Right now, I’m reading the big honking collection of Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! (review coming soon) but there’s two things that are really standing out to me.
This book barely feels like it’s 20 years old. Other than tripping over some dates (such as the 1996 Presidential election that never happened or the fact that this book is taking place in 2030, only 20 years into the future right now,) there’s nothing that looks or feels old. In fact, like so many people point out, Chaykin’s future is almost happening right now, where a pop star can be discarded and have to become the leading cop of Chicago. The ever present news crews symbolize today’s 24 hour news cycle with CNN, MSNBC and Fox News covering every minute detail of every day and broadcasting all of it live. Like the best science fiction, American Flagg! is ahead of its time. What was once a warning of what the future could become is now an indictment of what and who we are now.
But even more stunning is how I now see American Flagg!’s influence in writers like Brian Wood, Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker right now. DMZ, Casanova and even Criminal are the children of Chaykin’s Flagg!, borrowing from the pacing (Casanova,) the plot (DMZ) or even the overall feel (Criminal) of American Flagg! while building their own stories. I’m not saying that those writers are just repeating Chaykin but they’re all riffing on his work to build their own stories.
I read American Flagg! when it first came out but this new edition presents it in a brand new context. It’s no longer a series confined to the back issue bins, a part of history and relegated more to nostalgia and novelty. Between this and the upcoming softcover versions of this book, the book should be read by a new generation of fans or even an old version that missed this story the first time around. American Flagg! is often mentioned in the same breath as Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns but has lately been mentioned as “oh, and there’s also American Flagg! from the eighties” but it should be more than a tag-along book. It revolutionized comics as much as those books did, even if it’s taken a couple of decades to begin understanding its reach and influence.
It’s been twenty years and you know what? The revolution will still be televised.
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Tags: American Flagg, Howard Chaykin