When comics writers go bad
Over on Slate, they’re serializing the new graphic novel about Ronald Reagan’s life. I don’t know whether or not the printed version is in color, but the online edition is black and white — which seems perfect, because the entire enterprise seems close to a whitewash. Not since George Washington and the cherry tree have we seen such hagiography in service to a dead president. Not only that, the caricatures are bad.
Want to judge for yourself? Click here.
For me the identify of the writer is perhaps the most distressing aspect of this. I expect to disagree with some people about Ronald Reagan and his legacy (which I sum up as turning a blind eye to AIDS, plunging us into debt, manipulating the (non)release of hostages to help secure his election, starting an illegal and undeclared war south of our border, dealing arms to Iran, and launching the government investigation into our bedrooms and bookshelves). But I didn’t expect it to be Andy Helfer. In the late 1980’s, Helfer was the writer of a relaunched comic about the Shadow that brilliantly brought an absurdist filter to the subject. From wikipedia:
In the late 1980s, another DC reincarnation was created by Howard Chaykin, Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Kyle Baker, in a miniseries and sequel ongoing series. This version brought The Shadow to modern day New York. While initially successful, this version was not popular with “Shadow” traditionalists, because it depicted The Shadow using Uzi submachineguns and rocket launchers, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy throughout. It was canceled after an issue in which the Shadow’s head was transplanted onto a robot body.
While I have endlessly recycled thousands of comics over the years (thank you, eBay), I have held onto those. They are wonderful reading. Now it’ll be harder to enjoy them, knowing that 20 years later the writer is plumping for the guy who put all the mental patients out on the street while enriching his friends through an illegal war.