The Pixies: Rudolph Newman

The most controversial aspect of the book is a young boy whose a painter and who really likes fascism. Folks, meet Rudy. He's a failed artist who, attracted to romantic ideals, has started to experiment with black paint and dark thoughts. Soon that paint begins to drip, drip, drip, all over the castle and cast its ugliness, its dirt, into the castle's compartments and into our minds' most private chambers -- it's a metaphor, of course, for how fascism paints over society and claims everything as its own. Rudy is a young Hitler, a little monster. He's an artist; and that was the most fascinating, troubling aspect of him for me. That every artist is just one step away from losing their mind to madness and committing the worst crimes in history. I don't consider myself an "artist", certainly not considering the crap I write. But I feel it must weigh on the conscience of the art world: that the worst maniac in history, the person who committed crimes that stained the soul of humanity, the person responsible for the creation of the term "Genocide" and whose actions led to the creation of the atomic bomb, was once just a failed artist who saw life in simplistic, romantic terms.

It's why I took such pleasure in killing Rudy. The little shit. At the end of the day, he is the real villain of the book -- worse even than Gunther. Rudy loses himself in the eerie classical German market square painting just as Hitler lost himself in his own twisted vision of the country and what he wanted for the entire world.