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American Flagg! (Single Issues) #1-12
American Flagg!: Definitive Collection
In 1996, after worldwide calamities, the United States government - and the corporations that owned it - fled to the relative safety of the planet Mars. By 2031, chaos had become the new world order, as the government and corporations, now renamed the Plex, continued to run things in absentia from the red planet. The only real law on Earth was enforced by a small band of hardcases called the Plexus Rangers. Reuben Flagg had been the star of an interplanetarily popular television series dramatizing the fictional adventures of one such Ranger. When Flagg was downsized and replaced by a hologram, he was drafted into the Plexus Rangers. With Raul, the smartest talking cat alive, and Luther Ironheart, the stupidest robot ever, and surrounded by a horde of the most beautiful women of the 21st century, Flagg has an uphill battle protecting and defending the American way of life - or rather, what's left of it. Features the first 12 issues of American Flagg!, the rarely seen prelude story, and additional cover paintings and promotional pieces by Chaykin!
336 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2007
35 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Howard Chaykin
1,074 books112 followersHoward Victor Chaykin is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
July 1, 2018
3,5*
American Flagg is often considered as one of these milestones comics, one of those who influenced many authors who bloomed later. And I can see why. If you manage to go back in the early 80's Flagg is innovative, provocative, satirical and whatnot. This is probably the best period for Chaykin, boiling with ideas and creativity.
So, if I had read it even a few years late, say late 80's, early 90's, it probably would have blown me out. As it is, more than 30 years after the deed and thousands of comics under the belt I can't find it in me to be truly amazed. I can see the creativity, the innovation and so on. Just as I've seen it through the authors that were influenced by it through my years of reading. Now I can see it's good, even great on a technical plane, but dated. Though certainly visionary in some aspects it screams "These are the glitterin' 80's" all over the place (though it's set in 2031).
So I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody. It really has to be contextualized to be fully appreciated. But the real buffs, those who love comics and the history of comics and their creators should definitely own a copy.
American Flagg is often considered as one of these milestones comics, one of those who influenced many authors who bloomed later. And I can see why. If you manage to go back in the early 80's Flagg is innovative, provocative, satirical and whatnot. This is probably the best period for Chaykin, boiling with ideas and creativity.
So, if I had read it even a few years late, say late 80's, early 90's, it probably would have blown me out. As it is, more than 30 years after the deed and thousands of comics under the belt I can't find it in me to be truly amazed. I can see the creativity, the innovation and so on. Just as I've seen it through the authors that were influenced by it through my years of reading. Now I can see it's good, even great on a technical plane, but dated. Though certainly visionary in some aspects it screams "These are the glitterin' 80's" all over the place (though it's set in 2031).
So I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody. It really has to be contextualized to be fully appreciated. But the real buffs, those who love comics and the history of comics and their creators should definitely own a copy.
September 7, 2012
In the future we all live in malls, the government is living on Mars, basketball is a blood sport and our only hope for justice is a retired TV star turned sherif, his talking cat and a lunk-headed robot.
It's wild, political, cynical, sexy and the humor has a dark slap sticky feel to it. It's Howard Chaykin being Howard Chaykin before he got self consious about his image.
too many cast members are up to something, but Chaykin was doing dark and flawed before it became trendy and he still does it better than 99% of the writers out there.
It's wild, political, cynical, sexy and the humor has a dark slap sticky feel to it. It's Howard Chaykin being Howard Chaykin before he got self consious about his image.
too many cast members are up to something, but Chaykin was doing dark and flawed before it became trendy and he still does it better than 99% of the writers out there.
Want to read
May 26, 2009Planning to alienate some good friends by loving this book. It's good to have goals!
