent the kitchen-sink approach to film satire.

The co-writer/director of 1980’s “Airplane!” hurled gag after gag at audiences until they couldn’t help but howl. Puns. Sight gags. Pop culture Easter eggs.

He recalls a female studio executive objecting to a bit about a female officer getting a breast reduction to fit into her Kevlar vest.

If one joke didn’t land, the next three would.

Ted Striker: Surely you can’t be serious.
Rumack: I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.

Zucker added to his legacy with “Top Secret!” (1984), the “Naked Gun” trilogy, and more satirical smashes. Even a rare failure, the six-run episode of 1982’s “Police Squad!” is considered a TV classic following its cruel cancellation.

Now, he wants to share the blueprint behind those laugh-a-minute romps.

'Gun' grabbers

The upcoming “MasterCrash: A Crash Course in Spoof Comedy” lets the comedy legend expound on the tricks of his hilarious trade.

“One thing we learned ... is it starts with the characters. The audience has to be invested in your characters,” Zucker says.

The online course came to him after he got rejected by Hollywood, Inc. for his “Naked Gun 4” script.

“Paramount liked it ... but suddenly we didn’t hear anything,” Zucker tells Align about the project. “I woke up [one day] to read Seth [MacFarlane of ‘Family Guy’ fame] had come and taken over the franchise.”

The results? “The Naked Gun,” starring Liam Neeson as the son of the character played by Leslie Nielsen in the original trilogy. The reboot/sequel hits theaters in August.

'There’s a discipline behind it'

Zucker is skeptical of the upcoming film, and that’s putting it mildly.

“[MacFarlane] doesn’t know how to do it. He can do ‘Ted’ and ‘Family Guy,’” Zucker said, cautioning that his signature style (along with collaborators like Pat Proft, the late Jim Abrahams, brother Jerry Zucker, and Mike McManus) is harder than it looks. “It may seem like we’re zany and crazy, but there’s a discipline behind it.”

The course might even inspire the next generation of satirists, assuming they take copious notes.

“You can’t teach people how to write comedy, but you can stop them from wasting time thinking they know how to do it,” he says.

Zucker can laugh about the Paramount snub now. His legacy is secure, and he has faith in his approach to humor. His films age well, including Val Kilmer’s lead turn in “Top Secret!” He doesn’t like being a victim, either.

“I don’t take it myself seriously,” he adds.

"Everywhere I look, something reminds me of her." Don Bartletti/Getty Images

Joke police

Zucker recalls the dawn of his satirical approach.

“We’d watch serious B movies and dub in our own voices,” he says of his formative years, captured in the ‘70s-era “Kentucky Fried Theater Show” in L.A.

“That stage show was a live laboratory for us to develop our style,” he says of his comic companions. The showcase became 1977’s cult hit “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” helmed by a then-unknown director named John Landis (“Animal House,” “An American Werewolf in London”).

Zucker’s brand of comedy might dabble in blue bits, but he eschews profanity and often works below the R-rated radar. He still ran afoul of the woke mind virus in recent years, particularly while pitching his “Naked Gun 4” script.

The screenplay spoofs the “Bourne” films and “Mission: Impossible” saga far more than police procedurals. It’s his chance to acknowledge the “Naked Gun” legacy while moving on to fresh satirical targets.

He recalls a female studio executive objecting to a bit about a female officer getting a breast reduction to fit into her Kevlar vest.

“It was such a mild joke, and she said, ‘I don’t know if you can do that.’ We just rolled our eyes,” Zucker recalls.

He says audiences are ready, willing, and able to laugh at big-screen comedies again as woke fades to black. Studio boardrooms aren’t on the same page, he adds.

“These are frightened people beholden to stockholders or big-time owners,” he says. It’s one reason he’s going the independent route for his next big-screen comedy, a film noir spoof, “The Star of Malta,” that he hopes to begin shooting in the fall.

Nakedly conservative

He’s also keen on reviving a repurposed “Naked Gun 4” script as his follow-up project.

Zucker’s inimitable style, seen most recently in the “Scary Movie” franchise, isn’t all that sets him apart from his peers.

The 77-year-old is one of the rare openly conservative artists working in Hollywood. He’s hardly as vocal as a George Clooney or Jon Voight on Beltway matters, but he leaned into his political views for the 2008 comedy “An American Carol.” The satire poked fun at Michael Moore and liberal sacred cows.

Hollywood often punishes artists for embracing the right, but Zucker isn’t sure if his views ever dampened his career.

Zucker recalls working with producer Bob Weinstein (Harvey's younger brother), whom he jokingly describes as “to the left of Castro,” on three “Scary Movie” sequels. (Zucker directed numbers 3 and 4 and co-wrote number 5).

“When it came to hiring a director, he knew that I was able to do it and I could do it well,” he says. “Bob has always been very supportive and always had faith in me. He didn’t care about the politics.”

'Generation COVID' bears witness to devastating toll of school closings

Jennifer Sey is an ex-gymnast, but she spent years swimming against the tide.

The former national champion once blew the whistle on abuse within the sport, a position she says drew plenty of internal fire. Powerful gymnastic voices dubbed her a “grifter and a liar,” Sey recalls to Align, long before the general public learned of horrifying cases like convicted predator Larry Nassar.

'I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that.'

She recalls receiving threatening voicemails at work from the head of USA Gymnastics, too.

