Republican performance artist and comic book creator Martina Markota recently revealed that she has been dropped by Chase Bank.
On February 21st, 2019 Bounding Into Comics picked up the news from over on Big League Politics, where it was reported that Chase has shut down the bank account of Markota. An image of the letter was shared with the outlet, which you can view below.
Markota is a Republican, as noted at the top of the article. She’s made it no secret that she voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 elections, as outlined in an interview she held with Rebel Edge back in June of 2017. In the interview she notes that Leftists had been trying to deplatform her and get her ousted from the New York performance art scene.
In addition to having hardships put on her life due to Chase closing down her account, Markota also has a comic called Lady Alchemy, which was crowdsourced through IndieGoGo for $34,000.
The book managed to get funded on the premise that the comic book industry was usurped by Social Justice Warriors. On the IndieGoGo page for Lady Alchemy, Markota explained that the only way that people could successfully take back the industry through something like #ComicsGate would be to successfully fund the sort of comics they want to read…
“A culture war is being waged, and we can only fight back by producing our own art, our own media, our own stories, and our own outlets. This is a war we didn’t start, but one we can win with great new media.”
The comic was successfully funded back on November 2nd, 2018. The book is supposed to be out in August of 2019. However, with Chase closing down her account, it could impede the progress of getting the book up and out to backers.
Markota did explain that IndieGoGo was gracious enough to allow her to switch payment processors so that she could continue to work on the book and distribute it to backers, telling Bounding Into Comics…
“I received a letter saying that the bank is going to end its relationship with me and I didn’t know why I called them and they said that they can’t tell me why they are shutting it down. They refuse to tell me and when I complained about it they said that they have the right to close my account without telling me why. When I saw other right wingers/conservatives getting their Chase accounts closed I was then convinced that it was political. I was concerned over my IndieGoGo campaign. Luckily, IndieGoGo will allow me to change banks, but in the meantime I have to transfer lots of funds and sort out all the new information. You can still contribute to my IndieGoGo campaign.”
That’s good news for the people who did back Lady Alchemy.
As mentioned, you can look for the book to release in August later this year.
However, finding a remedy for the IndieGoGo campaign doesn’t absolve Chase of deplatforming someone, presumably for their political beliefs. Chase has done the same thing to the leader of the Proud Boys as well, shutting down his bank account as part of deplatforming taking place within the culture war.
A death metal record label also had to shut down due to financial deplatforming as well, but they informed the public that this was being done due to abuse carried out by FDIC members as part of an unconstitutional measure known as “Operation Choke Point”.
(Thanks for the news tip GuyverOne)
