Like the cinema or the video game industry, the comic strip sometimes takes one or the other fantastic artist name in the mechanical process of selective memory. A few pioneers, a few stars whose work was acclaimed during el temperatures, but which the contemporary great open public knows less. Connoisseurs dodge the patronymic, the obscure job of a specialist who appeared thirty or forty years ago, which will perhaps interest the curious reader in the third choice after the essential Watchmen or Black Knight Comes back . In the comics, this strange tri-memorial is usually summed up “did the gus sober question invent the popular character”, “did the author whose I talk about the you kid lot sober important heroes “or” does he have Batman sober ray that we could advise to beginners “. Take Howard Chaykin .
In his early days, Howard Chaykin was considered a true prodigy. Reprinted by Gil Kane and Wally Wooden , the guy will quickly be rented on the comic drawing scene in the years 600, with works touching horror or science fiction. When Marvel gets the sober adaptation rights Celebrity Wars: El New Hope in 1977, Chaykin accompanies Roy Thomas with sober drawings for the edition comics from the movie sober George Lucas . After sticking to the structures of the original script, the series continues after the destruction of d ‘ Etoile Noire , and the artist must invent cosmic tyrants and bikini sting nnettes of the space, in the contours of an imaginary the Flash Gordon with the evil Serji-X Arrogantus or the rabbit head pilot Jaxxon , at the moment when the iconography Superstar Wars does not yet have testosterone levels solidified. In science fiction, Chaykin will also cost the very first miniseries (or limit series) of DC Comics in 1977, Planet of Krypton , before pivoting to environments more adults for other structures in the publishing world.
The artist will work in particular with Large Steel , English-speaking declination of the newspaper Mtal Hurlant , and will begin to move towards a darker representation of the technological future, in keeping with the mentalities of its time and the transition of the market to more active activities. . Later, Howard Chaykin will make American comic book history with the maxi-series Dark Hug in 1988, from among the first comic book projects to tackle the theme of sex in a serious way, the temperature ranged from a dark thriller against a background of vampires Artist. This interest in the sexual thing, this trait that evokes pulp science fiction and this desire to politicize the traditional fanciful environment will be added to one of the other great characteristics of the cartoonist’s bibliography: the representation of the United States as a civilization. declining. El obtained for the symbolism of a country in decline that will span the entire career of Chaykin , with The Split Claims of Hysteria , Us Century and, the origin, Us Flagg! .
Starts at Initial Comics sober 1983, a series United states Flagg! match the sober collapse of humanity after the conquest of the canvases, with the sober setting of pictures of a relationship of pressure between an earthly human population held under control and a sober regrouping of political and post-capitalist powers born from the ruins sober the Cold War. The consortium Plex evokes the viewpoint of a future where politicians would have allied with corporatists to push further the first possibility of ecological crisis and of depletion of resources which was beginning (dj) worry the scientists of the years 1980. Precursor, Chaykin is interested in these subjects in the second where the general public is still passionate about virile imperialism in the liberal utopia of the presidency Ronald Reagan , by composing the heavy and revolt together. To keep the open public attentive, or because he is Howard Chaykin and will remain Howard Chaykin , the scriptwriter also inserts a good amount of girls in garter belt.
United states Flagg! made the adventure of the sober character Reuben Flagg , train mate star sober the television enrl sober push in the body of Rangers , a law enforcement of the future under the orders of Plex cost sober maintain order on Earth and sober control the diffusion of sober entertainment programs . The action takes place in 2000, the Moon and Mars have p colonized and are inhabited by well-off populations. After a huge social crisis that occurred at the end of the year 1996, the ecological disaster was added to the wars and the economic collapse of the different factors of the world. Members of the Plex , a transpacific marriage formed by the leaders of the United States and the sober Soviet Union associated with the major fund groups, have soberly decided to leave Earth and to install the government on Mars in order to avoid sober future catastrophes and a possible insurgency. For the time being, humanity parked on the blue plant stands wise, fuels shots of violent and touting programs intended to entertain and occupy the minds of the poor populations left behind.