“The sporting community really attacked me, teammates [did, too] … even the head of Gymnastics Australia tried to take me down,” Sey recalls of abuses chronicled in her memoir, “Chalked Up.”

The experience “strengthened my resolve,” she says.

From Levis exec to 'radical'

Jennifer Sey

Years later, Sey sat in a comfortable position as a Levi’s executive when another injustice forced her to speak out. She watched with alarm as leaders kept kids locked out of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That stance eventually forced her exit from Levi’s corporate team and branded her a radical in the eyes of some pandemic hardliners. Years later, Sey’s position has been more than vindicated. Legacy media outlets confirm the damage done to students who couldn’t participate in school during the pandemic.

The cost of quarantine

Except she’s not willing to forgive and forget. She’s the driving force behind an upcoming documentary “Generation COVID,” focused on the innocents caught in the bureaucratic crossfire.

The film lets children share what they endured during the pandemic. Suicide attempts. Lost collegiate scholarships. Drug overdoses. Scholastic declines. Weight gain. Loneliness.

“It’s heartbreaking and devastating,” she says of those on-camera revelations. “I can’t tell you how many of the interviews I ended up crying and needed to collect myself.”

Sey’s children suffered, too.

“It’s why we moved to Colorado from San Francisco,” she says, recalling how one of her children went from being a boisterous kid to one who was “distant and lethargic.”

“I want him to establish a love of learning ... it broke my heart,” she says.

Rewriting history

She’s furious to see some who helped shutter schools attempt to rewrite history on the subject, like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“They’re such liars ... it’s all so well-documented,” she says. “How do they have the gall to lie about their role?”

“Nobody was fighting for the children,” she adds.

“Generation COVID” features sizable input from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now the Director of the National Institutes of Health. The film also eschews partisan politics, featuring voices across the political spectrum with a focus on the facts.

“It’s not at all meant to be political but document what happened and hear from the kids directly,” he says.

Distributor wanted

The film still needs a distributor, a complication that plays into our political divide.

“Right-wing conservative platforms talked about COVID for a while, but it’s played out. Mainstream left-leaning platforms aren’t ready for this ... it puts us in a difficult spot,” she says.

The film’s message may be more relevant than many realize. She name-checks bird flu woes and housing “migrants” in public schools as examples of modern-day school concerns.

“The ‘Closed Schools’ [approach] is now a tool in the tool box. We close them at the bat of an eye,” she says. “There’s a portion of the left and the community that says if we just did it better and locked down harder, it would have worked out better.”

Sey acknowledges one political fallout from the lockdowns — a higher number of young voters flocked to President Donald Trump in the last election. She says one of the young men featured in “Generation COVID” “will not forgive and forget” how the lockdowns impacted his life, including extreme weight gain and the possible loss of a football scholarship.

He's not alone.

“I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that,” she says.

Built for the fight

Sey isn’t done fighting. Last year, she created the XX-XY Athletics brand, dedicated to defending women’s sports. The case of trans swimmer Lia Thomas versus Riley Gaines made national headlines in recent years and epitomizes Sey's battle.

She’s pleased by President Trump’s executive orders protecting women’s sports but understands more work needs to be done. Consider the recent case of Natalie Daniels, a five-time marathon winner and mom who got kicked out of her running club on the dawn of the Boston Marathon for speaking out against trans women in women’s sports.

“She’s the kindest, sweetest, most gentle human,” Sey says of Daniels, who was targeted by activists who Sey says tried to track her whereabouts during the imbroglio. “It’s a reminder of how far we have to go … she was bullied to the point of almost retracting her comments.”

“That’s what we’re up against. I’m not gonna let an unhinged, screaming minority intimidate me,” she says. “Eighty percent of Americans agree [with me].”

Few fights are harder than what Sey already endured as a young athlete.

“The physical pain and suffering inflicted on me, eating 300 calories and working out eight hours a day ... call me any names you want, I can take it,” she says. “Nothing will ever be that hard.”

BlazeTV's Dave Landau battles demons with darkly funny 'Party of One'

Dave Landau is an open book on stage.

The “Normal World” star shares hilarious tales from his self-destructive youth. Hear a few and an uncomfortable thought comes to mind once the laughter subsides.

'You can fall down a lot, and you have to learn to get back up ... it took me so long to learn that lesson,' he says. 'Even 13 arrests didn’t stop me from drinking and enjoying drugs.'

It’s a miracle he’s still alive.

Now, he’s sharing how close he came to becoming a drug statistic in his new, sobering book, “Party of One: A Fuzzy Memoir.” The autobiography details Landau’s troubled childhood, from his father’s extended cancer fight to his many brushes with the law.

It’s darkly comic and often laugh-out-loud funny, but Landau isn’t content with making readers howl. He hopes his story might help others conquer their demons, too.

Inadvertently helpful

“I had to relive it and let it go and forgive myself. That’s the hardest thing in the world for me,” Landau tells Align about writing “Party of One.” “It’s hokey, but it could help anybody who might be struggling ... the more you know you’re not alone, the better it is ... being more open, you inadvertently help people.”

Landau wrote the bulk of the book during the pandemic, but he wasn’t ready to share it just yet.

“It’s really personal to me,” he says, and he wanted to make sure the people chronicled in “Party of One” understood the purpose behind the book. “I decided it was finally time to let the world know, at least my fans know about it.”

