Comic books haven't been kids stuff for decades, but in the early 1980s the rise of the direct market model of comics distribution combined with social turmoil to inspire creators to explore darker, more relevant themes on the comic page. One prominent work from the early Modern Age of Comics is Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, a scattershot futuristic satire where forcibly retired porn actor Reuben Flagg is drafted into the Plexus Rangers, a corporate police force that protects the residential megamalls of a blasted America from the vicious GoGangs that cycle through the detritus of civilization. When Flagg is shown that the Plex may not be the benevolent dictatorship it advertises itself as, he'll have to choose between defending the status quo and fighting to reinitiate the experiment that was the American Dream.
In this episode, we discuss Chaykin's oeuvre and his self-assured visual style, the enduring influence of the pulps on cyberpunk, the mature appeal of the indie comics market, making excuses for your utopia, reframing the political chaos of the '80s in fiction, the misinterpretation of satirical characters by audiences, wallowing in cultural acceleration, the drawbacks to political syncretism, satirizing political heterodoxy, and the limits of the effectiveness of ridiculousness. We also talk about baby edgelords, "Kal saying, 'I didn't like this'", too much Frank Miller talk, loving zip-a-tone, the sesame chicken of social commentary, cat thumbs, sexual copaganda, 3-minute gigolo, being haunted by Harlan Ellison, Nazi Democrats, spaghetti on every wall, "theme cop", relying on white men for representation, and TWO Birth of a Nation references?!
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