Flagg will quickly gain a foothold in this new environment, not necessarily hooked on responsibilities is Based on the sober role of the cop of the future, and more interested in the viewpoint of possible income to pull this sober power post sober. The hero serves as a vehicle for the ideas of Howard Chaykin on the United States, a genuine patriot who fell in love with the distant imagery of this civilization of which he only knows the history. Flagg is born on Mars, of a Russian mother and an American father, descendant of Achknazi Jews. For the time being, the character is above all the honest gambler: talkative national insurance, silent national insurance, modeled on the modalities of the traditional pulp hero, brawler, seducer, rascal but sympathetic and occasionally straight, a kind of amalgam between Han Solitary and Adam Connection by Sean Connery . For Howard Chaykin , Flagg plays the role of strength fantasy , personification of an individuality mle with the requirements of fiction in force: rus bastard, effective man of action and confident wanker, the character seems to attract all the women of boy entourage by following the usual display of virility of those spy series of yesteryear.
Cuando la serie United states Flagg! is firmly anchored in kid at the time, the general scope of the text remains very current in the observations drawn Howard Chaykin on the sober future of the Cold War. The author does not envisage the victory of one or the other camp, but rather the unification of two factions of leaders seeking to seize the keys of power according to the model of standardized domination. Sober the case, the latter goes through an assimilation blending bourgeoisie, general aggravation of social inequalities between the powerful and the people, and conquers entertainment media. From the exile of the financial and political elite to Mars seems more anachronistic than ever, given the news and projections of humanity towards space travel privatized and orchestrated by the American aerospace companies of the present .
In the same way, after the Plex has banned the broadcasting of active sports on television, a traffic in prohibited programs is organized on the black drive – an analogy with the explosion of the sober walk on VHS in the United States in the years 1980 and traffic in sober pornographic videos, or that of American motion pictures banned Soviet Marriage and illegally distributed to individuals in. This dependence on pictures to keep the people under control, this avalanche of broadcast content also evokes a certain topicality in the present, with the influx of capital from large private groups into the video market – on-demand and the piracy of mass, difficult to contain.
The scenario takes its temperature to develop these thematic inserts sober watermark of a banal daily life, a sober scenography future driving with a hierarchy of small businesses sober district. Chaykin installs some regular characters, with Amanda , the gourmet’s daughter of the Rangers of Chicago, he, DK Blitz , the corrupt mayor sober the city, and Raul the talking cat, inspired by the sober domestic flin the author, whose frequent growls will inspire the sober creation of this tiny mascot. A series evokes the regularity of the patrols and the life of the police station by enchanting the avenues of reflection on the materiality of the control exerted by the Plex in a rather light atmosphere. Flagg dfouraille, Flagg courtroom, Flagg fight, but the time is still sober to allow yourself a sober part sober legs air with one or the other conquest. A location left to female characters is part of the problematic stigma of United States Flagg! over the long term, testimony of a male inter-self for sober comic book authors at the time. , or the soliciting of a sober badly sober excited readership with generous blankets sober nighties apparent.
Besides, this omnipresence of sex is accepted within the framework of a series which assumes its borrowings from the sober type of virile espionage, compatible with a certain sober eyesight of erotic fiction. Chaykin gives a voice to some of these female characters, often useful for the plot or strong in a particular character by sparing certain stereotypes. Most uniforms also remain modeled on those of male characters. Some love scenes are pleasantly clear, others seem, revenge in, out of place, and one of the most absurd or unwarranted factors in the structure of the series’ storyline. In other places, the symptoms of sex will take on the air of interjection power, without connection with the intrigue and without any real contribution to the iconography. Other occasions will rely on a disproportionate assault, to stick an archtype that is difficult to defend the male hero with the easy slap, does not intend to let his behavior dictate by a woman who. These stigmata age badly which, and even appear to be out of line with the fictional rules in force at the time of publication in 1980 , even out of step with the pulp elegance of quantity.
No female character will escape the diktat of the garter belt, no matter a class or social problem of the profiles put sober pictures. The exercise works intermittently, but it all looks like a pornographic compensation over the number of issues, for the artist who has long felt worked in the more modest register of classic editors, DC Comics and Wonder , and wanted more clearly sober restraint. Cuando United states Flagg! does not lose anything sober its many sober qualities as an excellent title of anticipation, espionage or action, this component of the book also tarnishes the sober balance sheet interesting female characters and a particular skill in drawing for certain scenes sober sensuality.