June 8, 2016
To update my previous in-progress review, this picks up a bit once you get into it. This is a comic that I've heard of throughout much of my comic-reading life, but had never read. I've been a big Chaykin fan for years, but these were never easily accessible, and I was never interested enough to track them down issue by issue. So I was excited at the release of this big collection of the first 14 or 15 issues. Then I got it and started reading it, and was no longer excited. I think it's like... This is maybe the "Pet Sounds" effect - every musician has "Pet Sounds" in their list of the greatest records of all time, so you think that "Pet Sounds" is going to be this mindblowing album. Then you hear it and... Well, it's a Beach Boys album, and you wonder why you expected it to be anything else. Maybe if you heard it in the 60s, but now... Eh.
That's sort of the case here - if I had read this in the 80s it probably would have blown me away. But I've read so much other stuff that came after or was inspired by this that it didn't have the immediate impact I was expecting, and it took me a while to shake off that initial disappointment.
But, the book itself - a really sharp collection, nicely bound with great looking pages inside. Definitely a well-planned and executed collection. The artwork is phenomenal - Chaykin at his best, I think, or at least during his best period. You could power a small city if you could harness the kinetic energy on the page here. (There's also a much more recent epilogue by Chaykin, and the contrast between the artwork in the two is staggering.) Storywise, it's a bit risque, but also a bit dated. Still funny, for the most part, but I doubt it'll shock or titillate like maybe it did 25 years ago...
That's sort of the case here - if I had read this in the 80s it probably would have blown me away. But I've read so much other stuff that came after or was inspired by this that it didn't have the immediate impact I was expecting, and it took me a while to shake off that initial disappointment.
But, the book itself - a really sharp collection, nicely bound with great looking pages inside. Definitely a well-planned and executed collection. The artwork is phenomenal - Chaykin at his best, I think, or at least during his best period. You could power a small city if you could harness the kinetic energy on the page here. (There's also a much more recent epilogue by Chaykin, and the contrast between the artwork in the two is staggering.) Storywise, it's a bit risque, but also a bit dated. Still funny, for the most part, but I doubt it'll shock or titillate like maybe it did 25 years ago...
June 8, 2013
I don't know if it was the way the dialog bubbles were laid out but I found this comic confusing to read. I really dug the concept at first but then it seemed to just meander and fizzle. Looks good though. Wouldn't really recommend.
May 26, 2021
Sexy, smart and smashingly well executed, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! made just about every other adventure comic in the 1980s look like drivel. Originally intended as a futuristic take-off on the TV series Gunsmoke, Chaykin created a satirical pop dystopia that cut to the heart of the Reagan-era zeitgeist. He exaggerated various cultural trends--the emphasis on style over substance, the feeling of information overload in a media-driven culture, the lionising of ruthless opportunism for its own sake--and took them to hilarious and sometimes chilling extremes. Unfortunately, due to the original publisher’s bankruptcy, the series has been out of print for close to 20 years. But after innumerable delays, the most recent due to the challenges of restoring the detailed art, the first 14 issues have finally been collected in a handsome hardbound volume. (Two trade paperbacks featuring the same material have also been released.) Rereading it, one finds that Flagg! hasn’t dated at all. If anything, it reads better now than it did in 1983 and ‘84.
The story takes place in 2031. Thirty-five years earlier, after a series of domestic and international calamities, the political and business leadership of the United States relocated to a colony on Mars, reconstituting themselves as a political-corporate-media combine called the Plex. They govern what’s left of the United States—both east and west coasts have been devastated—and provide all legitimate broadcast media. The remaining earth-side communities in the U.S. are centered around massive commercial-residential malls, which also serve as the headquarters for the resident Plexus Rangers, the Plex’s law-enforcement wing. Their principal responsibilities are to maintain the peace in the malls and protect the Plex’s remaining agricultural and industrial operations from the impoverished outside populace, many of whom have reorganised themselves into gangs and militias.
