The 2008 presidential campaign has been historic and gripping in a multitude of ways, and with the fast approach of Election Day, politics are seeping into many corners of popular culture. Comics are no exception, and while political themes in comics are nothing new, a number of publishers and creators have developed projects tied directly to this election season. Benefits for the comics industry include the publicity and sales that come from tapping into current widespread interest in the campaign—but the new batch of politically minded projects also demonstrates the various ways that the medium of comics can uniquely contribute to the political discourse.
Out last week from IDW are the much-publicized Presidential Material comic book biographies of candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. The books, researched from public sources including news reports, Senate websites and the candidates' own autobiographies, will "hopefully teach people something about these two men," says IDW Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier, who doesn't believe the books will or should influence voting choices directly. "No one should decide who they’re going to vote for based on one comic book or one story in the New York Times, or one piece on CNN." The hope, says Dunbier, is that the 28-page "graphic novellas" will highlight biographical details "that people will not have seen or heard or read about before that they’ll find interesting or that they’ll want to explore further."
Dunbier says the importance of an unbiased approach was one of many reasons that writer/artist teams Andrew Helfer and Stephen Thompson (McCain) and Jeff Mariotte and Tom Morgan (Obama) were chosen for the projects. "The important thing was to keep the books on an even keel, and they’re professionals who could do the job," says Dunbier, adding that the project's time constraints also required creators with a trusted record. The books will be available separately, and downloadable for mobile phones via UClick, but also collected as a flip book, with each candidate having their own cover—which also presented considerations of fairness. "To tell you how silly it got, there was a question as to which cover would have the UPC code," says Dunbier. "So we actually put the UPC code on both. We didn’t want to have one candidate get preferential treatment."
And while no longer a candidate, Hillary Clinton will also get her shot in the comic book biographical spotlight as the "first in a series of nonpartisan comic books portraying influential and important American women" from Bluewater Productions, due in January. Fitting with the tone of a highly political season, the book's announcement drew publicity in September not only for its topicality but for its cover, which appears to appropriate the design of the IDW books without any affiliation with that project, and included a flag with 14 instead of 13 stripes (now corrected).
In 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail, due from Crown in January, the graphic novel format serves as an alternative to traditional campaign reportage. The book is written by Michael Crowley, who covers politics for The New Republic, and drawn by Dan Goldman, known for his work on Shooting War, about a blogger embedded in Baghdad. Goldman says his agent brought him the 08 project after talking with Crown editor Sean Desmond "about how modern election coverage is image-driven, that the campaign narrative almost mirrors the language of comics." 08 follows two fictional reporters through the real 2008 election race, beginning in early 2006 with the Democrats taking majority control of Congress and ending with the results of the general election on Nov. 4.
"It forced me to try something new," says Goldman, who was faced with the challenge of rendering his first nonfiction work in a way that would be faithful to real events but also a page-turner. "08 evolved into a blend of sequential art and bold graphic design. By bridging comics narrative with typographic narrative, I felt that 08 could reach the maximum amount of people by sitting somewhere in between magazine/PowerPoint and comics, but using both toolsets for maximum impact." Goldman also says that making the most of the medium included taking turns "into the surreal and satirical" in order to "utilize the magic of comics to create something that was visually more-than-nonfiction."
Of course it's complex fictional universes that comics are best known for in the mainstream, and that side of the medium has also gotten into the political fray. Marvel series have included recurring campaign posters for comedian Stephen Colbert, whose TV persona is running for president in the Marvel Universe and will make an appearance in an upcoming Spider-Man issue, but DC has taken presidential politics more head-on. In September, DC Comics launched the four-issue mini-series DC Universe: Decisions, written by Bill Willingham and Judd Winick, which depicts the superhero community's involvement in a presidential primary season threatened by a string of violent attacks on each of the four leading candidates. While the situation and candidates are all fictional, the series' first two issues have drawn mixed reviews and heated online discussions for exposing the previously unaddressed political leanings of certain iconic characters. While Green Arrow's endorsement of a Democratic candidate is unsurprising given the character's activist roots, Lois Lane is revealed to be “proudly for a strong military, small government, low taxes, and maximum individual freedom," and other superheroes are seen endorsing candidates with defined party affiliations. While the Justice League in the story struggles with its members' political involvement, the series itself draws attention to the question of how insulated readers want their comics multiverses from real-world partisan concerns.
Another controversial new series is Mark Millar and Tony Harris's War Heroes, from Image, which takes place after a McCain victory is followed by a terrorist attack on Washington. This leads quickly to an invasion on Iran which escalates to the point that the government decides to increase public support and military recruitment by offering superpower enhancements to soldiers. Many reviews and commentaries have regarded the series as pro-war and/or pro-McCain, but Millar has said in interviews that the intent of War Heroes is to reveal through satire the dangers of an aggressive, hawkish government.
As comics creators navigate how to engage with politics in a balanced way, one recent high-profile release has been unambiguously partisan. Image Comics' long-running Savage Dragon generated buzz in August when the title character, a green-skinned superhero, officially endorsed Barack Obama for president. The endorsement itself was only in one panel on the last page of issue #137, but it made waves in both the comics and mainstream press as the first endorsement of a real candidate by a fictional superhero—who had himself been a presidential candidate in the series in 2004. A cover featuring Barack Obama, originally only available on one of every five issues, became so popular that the issue is entering its third printing, which Savage Dragon creator and former Image publisher Erik Larsen says is a first for the company. As for how the endorsement will play out in the series' future issues, Larsen says it will depend on the real election's outcome. "Within the comics right now, the character Savage Dragon is not the most popular guy on the planet," he says. "So if it turns out that the unthinkable happens and McCain gets in the White House, of course it will be Dragon’s fault entirely. And if Obama wins, it will be 'whew, I thought for sure this was going to do him in.' "