Some passages may feel familiar to those who have addicts in their families. Others will be shocking no matter one’s background.

“You can fall down a lot, and you have to learn to get back up ... it took me so long to learn that lesson,” he says. “Even 13 arrests didn’t stop me from drinking and enjoying drugs.”

The book, co-written with Jon Wiederhorn, shares how his comedic instincts steered him toward sobriety.

From Detroit to Dallas

Landau made videos as a younger man and obsessed over sketch comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.” His father would wake him up as a teen to watch “SNL” together. He later connected with Second City’s Detroit chapter. That’s the famed improv network that gave birth to stars like Gilda Radner, Amy Poehler, and John Belushi.

“It gave me an outlet I never had before,” he says, noting his family and friends urged him on. Now, he creates comedy on the fly with Blaze Media’s “Normal World” alongside co-host ¼ Black Garrett.

“It has its little cult audience that’s getting bigger. It’s nice to watch something grow,” he says. “Being able to do sketch [comedy] after growing up with sketch [comedy] is a highlight of my life.”

“Party of One” lets him connect with that growing fan base, something that’s increasingly common in today’s comedy world. Comedy fans feel familiar with today’s stand-up stars, a bond forged from on-stage routines, podcasts, and social media.

It’s one reason pundits say President Donald Trump used appearances on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and other comedy podcasts to retake the White House.

“You feel like you’re a part of somebody’s life ... it’s another reason to put out my book. Why hide it?” he asks.

Fair game

Landau is similarly open about his political views. He’s embraced elements of the modern right over the years, working to keep himself above the tribal fray at the same time. His philosophy? Everyone is fair game.

In the process, he educated himself on the political scene, eager to be more precise in his commentary.

“I started having to read the news every day ... things became more clear to me,” he says.

He spent months working alongside “Opie & Anthony” alum Anthony Cumia, who wasn’t shy about his right-leaning views. Landau paid an accidental price for that.

“People would attack me for doing nothing. Friends turned on me [for] a political ideology I wasn’t even sharing. I was just next to it,” he says of his formerly left-leaning persona. That also happened when he later teamed with conservative comedian Steven Crowder.

Those partnerships took their toll.

Late-night pariah

“I paid a lot to be where I am now,” he says. Many roles and opportunities dry up when you so much as empathize with the right, he says.

“I wasn’t going to get on late night, ever,” he adds of mainstream programs like CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” He did flip the script on Hollywood Inc. by appearing on Fox News’ late-night smash “Gutfeld!”

The repercussions didn’t stop with his professional life.

“I lost friends,” he says before suggesting they weren’t real friends in the first place. “People show their true colors. ... That’s part of this business. It’s not always very pleasant.”

Slammin' Sammy Swindell, the fiercest driver dirt racing has ever seen

Sammy Swindell is a race car driver, a motorsports legend. So naturally, I wanted his opinion on Mario Kart.

"Mario Kart?” he asks, either amused or annoyed; it’s hard to tell with Sammy. “Yeah, I’ve played a little. But racing video games don’t feel real. They don’t give you the full-body experience."

'When the car gets off the ground, you’re not really in control. So I’m trying to figure out where I’m at and where I’m going. I try to get back in control.'

He means it when he describes racing as a full-body experience. His aggressive driving style is what earned him the nickname “Slammin'.”

Precision at any speed

Few figures in sprint car racing command the same level of respect as Sammy Swindell. His work uniform has at various times included sponsorships from STP and Hooters. NASCAR described him as “arguably one of the greatest sprint car drivers ever.”

Born in Bartlett, Tennessee, in 1955, Swindell built a career on raw speed, mechanical precision, and an unmatched competitive fire.

He first turned heads in the 1970s, making a name for himself on dirt ovals across the country. But it was in the World of Outlaws circuit where he cemented his legacy.

Over five decades, Swindell has collected hundreds of victories, multiple championships, and a reputation as one of the most talented — if sometimes polarizing — figures in open-wheel racing.

As motorsports site the Driver’s Project notes: “It doesn’t matter if you love him or hate him, when Sammy Swindell shows up at a racetrack, things always get more interesting.”

I chatted with Sammy in early February. He has a reputation for being dry, almost hostile, but as he’s said many times, racing is his job, and he builds his own cars. Most of the time, when someone approaches him, he’s distracted by work. And it happens a lot; in the racing world, he’s a celebrity.

Swindell at the 1987 Indianapolis 500. Photo courtesy Sammy Swindell

Track tactician

He was more friendly than I expected, but focused, his Tennessee drawl leavened with the stoicism of an engineer-minded athlete. He smiled and laughed a few times but quickly returned to his gravitas.

Halfway through our chat, I realized he’s not grumpy — he’s analytical.

"I've got to meet a lot of really, really smart people," Swindell tells me. He learned a lot from his friend Henry "Smokey" Yunick, the legendary stock car driver, mechanic, engineer, and tactician.

And that’s the word I’ve been grasping for: tactician.

Toward the end of our interview, he showed his cards a little.

I mentioned that in any sport, once you win the biggest prize, everyone studies exactly how you did it — your equipment, your methods, everything is exposed. And the test after that is whether you can win again once everyone else catches up.

Swindell has done this repeatedly. How?

"Part of it is just to keep as much as you can to yourself," he says. "And sometimes, you throw things to make them look somewhere else when the important stuff is over there."