The Rangers’ newest recruit is Reuben Flagg, an actor who was drafted after being replaced by CGI technology on his television series. He’s assigned to the Chicago Plexmall, where he serves as a deputy under Chief Ranger Hilton “Hammerhead” Krieger. It’s the first time he’s ever been to Earth, and he’s disgusted by what he finds. The more benign militias have sold broadcast rights to their turf battles—fought with with rifles, howitzers and tanks—in exchange for weapons and money. The more extreme ones will kill themselves and their families rather than be captured after running afoul of the Plex. The most horrifying moment for Flagg comes when he sees a teenage girl murder her brother and commit suicide rather than face arrest. The more affluent mall residents are appalling in their own way. All that seems to matter to them is casual sex, recreational drugs and vegging out on the steady diet of porno, animated cartoons and reality TV broadcast by the Plex. Flagg was brought up with an idealistic view of America by his parents on Mars, but having his blinders torn off leaves him with little choice but to acquiesce. At least the casual sex is fun. However, after Krieger is murdered, Flagg finds himself promoted to Chief Ranger and made the unexpected heir of a pirate TV station Krieger operated. Armed with his new authority and the station’s resources, he vows to do his modest part to undermine the Plex and return America to something more like the country he imagined.
That final, hopeful note notwithstanding, Flagg! sounds almost unbearably grim, but it’s anything but. The darkness of the milieu is leavened by the irreverently witty atmosphere Chaykin provides. Parodies of advertising and the media abound—absurdist catchphrases like “The Geopragmacrats—manifest is the only destiny we acknowledge” echo across the pages. There's also plenty of promo imagery for the various TV shows, including “White Sluts on Dope,” “Firefight—All Night Live!” and “Interspecies Romances.” (“Tonight—a man, a woman… and a duck.”) The news media specialises in fawning over visiting VIPs, crime-scene sensationalism, and laying odds on the various wars that erupt from the whacked-out geopolitical scenarios Chaykin has dreamed up. A healthy share of the dialogue is smart-ass banter, and Chaykin thankfully doesn’t handle the sex with dead-earnest seriousness. He likes the humour in flirtatious foreplay, and he certainly gives himself plenty of opportunities to indulge in it—Flagg gets laid in almost every episode, with Chaykin often keeping the reader on the scene up until the bodies hit the bed. One character says that life in 2031 is “like a fun house—without the fun.” One wouldn’t want to live in Flagg’s world, but when it comes to reading about it, sorry, one can’t agree.
Beyond the humour, a reader is also carried along by the dynamism of Chaykin’s storytelling. He plays words and images off each other like no one else. He’ll use a panel as a static tableau for the dialogue, which he breaks up into strings of alternating balloons in an extremely successful rendering of the rhythms of human speech. The dialogue is often used to lead one’s eye across the page to where it joins with an emphatically visual element—examples include a close-up of a character’s face, a full-page action pose, or even a logo, sound-effects banner or some other kind of advertising-style graphics. Chaykin’s pages don’t look like anyone else’s, either. Most cartoonists’ pages, no matter how sophisticated the construction, rarely look like more than collections of panels. Chaykin’s pages often resemble posters, with the panels and other visual elements layered in a way that creates a coherent design whole. He makes everything he puts on a page function both dramatically and decoratively, creating a balance between storytelling and visual flash in which the sum is greater than the parts.
Chaykin’s style, ahead of its time in the 1980's, may have finally found its moment. When Flagg! was first published, a number of people complained that it was too difficult to read. Chaykin was fond of beginning dialogue scenes with the speakers off-panel or buried in the background of a panoramic drawing, and he often mixed the conversations with background chatter from the TV broadcasts. People have since become far more used to multi-tasking in their experience of the media, and the layering of unrelated information in a single space has become so common that it’s now the standard in television news programming. One no longer has to point to Robert Altman movies and their use of overlapping sound to explain what Chaykin is doing; all that’s needed is to turn on cable news.