This precise minute sober a sober career Howard Chaykin is indeed the sober artistic excellence: the title is superbly illustrated, allows several experiments on the sense sober address, and overflowing with ideas, completed in the inking by an effect sober pointill whose rendering nourishes inks and shadow effects. The ubiquitous lettering loads the cut-out pictures onto formats that are both anarchic and superbly squared, in a series of detrimental visual experiences proportional to the damage of political discourse. Particularly sober in the use of television sequences the, sober advertisements sober slogans or. The guy believes this position of almost cubist satirist of an America in full economic boom, with subliminal text messages turned towards consumption or towards a physical violence proportional to They Live life of David Carpenter , or at Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis . This fellow screenwriter, also discussed for his reports on the subject of femininity, declares himself a fantastic enthusiast of United states Flagg! and readily admits the inspiration found in this comic for getting pregnant. of boy cocinero of final work. These declining United States have not yet experienced the setting of filth and the accumulation of waste that will later form the iconography of the years 1988, Chaykin is confined to a relatively clean social crisis, evoked above all by the use of arms and the uproar of an increasingly vulgar and stupefying television. The artistic coating, special in kid style, benefits from a whole battery of finds, from the effects of child use of the funds to the choice of colors, often blue, white or pink.
The title is thus cost of a specific design, with portraits inspired by the stars of the cinema of another temperature and a taste for the bright colors sober agreement with this sober amalgam of tonality: heroes still quite joking and quick to incisive dialogues in this new regular sober state, against a backdrop of possible apocalypse or of collapse programmed by the sober station system. For lovers of this type of atmosphere, United states Flagg! is a superb compromise between a sober traditional drawing, sober mainstream comic strip at the time and a more satirical work with sober visuals provocative and sober parodies sober ideas, within other principles. It is moreover this generosity of esthete which will be worth the series its letters of nobility, with a good shovel of victories garnered at the Eagle Honors , ceremony of prize-giving for the comic strip organized in the United Kingdom when, in 1984, an American came to explain the writing of declining worlds to British of 1996 Advertisement .
On a very general axis, the series atmosphere for a long time to variety in the same bag as the Watchmen or Black Knight Profits restricts this great changeover of ideas. Serious more comic strips, overtly political and addresses for the adult readership – historical luck has it that several applicants will compete for the third location of this possible coronation of renewal. Some will talk about Marshal Regulation , The One , Squadron Supreme , The Golden Age group , others from United states Flagg! , for this visual quality adds a scenario dealing with sober themes of the present, which will become with the weight of years the invariable subjects of a future continued until our modern reality.
Many sober themes pass under the sober acrobatic eye Howard Chaykin in this accessible portrait of a relatively believable dystopia despite boy sober style digr style, which almost incidentally resembles my work Enki Bilal on the same type of post-Soviet imaginary, from No-Paris sober Nikopol to the consortium of African powers sober Cold Ecuador . Surprising parallels can be drawn for these sensitive dreams of a deliquescent future organized around themes that are still and always topical, driven by the prism of the Cold War and the few speculative projections of these yesterday’s realities in futuristic perspectives, often interesting to peel. Us Flagg! has for him to have shot before the others, and to have known how to aim right in very many cases.
The fable United States Flagg! by Howard Chaykin is one of those indispensable masterpieces of American comics. El passing in drive, el political warning shot at a time when comics still lacked space. The artist materializes his eyesight of the future in the Plex consortium, an all-powerful entity form of alliance between the private sector and the military-industrial complex, unseen enemy of Reuben Flagg’s utopian America, and an extension of an eyesight of the company which will not necessarily have fledged for almost forty years. Obtainable, superb, sometimes funny and tremendously rhythmic, the series transcends this visionary factor of surface area by borrowing generously from the requirements of pulp fiction and old spy movies even in aesthetic kid, testimony of a nostalgia for the sake of the general charm of the object. A forerunner, source of inspiration for Warren Ellis and Brian Bendis, and an interesting way to uncover the bibliography of an author unfairly overlooked by the conventional history of the men to know to understand American comics. WE love. We also like talking cats which, usually in.
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