Giant among 'midgets'

I first attended the Chili Bowl Nationals in 2024 while writing a story for Frontier magazine. I fell in love with the chaos and fervor of the event —the Super Bowl of dirt-track racing, drawing 20,000 people to Tulsa from all over the world.

Swindell at this year's Chili Bowl. Brendan Bauman, courtesy of Sammy Swindell

The indoor midget car race is a brutal test of skill, where conditions change every lap and drivers claw their way through deep fields just to make the main event.

This January, I returned for the 39th annual Chili Bowl, and Swindell was there, as always, drawing a crowd everywhere he walked.

He’s comfortable with the racing press. Once, during a live interview, he paused mid-sentence to bark at someone, “Come back here, you little pisser, POS!”

Swindell has won the Chili Bowl Nationals a record five times, a feat that cements him as one of the greatest dirt racers of all time.

Bryan Hulbert, a motorsports legend in his own right and the Chili Bowl’s announcer, told me that “Sammy’s legacy helped make the Chili Bowl what it is today.”

His dominance as a driver and car owner set the bar higher for everyone racing against him. Hulbert said Swindell’s “ingenuity in car design was ahead of its time,” with others only now starting to catch up. The same goes for sprint car racing — Swindell has “contributed more to the performance and engineering side of the sport than most realize.”

Dirt-track dynasty

Swindell’s father served as president of the club that ran the races around Memphis.

At 15, Sammy began his own racing career at Riverside International Speedway, winning in just his third race.

He won six races that first season. By then, he was already moving through different classes — sprint cars, modifieds, late models — anything with wheels and an engine.

"I looked at it as a job," he tells me. "The better I did, the more rewards I got. More sponsors, more money. It was just about putting everything I had into it to be the best."

Swindell spent two years in college studying physics and engineering before committing to racing full-time.

His mechanical instincts gave him an edge over competitors, as he built and fine-tuned his own cars. "I want the car to do the work, and I just guide it. If you can set your car up to do things others can’t, passing them is easy."

A three-time World of Outlaws champion (1981, 1982, 1997), Swindell was a dominant force in sprint car racing for decades.

Despite his intense, no-nonsense approach on the track, his impact extended beyond his own career. He shaped modern sprint car racing through his innovations and mentorship of younger drivers.

Hulbert observes that Swindell “races everyone hard, but not as hard as he raced his son, Kevin.”

Hulbert recalls their first-second finish at the Chili Bowl — his first time announcing the event — and compared it to the fierce battles between brothers, where rivalries produce “some of the most brutal racing you’ll ever see.”

That race came down to the final lap, and Swindell “made his son earn every bit of that win and then some.”

The only other time Hulbert had seen Swindell race with that level of intensity was against Steve Kinser, a rivalry that defined an era of sprint car racing.

Crash course

Crashes are a part of racing. Sprint cars flip. They land hard. Steering wheels and rubber can launch into the bleachers, right over chain link and beer cans.

But Swindell treats wrecks as he treats the rest of racing: as a problem to be solved.

"When the car gets off the ground, you’re not really in control. So I’m trying to figure out where I’m at and where I’m going. I try to get back in control."

He leans toward impacts rather than tensing up. "Some guys try to fight it, but you can’t. You just have to go with the flow."

It’s the same mentality he brings to racing in general.

At 69, Swindell still carries the same philosophy: Win, then move on to the next one. "I never thought of quitting. If I had a bad night, I just wanted to figure it out and do better."

I asked him if time slows down in a crash.

"Yeah, sometimes it seems like it takes a half hour, but it’s only a few seconds," he says. "The whole time, I’m just trying to gain control again, or whatever control I might have to make it stop or make it slow down or make it easier on myself and the car."

He pauses.

"I don’t know, maybe that’s just me. I don’t really hear too many people talk about that stuff — what they do in a crash. But yeah, I’m trying to get back in control."

The education of failure

When asked about the races or particular nights he often revisits, Sammy Swindell paused thoughtfully, considering the many tracks he's conquered. He reflected that each victory carries its unique memory, shaped by subtle differences from track to track.

Early in his career with the World of Outlaws, Sammy developed an analytical approach. "I'd look at a new track and ask myself what it reminded me of. If it resembled another place where I'd done well, I'd start with that familiar setup." Yet he emphasized that each track, no matter how similar at first glance, has distinct characteristics — corners, radius, banking — that must be mastered individually.

When our conversation shifted to the emotions tied to winning — the celebratory moments exiting the car, hoisting trophies, or holding oversized checks — Sammy offered an intriguing insight.

“Winning simplifies things," he explained. "It means you're not scrambling to repair the car. Your job becomes basic maintenance, setting up for the next race."

Conversely, a poor performance sends him into a meticulous review, examining missteps and setups gone wrong.

“You learn more from the nights things don't go right," Sammy noted thoughtfully. "You discover what's off. It's easier to make mistakes than it is to get everything exactly right."

I found Sammy's perspective refreshing, particularly since many racers admit winning adds pressure to repeat success. But Sammy sees it differently. For him, victory isn't an added burden; it's confirmation that he's met his goal.

"Winning never felt like pressure," Sammy said. "It was always the aim. Once I achieved it, the tension lifted. The next night was simply another chance to do it again."

