And now for something completely different! Today's featured episode is from lydamorehouse 's Mona Lisa Over Pod, "American Flagg!" I was looking forward to this episode since she mentioned it was happening but I was delayed due to being away for a week but I finally got to listen to it and it didn't disappoint.

WTF is American Flagg!, you ask, if you are a normal person and not like, a 60-year-old man on the internet like I apparently am. It was a very strange cyberpunk comic by Howard Chaykin that rohmie introduced me to way back in the day, which ran from 1983-88. It's set in the distant year of 2031 where a giant corporation runs the world, everyone lives in malls, and the exiled government rules from Mars, and follows Reuben Flagg, a Jewish former porn star who loses his job to AI and becomes a deputy in the Plexus Rangers. Also there is a talking cat with cybernetic gloves that give him opposable thumbs. It is pulpy and cheesy and often incoherent; I loved it when I read it and haven't looked at it since.

This—and the podcast episode—really ask the question: Does a comic need to be good? This comic was influential in a lot of ways, and it is bad in a lot of ways, and Chaykin definitely has his haters. (Note: I am not one of them, I loved his run on Blackhawk, and I think his art style is cool as hell, despite his obvious. Um. Quirks. As both a writer and artist.) The gender and sexual politics are. Um. The politics-politics are genuinely incoherent, a topic that Lyda and Ka1iban explore in satisfying depth. It's satire, but satire of what exactly?

The critiques in this episode make me like it more, actually? It's much easier to write and discuss a straightforward dystopia—works like Black Mirror or American Flagg's contemporary V for Vendetta that examine one particular social problem and exaggerate it for rhetorical effect. American Flagg! is a hot mess. I did think so at the time; it's very hard to determine what it's critiquing and I don't think that's intentional as such. But it puts the state, or the contested idea of the state, in tension with corporate interests in a way that feels a little more nuanced and prescient than it should be. It doesn't give you anyone to root for, particularly, but more challenging, it doesn't give you any ideology to root for (in a way, that echoes Watchmen, in that the best you can hope for is Nite Owl's wishy-washy, ineffectual liberalism, which it's clear neither the author nor the narrative support). I'm not making it out to be Great Art but I do think it's Interesting Art and there's a reason these two can spend 99 minutes discussing it.

So yeah, I vastly enjoyed this detailed discussion of a comic that I thought everyone had forgotten about.

(Do Transmetropolitan next???)

Currently reading: Bread and Stone by Allan Weiss. Where we last left our hero, he'd shipped off to the Great War in a fit of youthful idealism. It went about as well as you think. One really good and interesting narrative choice here is that the focus isn't on the grinding misery and trauma (though there is plenty of that too) but that so much of war is spent waiting, most people tend to run from gunfire and explosions rather than towards them, and the contribution of a single individual doesn't amount to very much. William experiences the kind of thing I've often felt at protests where you spend a lot of time standing around and don't feel like you've done anything. He returns to a vastly different Canada than he left—too late to say goodbye to his mother, who has died in the influenza epidemic despite being about the only person around who takes pandemic precautions. His father has gone back to the mines and sold most of the family farm, leaving his brother to deal with the rest. His aunt and uncle are cash-strapped and can't find him work. He instead goes to Winnipeg with his pro-union war buddy who promises him work. But times are tough everywhere, and he's instead drawn into movements of unemployed and underemployed workers, both the organizing committee of the general strike, and the veterans association, whose membership broadly supports a strike but whose leadership does not.

This book is immensely detailed—I imagine drawn from primary sources. There was a lot written at the time so someone willing to put in the effort really could get every single bit of infighting and discussion that happened in all of the organizations that were around at the time. It's impressive. It doesn't make for the most action-packed reading, but if you are really interested in the period (which I am) this is better than any non-fiction text I've read about it.

I also quite like how William is not particularly a reliable narrator or an admirable person. He's certainly idealistic, but he's an absolute himbo with a number of blind spots, especially when it regards women and immigrants. At the core of this book there's a very similar sort of debate as we see today—does the left cave to populist sentiments around marginalized groups, or does it stand its ground? (Basically, the returned soldiers tend to be pro-strike but anti-immigrant, which the elite politicians, business owners, and journalists use to drive a wedge in the movement.) The book's narrative comes down solidly on the "stand your ground" side, though...history is history and we know the strike lost.

 It can be no other than Wizards & Spaceships' "Against Hopepunk ft. Nick Mamatas." I complain a lot here about a certain type of book that is very popular right now in SFFH spaces, and has been basically for the past decade (albeit the earlier attempts were more interesting than the publishers' attempts to chase that wave) and yeah. It is not the biggest problem in the world, that the dominant trends in the genres I like do not align to my particular tastes. But. It's still something I enjoy talking about and reading about and listening to podcasts about, and there is no one more qualified than Nick Mamatas, the most cynical bastard in genre fiction (complimentary), to talk about it.

This is less a condemnation of individual authors and their work (in fact, it is not that at all!) but an exploration of why the economic models of the publishing and music industry work the way they do. It's a wide-ranging and I daresay fascinating discussion and Nick is extremely funny. Also there's a lot about 80s post-punk in there if that's your thing (it's mine).

Hi did you miss these?

Just finished: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I ended up enjoying the shit out of this. Murder mystery/political palace intrigue set in a world where eldritch abominations threaten to break through the seawall and destroy entire cities every wet season, and magic is done through bioengineering. The brilliant Sherlock Holmes analogue is a mysterious and terrifying elderly woman and the Watson analogue is a dyslexic disaster bisexual kid who's been altered so that he remembers everything he experiences. It's very fun.

Currently reading: Bread and Stone by Allan Weiss. Look at me I'm reading CanLit! It's about the Winnipeg General Strike, though, so it's not off-brand for me. In the first section, William, a failure of a farm boy, goes off to the Great War against his family's wishes. It's immaculately researched; you get every detail of small town Alberta and the culture shock of moving to the big city of...1914 Calgary. William's father is a coal miner who describes in passionate terms the solidarity that comes from joining a union, but doesn't want his son to go down into the mines himself, so Williams seeks it first in the church, and then amongst his unit. I've gotten to the bit where he's finally being shipped out for France. Quite good so far.

You are not prepared.



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