One Metal Singer Takes On The Senate Committee In A Look At Z2 Comics And Dee Snider’s ‘He’s Not Gonna Take It’

by Richard Bruton

Celebrating Twisted Sister frontman, Dee Snider’s momentous appearance before the Senate Committee 38 years ago – Z2 presents Dee Snider: He’s Not Gonna Take It.

Back in 1985, the most unlikely thing happened – Dee Snider, lead singer of the outrageous, colourful, heavy metallers Twisted Sister, walked into the United States Senate’s Committee on Commerce in a jean jacket and tank top to confront Tipper Gore and her group of Washington housewives clamouring for the banning of all sorts of music.

The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), co-founded by Gore, was a committee of politicians’ wives lobbying hard for the ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics’ stickers to be plastered all over any music that they found offensive. Rap, Hip Hop, Metal… they just didn’t like it and they wanted it gone.

It was also a year after Twisted Sister’s anthemic angsty teen anthem ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ had been a hit.

And he wasn’t.

He marched into the hearing room and pretty much stood up for music and free speech with a performance that took apart the arguments with insight and intelligence.

I’ve embedded the full hearing footage with Snyder below, take a while to watch it, it’s a really important thing.

Anyway, that was then. This is now. Things haven’t exactly gotten much better but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be celebrating what Snider achieved – and that’s just what Z2 are doing with Dee Snider: He’s Not Gonna Take It, a new graphic novel out on 21st November 2023 that chronicles Snider’s war to preserve the First Amendment.

The book’s written by Snider with Frank Marraffino and drawn by Steve Kurth, with cover art by Erik Rodriguez and Josh Bernstein.

He’s Not Gonna Take It promises to take us through Snider’s life, from a childhood where the future rocker would often be silenced, through the early years of Twisted Sister and the reluctance of audiences to listen to this band of glamorously dressed, make-up wearing metallers. And of course, it details the open warfare of the PMRC hearings in Washington DC.

It’s a promising-looking book, a portrait of a fascinating figure who stood up when it mattered as well as an important look at the importance of free speech, both then and now.

Z2 Comics and Dee Snider Present He’s Not Gonna Take It comes out in Z2’s usual standard edition and deluxe editions, with the deluxe editions including retro-comic art prints from Roy Burdine, Javier Aranda, and Carlos Olivares. There’s also a package that includes the deluxe edition book in a slipcase, signed by Dee Snider and with a commemorative coin, and three retro Dee Snider commemorative art prints.