'Four Against the West' goes behind the legend of Judge Roy Bean — and his three brothers

Joe Pappalardo writes history the way it should be written — loud, unruly, drenched in blood and whiskey, peppered with characters who refuse to be forgotten.

His latest book, “Four Against the West: The True Saga of a Frontier Family That Reshaped the Nation — and Created a Legend,” continues this legacy. It follows the four Bean brothers — Roy, Sam, James, and Joshua — who each left their mark on the Old West, navigating battlefields, courtrooms, and saloons, somehow able to bounce around the Wild West at its most unruly.

'More reporting is always the answer. If you’re in a jam, call another expert, pull another record, find another angle.'

Roy Bean, famously dubbed “the Law West of the Pecos,” may be the most recognizable of the bunch, and while the book opens with him, Pappalardo makes it clear that the real story is a family saga, not just a single outlaw-turned-lawman myth, although navigating that mythology is a huge part of the fun.

“I thought, let’s do a quadruple biography, candy-cane their experiences together,” Pappalardo told me. “You’ve got a pretty good book that really covers everything about the Old West — the Santa Fe Trail, California, New Mexico, the Civil War, the Mexican-American War. How could you go wrong?”

Just tell the story

I caught up with Pappalardo in early February, three months into his book promotion tour, fresh from a lecture taping for C-SPAN.

As a nonfiction author, Pappalardo captures the enormity of life with cinematic grit, even in his account of the history of the sunflower. What you get when you read his books is writing that breathes, scenes full of motion, carried by sentences that are fun to read.

It’s full of vivid passages like this one, the kind that lift you into the beauty and commotion:

The steamboat creeps innocently upriver, sternwheel churning a wake that shimmers in the moonlight. The vessel is loaded with passengers from New Orleans, where an insidious disease is emerging among recent immigrants there. And some on board, destined for the docks at Kansas City, are contagious.

It’s readable without losing the mysterious vitality of literature. In an era of gimmickry, Pappalardo achieves a forgotten maxim among writers: “Just tell the damn story.”

Pappalardo eschews the jumbled postmodern approach, where time is scattered into shards of disassembled events, for the river-like flow of a sequence in natural order. Better yet, he scripts the historical account in present tense, so the movement feels constant. This intensifies the animating spirit of the era, growing in the reader with each turn of the page: go west, go west, go west.

Manifest destiny

Details. Richness. Scenery. Color. The blood of existence. You get access to the thoughts and feelings and secrets of the characters. Immediately, you’re pulled into their minds, even their souls.

But while “Four Against the West” reads like fiction, all of it has been meticulously verified, woven so nimbly that even the footnotes feel native.

There’s so much nature, so much wildness, so much rugged earth. All the more beautiful when civilization crashes into it, punctured by slavery or cholera.

Like this passage:

Joshua Bean walks out of the Gil’s house, savoring the sunset view of the harbor, the rolling hills of the Mission Valley, and the mountains stretching off to his right. A dirt road from Old Town follows the north bank of the valley to Mission San Diego. The open land surrounding San Diego is crawling with roaming cattle, and every so often he can spot bacteria in sombreros and loose-fitting white shirts, trailing the herd on horseback or lounging in the shade of trees.

Pappalardo’s craftsmanship is silent. One device he uses, for example, is suppositional narrative — he tells us what the characters “must have” felt.

In order to pull this off, a writer has to have gathered an incredible amount of information, far more than what winds up in print.

Then he sprinkles in philosophical observations and moral principles. He captures the social and political realities that dictated the era. Commerce, education, transportation, health, leisure. Legal theory, military strategy, economic orthodoxy, religious dogma — all captured by the flux of the narrative.

Even food and drink: You taste as you read.

Granular details

There’s quite a skeletal system underneath the swirl of this long-form creative nonfiction. Pappalardo fortifies all this storytelling with data.

His background at Popular Mechanics, the Smithsonian, and the Associated Press trained him to dig deep.

“More reporting is always the answer,” he told me. “If you’re in a jam, call another expert, pull another record, find another angle.”

His approach avoids the sweeping generalizations that plague many histories. Instead, he focuses on the beautiful minutiae of the characters he resurrects.

“You learn history better when you see it through the eyes of the people who were there,” he said. That means looking at what they ate, where they drank, how they survived.

Pappalardo’s obsession with granular details led him to Roy Bean’s time in San Antonio, where the infamous judge presided over spectacle and chaos.

Law and disorder

Bean’s story proved irresistible to the anti-Hollywood postmodernists of the 1970s, filmmakers who fought the industry’s sanitized depictions of history — often at the cost of their own careers.

The real Roy Bean — born Phantley Roy Bean Jr. — was no frontier hero. He was a con artist, a rootless huckster who turned justice into a sideshow. His courtroom was a saloon, his rulings improvised, more entertainment than law.

“Roy didn’t just pass through places — he got run out of them. That tells you something.”

The self-styled "hanging judge" is often portrayed as a rough-edged arbiter of frontier justice. In reality, Pappalardo said, Bean was more of a frontier grifter than a judge. “He brought more crime and disorder to his small town than he ever supplied in law and order.”

Still, Roy Bean is the hook, and his mythology looms large.

"Four Against the West" tears down the myths of Roy Bean to reveal the man beneath: outlaw and lawman, con artist and businessman, drifter and legend.

