Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Tuesday Comics: Election Day Edition

On this election day, it seemed approporate to point out a couple of presidential election related collections:


Prez is the title of two DC Comics about teenage presidents. The first debuted in his own short-lived title written by Joe Simon and drawn by Jerry Grandenetti in 1973. The series is predicated on the notion of a Constitutional amendment lowering the age for eligibility for office (which may have been inspired by the 1968 film Wild in the Streets). The upshot is a teenager gets elected, and who better than a earnest and idealistic kid from Middle America whose mother even named him “Prez” ‘cause she thought he’d be President one day? 

Finally, because you (or somebody) demanded it, The Prez has been collected. This collection includes the four issues of The Prez's run, an unpublished story from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2, and a continuity-twisting tale from Supergirl #10. Neil Gaiman brought Prez out of comics limbo in Sandman #54 in 1993. This led a sort of follow-up in Vertigo Vision: Prez. Miller and Morrison also used the Prez in Dark Knight Strikes Again #2 and the Multiversity Guidebook. All of these deuterocanonical texts are included, as well.



Over at Marvel, a talking duck from parallel Earth ran for President in 1976. Steve Gerber and Gene Colan put Howard the Duck in the middle of the election when he became the candidate for the All-Night Party. Their slogan: "Get Down America!"

This lampooning of the American electoral process is collected in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection vol. 1 along with a lot of other silliness.

No comments: