RUSSIA: New comic strip, published on the internet, casts Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a superhero and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as his IPad-wielding sidekick

Record ID: 574822

  • Title: RUSSIA: New comic strip, published on the internet, casts Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a superhero and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as his IPad-wielding sidekick
  • Date: 20th June 2011
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (JUNE 17, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS PEOPLE ON MOSCOW STREET VARIOUS EXTERIOR INTERNET CAFE 'CAFEMAX' VARIOUS PEOPLE IN INTERNET CAFE MAN VIEWING 'SUPER PUTIN' COMIC SITE (SUPERPUTIN.RU)
  • Embargoed: 5th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA3O5TEEHMTGZ1T17MS2ZM7MSA
  • Story Text: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, dressed in a judo costume sits cross-legged in a darkened room, surrounded by advisors, until he suddenly takes off down the street, speeding to rescue a passengers on a bomb-rigged bus.
    He is joined by his iPad-wielding, bear-costumed sidekick, President Dmitry Medvedev, who helps him save the busload of passengers.
    This is the plot of a new comic strip that has recently become an internet sensation in Russia.
    The comic, 'Superputin, A Man Like Any Other,' is set in Moscow, in 2012 - 'one year before the end of the world'. With a plot based on the U.S. action film 'Speed, the comic's specially-created host site, www.superputin.ru had close to 5 million times in the first week and a half of its appearance.
    The release of the online graphic story comes in the run up to Russia's presidential elections which will be held in March 2012. Neither Putin nor Medvedev has said if they will run for president, creating wide speculation about the ruling tandem's plans.
    'Superputin's creator, 25-year old freelance public relations consultant, Sergei Kalenik, said he designed his internet piece to bring a breath of fresh air to, and change people's views of what he called Russia's depressing political scene.
    "It seems to me that laughter is the strongest weapon in the world and you can solve any problem (with it). If you laugh at Putin and Medvedev, you start to relate to them more gently. There's a big problem in Russian society that everyone relates either very positively to Putin, like 'He does everything just wonderfully', or negatively, like 'He does everything horribly'. Clearly he does some things well, and some things don't work out, some things are bad. Let's evaluate him objectively. It seems to me that laughter takes away this horrible straight-lined position. People start to look at Putin normally, from both sides (and see that) he has both good and bad qualities," Kalenik said.
    'Superputin', which plays on Putin's affinity for judo, and Medvedev's partiality for new technology, has the ruling pair riding through Moscow's traffic-choked 'twilight' zone, and fending off crowds of attacking zombies in blue-bucket head gear - a reference to a Moscow opposition group who use blue buckets to protest the flashing lights used by many government officials to pass through heavy traffic jams.
    Kalenik, who dismisses the opposition as being 'zombie-like' and repetitive says his comic is meant to create dialogue between society and the authorities - something, he says, is lacking in Russia.
    "It creates some dialogue between society and the authorities. The authorities in Russia have got into a kind of dead-end. There's no opposition, no politics in this country - nothing's happening. Clearly this isn't engineered by the authorities, because they're always searching for some kind of contact with the opposition, for any reason at all. But there's no opposition at all. We decided that since there's this social demand - society and the government want it - we can do it. And it needs to really go off. And this is what happened - we got five million views in one week," Kalenik said.
    There are some, however, who see the comic strip as a public-relations stunt, casting Putin and Medvedev as heroic leaders, fighting Russia's zombie opposition Carnegie Centre analyst, Nikolai Petrov, thought the comic might be an attempt by Russian authorities to gain a following among the country's youth.
    "Of course I think that it's some kind of ideological order. It's probably an attempt by the Kremlin to gather an electoral group among youth and use that very large, and growing and generally passive layer of the voting public to whom Putin himself has been appealing to very often recently," Petrov said.
    Kalenik denies taking orders from any political force, including the Kremlin, saying the comic has not received any official approval, and that several media outlets have refused to carry 'Superputin'.
    Kalenik claims the comic is supposed to be merely a humorous reflection of the Russian political scene.
    Putin, for his part, projects a macho, "can do" image despite having stepped down as president in 2008 and steering his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, into the Kremlin's top job.
    Historian Roy Medvedev has said that part of Putin's allure is having restored Russians' pride after the chaos of the 1990s and the embarrassment of Boris Yeltsin's sometimes drunken stunts as president.
    Carnegie analyst, Petrov says that the super-hero comic strip, if it is a Kremlin order, may have the opposite of the intended effect.
    "From one side it's an exploitation of the image that Putin came to power with in 1999 - an image of a saviour of the nation. But that also has a negative effect because if a person saved the nation 12 years ago, then it's not clear what on earth he's saving it from now, 12 years later," Petrov said.
    Described as "alpha-dog" in U.S. diplomatic cables, Putin has a black belt in judo and frequently undertakes testosterone-fueled stunts such as bare-chested horseback riding, swimming in Siberian rivers, and test-flying jet planes.
    His opponents say there is every indication he will remain in charge of Russia, no matter who runs for president in 2012.
    Kalenik, emboldened by the comic's success, is now looking for sponsors to produce an entire internet-comic series.
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