“Roy Bean is sort of a clown later in life,” Pappalardo tells me. ”He was a pioneer for celebrities who were famous only for being celebrities. So he's a modern creation in a lot of ways. He's a modern man in that way, coming out of this frontier. And yet he is the symbol of the frontier for a lot of people.”

Assume it's a lie

When asked how much of Roy Bean’s legend he had to discard, Pappalardo was blunt: “If I didn’t know for sure, it didn’t go in.”

He said that while most of Bean’s biographers did a solid job of documenting his life, Roy himself was an unreliable narrator. “If Roy tells a story, assume it’s a lie. If his brothers contradict him, assume they’re telling the truth.”

One of the biggest revelations came from old newspapers that painted a different picture of Roy’s infamous rope burns — the supposed result of an attempted lynching.

“We don’t actually know what happened,” Pappalardo said, “but we do know he was shot while raging drunk in a store, and the newspaper basically said, ‘Good riddance.’”

That kind of detail reshapes history, giving it the rough texture of real life instead of the clean arc of a Hollywood Western.

“Four Against the West” does just that, peeling back the myth to reveal the men who lived, fought, and lost on the frontier.

In their brother's shadow

Because Roy Bean’s brothers each shaped the West in their own ways.

“At least two of them,” Pappalardo said, “are probably more historically significant than Roy.”

Sam became the first sheriff in Doña Ana County, New Mexico.

Joshua was the first mayor of American San Diego and an early militia leader.

James saw both success and failure in Missouri, where he played the role of both lawman and first responder.

Together, their lives paint a messier, more complex portrait of a time when civilization and lawlessness blurred.

That’s the history Pappalardo thrives on — the kind that sprawls beyond legend, tangled in contradictions and larger-than-life figures.

“People think these guys were shaping some grand arc of manifest destiny,” Pappalardo said. “But really, they were just trying to get by.”

A crucial breakthrough

Pappalardo spent time in New Mexico, Texas, and California, sifting through archives, walking old trails, and standing in the ruins of railroad camps.

“Going to places always delivers the best stuff,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re going to find until you crack the pages open.”

One of his biggest discoveries came in Mesilla, New Mexico, where he unearthed a never-published interview with Sam Bean. “It was huge,” he said. “There it was, the story of his falling out with Roy and how they reconciled at the end of their lives. I didn’t have an ending until I found that.”

He also spent time at Roy’s old haunts, including the ruins of his first saloon. “You know you’re in the right spot when the ground is covered in broken beer bottles,” he joked.

The forgotten Bean

Of the four brothers, James Bean is the least known, but his story struck a chord with Pappalardo. “He was Independence, Missouri’s justice of the peace, what a justice of the peace should be — unlike Roy, who was a mockery of the role.”

James had terrible luck, getting caught up in a marriage scandal and finding himself at the center of violent crimes. But he took his responsibilities seriously, acting as first responder to suicides and murders.

James' final years were spent in a poor farm, where he organized a library to give the other residents something to read.

“Even after everything that happened to him, he still had that Bean spark,” Pappalardo said. “And he made sure his story made it into the newspapers, so someone like me would find it.”

A knack for showing up

What emerges from Pappalardo’s work is not just a history of four men but a panorama of an era that refuses to sit quietly in textbooks, too often lost in the antics of fiction.

It’s raw, violent, full of schemes and ambition, and populated by men who, for better or worse, made their mark. Their stories live on, not in sanitized myth but in the dust and grit where they were truly forged.

The gift of “Four Against the West” is the cohesion it accomplishes in capturing the full story.

Despite their flaws, the Bean brothers had a knack for showing up at pivotal moments in history. Whether leading militias, running saloons, or getting tangled in gunfights, they were always in the thick of it. And while Roy Bean became the pop-culture icon, Pappalardo’s book gives his brothers their due.

“The frontier wasn’t a neat, heroic place,” Pappalardo said. “It was a mess. And these guys thrived in the mess.”

Kingstone Studios: Spreading Christ's kingdom through comic books

Art Ayris thumbs through a pile of mail on his desk, then raises several envelopes. “Here's two letters from prisoners: ‘Send us your comics.’“

Every day, Ayris, CEO of Kingstone Media, gets these requests for the Kingstone Bible — a three-volume graphic novel adaptation of the Good Book.

In America, only 7% of people have read the Bible cover to cover. 'If only 7% of people read the instruction manual for something, you’re going to have a problem,' says Aryis.

He chats by video from the headquarters of Kingstone Studios in Central Florida. Behind him are displayed posters from his various releases.

He’s lean, a lifelong jogger. With his black mustache and his shock of white hair and his striped gray shirt, he looks like an off-duty firefighter. Calm demeanor, somehow able to become passionate without losing his tone or his cool.

He tells me that the average inmate has a third-grade reading level. “They just haven't really gotten the education they need. They certainly haven't gotten the spiritual education that they need.”

He feels deeply for inmates — their blood has quite literally run through his body.

'They gave blood to save my life'

Ayris was 4 at the time. His father, a contractor, was pushing a lawn mower and didn't realize his son was behind him, when a projectile piece of wire flew from the machine, striking Ayris in the stomach.

“Then I can remember laying on the seat of the car as he's driving me to the hospital and, you know, blood coming out of my intestines.”

He arrived at the hospital in critical condition, but the real danger wasn’t just the injury — it was the rapid loss of blood. The hospital didn’t have enough.

In a desperate move, doctors reached out to the local prison. Inmates came to donate blood.

“They gave blood to save my life.”

An unlikely beginning

Ayris’ passion for comics didn’t begin in the traditional way — he wasn’t a child who spent hours drawing on everything. His mother, an accomplished artist, had passed down an appreciation for creativity, but Art’s path was far from conventional.

Growing up, he was known more for being a “rounder” in school, often suspended for his antics. Deep down, Ayris was bored with school and not interested in conventional art. Yet even as he found trouble in his youth, he also found the beginnings of something greater.

A fateful choice

Ayris comes from several generations of American soldiers, with family in both world wars. His father was a veteran. His favorite uncle died while serving as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

At 18, Ayris was ready to continue this legacy. But at the last minute, his parents urged him to go to college instead.

There, he began his lifelong soldierly role in a different kind of battle: a campaign of ideas and theories.

A deeper purpose

Ayris describes his life as one marked by torpedoes — unexpected crises that have forced him to confront his own mortality and the deeper purpose of his existence.

He recently told his wife: “When I really do drop, you’ll know it’s God’s will because He’s kept me alive through so many of these episodes.”

When he was 19, gangrene set in from his childhood injury, nearly killing him again.

“The doctors told me, ‘We have to operate immediately,’” he recalls.

But the first procedure didn’t solve the problem. As complications mounted, Ayris was given a grim prognosis: one last attempt at surgery, or he would need a colostomy.

“I was 19 years old, weighing 135 pounds — I looked like a POW,” he says. “They didn’t know if I was going to live or die.”

At Ayris' lowest point, when survival was uncertain, a Presbyterian pastor visited him in the hospital: “He shared the basics of the gospel,” Art tells me. “He walked me through it — acknowledging I was a sinner, believing Christ died for my sins, and confessing Him as my Savior. And it just made sense to me. My whole idea of living for myself seemed so stupid.”

Though the transformation didn’t happen overnight, that moment planted a seed. “It took me a while to get all the partying out of my system,” he admits. “But by my early 20s, I had fully committed my life to Christ.”

The experience of nearly losing his life imbued Ayris with a sharpened focus on eternity. “God gives us a great life here, but even the best life is so short,” he reflects. “I’ve lost friends who’ve stepped into eternity, and it’s made me realize that the next life is what I really need to prepare for.”

A born educator

Ayris' greatest talent lies in sharing knowledge. He was destined to educate.

In his 20s, he became a pastor while working full-time as a teacher and a football coach. It didn’t take long for him to confront challenges in the education system. “It was horrendous, what I saw in the public school,” he recalls.

He was hired by the only fully unionized school in the county, where fellow educators immediately pressured him to join the teachers' union. Reluctantly, he signed up.

“When I started reading those magazines from the [American Federation of Teachers] and the [National Education Association], it was like reading the manifesto of the Communist Party,” he says.

Within a year, Ayris left the union. “I didn’t care who got upset with me. I just got out.” The experience cemented his conviction that education in America needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Not long after, the church asked Ayris to leave his teaching position and join full-time ministry. “It was a good genesis,” he says, reflecting on how his path eventually led to creating comic books. “I’ve always had a conviction that Christian media should be better.”

Spreading the 'instruction manual'

While serving as a children’s pastor, Ayris noticed a concerning trend. Many of the kids he ministered to had little or no knowledge of the Bible.

Worse yet, in America, only 7% of people have read the Bible cover to cover. “If only 7% of people read the instruction manual for something, you’re going to have a problem," says Aryis.

So he set out to make the instruction manual more accessible.

He noticed that these same children were captivated by graphic novels and manga — stories that often lacked uplifting or meaningful messages. Rather than settling for the limited and often uninspired materials available for children’s ministry, Ayris saw an opportunity.

“There’s no reason we couldn’t create a Marvel for this market,” he says. His vision was simple but bold: Use comics to connect kids to the Bible in ways they could understand and enjoy.

The Kingstone Bible

Kingstone Studios

With this idea in mind, Ayris co-founded Kingstone Comics. Partnering with a team of 40 illustrators — many of whom had worked for Marvel and DC — he set out to create high-quality, engaging content for a new generation.

But for Ayris, Kingstone’s mission couldn’t be more different. “DC just had the Joker being pregnant, giving birth to a baby, and all that trans junk woke stuff,” he says.

The company's first major project, the Kingstone Bible, combined stunning visuals with compelling storytelling, offering kids and adults alike an accessible way to engage with Scripture.

"We’re not competing with Christian publishers,” says Ayris. “We’re competing with Marvel and DC.”

Batman and the gospel

Christianity has always had a rich relationship with the arts.

From gospel murals in ancient catacombs to the timeless masterpieces of the Renaissance, believers have used creative expression to communicate truth.

“If there’s anything that’s creative, it’s God,” Ayris says, marveling at creation’s diversity, from the weirdness of the platypus to the complexity of human beings.

At Kingstone, this divine creativity fuels the mission to share faith through modern storytelling, using comics and animation as vehicles to reach new audiences.

For Ayris, Kingstone’s work is part of that long tradition, a continuation of weaving the sacred into the creative.

But instead of stained glass or symphonies, Kingstone builds stories with panels, ink, and bold visual narrative — tools designed to resonate with today’s generation.

US Comics

As Kingstone grew, Ayris saw another cultural need: reclaiming America’s history from narratives that diminished its greatness. In 2023, he launched U.S. Comics, an imprint dedicated to celebrating America’s founding, its heroes, and its struggles.

The first series takes readers through the early days of the nation, from the arrival of the Pilgrims to Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown.

The response to U.S. Comics has been overwhelmingly positive. Readers praise the depth and the comics' ability to make American history come alive.

U.S. Comics highlights the profound influence of Christian values on the country’s formation. “The founding fathers weren’t perfect,” Ayris says, “but there’s no question that America was founded on biblical principles.”

Kingstone Studios

The art of storytelling

Comics are a unique medium, relying on the sequencing of frozen images to create motion and life. Each panel is static, yet together they unfold dynamic narratives, immersing readers in vivid worlds of action and emotion. This makes comics a uniquely powerful medium for redemptive storytelling.

The superhero genre exemplifies this power but can only take it so far. Iconic figures like Batman battle villains across fiery landscapes and glittering utopias, their capes and armor symbolizing timeless clashes of good versus evil.

Despite their cultural impact, comics have often been dismissed as lowbrow entertainment, a diversion for the masses. For decades, they’ve been undervalued as an art form caught between writing and illustration.

Through Kingstone’s pages, the battle between good and evil transcends superheroes. It becomes a reflection of deeper spiritual realities. Whether introducing young readers to the Bible or offering fresh perspectives to seasoned believers, Kingstone blends tradition with innovation.

In prayerful hands, comics carry the weight of eternity.

The Constitution

U.S. Comics has also released a graphic novel adaptation of the U.S. Constitution. Art sees this as a critical tool for educating younger generations about the principles that shaped America, celebrating the dual nature of American identity — the individual and the community.

“The Constitution, like the Bible, is a living document,” Ayris says. “It continues to shape the nation’s direction. Through these comics, we want to reawaken a sense of reverence for the Constitution and help kids understand what made this country great.”

Created in collaboration with Joe Bennett, a former Marvel artist renowned for "The Immortal Hulk" and "Captain America," the comic pairs a rich historical narrative with striking visuals. It has quickly become one of Kingstone’s best sellers, reflecting a growing appetite for stories that honor America’s ideals and values.

Samaritan Inn

While building a career in comics, Ayris remained deeply committed to his local community, particularly through First Baptist Church of Leesburg, Florida.

Ayris spearheaded the founding of the Community Medical Care Center, a free clinic serving uninsured and medically vulnerable individuals. With the help of 50 volunteer doctors and eight dentists, the clinic now provides health care to over 7,000 people annually.

Then, working with his congregation, Ayris led the effort to transform the Big Bass Motel into the Samaritan Inn, a shelter for homeless families.

It was no small task. Converting the aging motel into a functional shelter required heavy finances and widespread community support.

He retold the story in his film “No Vacancy” (2022), featuring Dean Cain.

“Community is key,” Ayris says. “It's very important that communities pull together. When I made that movie, I wanted to show what happens when a community and a church work together.”

'A big Trump guy'

“I’m a big Trump guy,” Ayris says. “I’ve put up Trump signs, even out here in Webster. Sometimes, because I’m a pastor, people get a little frustrated with me. But I think they misunderstand.”

Released on June 14, 2024 — Flag Day and President Trump’s birthday — ”Trump 2024: Restoring the Glory to ‘Old Glory’” is one of U.S. Comics’ standout projects. The special-edition comic celebrates the story of Old Glory.

Flags carry a special resonance. They represent more than fabric. They embody the human condition.

“It is not just a piece of fabric. It’s a symbol of everything sacrificed for this country,” he tells me. “And if somebody starts spitting on the flag or trying to burn it in my presence, there's gonna be a hoedown.”

The heart of compassion

Most comics are mythology. They offer fiction and fantasy, a world of gods and heroes that hint at universal truths but often fall short of reconciliation. While there are plenty of historical comics, none quite matches the specific passion found at Kingstone, which has used the medium’s strengths — its ability to captivate and inspire — to openly proclaim the gospel.

In comics, heroes are often portrayed as mythical figures, elevated through their sacrifices and victories, becoming larger than life. But Kingstone’s heroes reflect a different kind of narrative. They draw from the Bible, where God stands with the victims, not the persecutors. Ordinary geniuses, sacred nobodies.

Kingstone’s mission is deeply tied to this Christian understanding of compassion.

The left has manipulated the Christian concern for victims. Today’s ideologies often co-opt the language of liberation, accusing Christianity of failing its own values while turning compassion into a tool of control. These narratives attempt to replace the heart of Christianity itself, using the language of justice to further agendas of power.

Kingstone confronts this distortion head-on, telling stories that present true compassion. Through Kingstone's work, comic artists transform the battleground of narrative into an opportunity to reveal the heart of the gospel.

In an industry dominated by mythology, Kingstone offers something profoundly different: stories that point not to fleeting heroes but to an eternal Savior, stories that don’t just depict battles but offer the ultimate victory of redemption.

They remind readers that the greatest hero of all didn’t ascend through conquest but through sacrifice — a story more powerful than any myth could ever tell.

“I never envisioned running a comic-book media company as a teenager,” Ayris says. “But God had to actuate my life, to bring out the gifts I didn’t even know were there. Once the Spirit of God fills you, you start discovering those things.”