Chaykin’s influence on other creators is also being recognized. In his introduction to this collection, author Michael Chabon rightly mentions Flagg!’s contribution to cyberpunk style, and he takes care to note how much landmark adventure comics like Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are indebted to Flagg!’s concepts and tone. If one is making a list, the film RoboCop definitely belongs, as it appropriated a great deal of Chaykin’s satirical vision and flourishes. (The film’s producers apparently agree; they included Chaykin in the film’s acknowledgements.) There’s also Miller and Gibbons’ Martha Washington series, which is unimaginable without Flagg! It features a similar mix of dystopian adventure and political and media satire, with the most conspicuous debt being the character of Martha herself. She’s a dead ringer for Flagg! supporting character Medea Blitz, and despite the superficial differences in their backgrounds, their personalities are virtually the same.
Flagg! falters at times. Its most conspicuous weakness is Chaykin’s handling of the women. Male characters like Flagg and Hammerhead have distinctive personalities from the get-go, but Chaykin can’t manage a memorable female character unless, like Hammerhead’s daughter Mandy and the businesswoman Ester Maria de la Cristo, she’s a manipulative, opportunistic bitch. Chaykin tries to give the women some complexity to counterpoint his cheesecake visual treatment, but he can’t seem to flesh out the outlines. Several female characters, such as Medea Blitz and the Jewish Nazi Titania Weis, behave one way when they’re introduced and another way during later episodes. The shifts are deliberate, but Chaykin can’t reconcile the contrasts. Medea goes from being an incorrigible bad-girl brat to a straight-arrow, take-charge leader, but one can’t see the seeds of the later character in the earlier one or feel the remnants of her old self after she’s changed. Chaykin’s superficial handling of another female character also undermines a significant plot twist in the later episodes. A woman the others thought had left their lives years earlier turns out, thanks to amnesia and a case of mistaken identity, to have been living among them for some time. Chaykin doesn’t seem particularly interested in the character in the early episodes, so he neglects to give the twist much foreshadowing. The other members of the cast show no signs of being even unconsciously aware of the truth, and so, when the revelation comes, it carries no punch.
However, flaws aside, Flagg! is an exhilarating piece of pop entertainment. At the top of his game while working on the feature, Chaykin poured more into it than any reader expected, and sometimes more than they wanted. He left us with a dense, witty roller coaster ride that carved out its own stylistic niche and then saw the rest of the media to catch up with it years later. The excesses of ‘80s culture that he satirised have only become more pronounced as time has gone by, so his satirical touches, which one might expect to have become dated, seem more relevant than ever.
The story takes place in 2031. Thirty-five years earlier, after a series of domestic and international calamities, the political and business leadership of the United States relocated to a colony on Mars, reconstituting themselves as a political-corporate-media combine called the Plex. They govern what’s left of the United States—both east and west coasts have been devastated—and provide all legitimate broadcast media. The remaining earth-side communities in the U.S. are centered around massive commercial-residential malls, which also serve as the headquarters for the resident Plexus Rangers, the Plex’s law-enforcement wing. Their principal responsibilities are to maintain the peace in the malls and protect the Plex’s remaining agricultural and industrial operations from the impoverished outside populace, many of whom have reorganised themselves into gangs and militias.
The Rangers’ newest recruit is Reuben Flagg, an actor who was drafted after being replaced by CGI technology on his television series. He’s assigned to the Chicago Plexmall, where he serves as a deputy under Chief Ranger Hilton “Hammerhead” Krieger. It’s the first time he’s ever been to Earth, and he’s disgusted by what he finds. The more benign militias have sold broadcast rights to their turf battles—fought with with rifles, howitzers and tanks—in exchange for weapons and money. The more extreme ones will kill themselves and their families rather than be captured after running afoul of the Plex. The most horrifying moment for Flagg comes when he sees a teenage girl murder her brother and commit suicide rather than face arrest. The more affluent mall residents are appalling in their own way. All that seems to matter to them is casual sex, recreational drugs and vegging out on the steady diet of porno, animated cartoons and reality TV broadcast by the Plex. Flagg was brought up with an idealistic view of America by his parents on Mars, but having his blinders torn off leaves him with little choice but to acquiesce. At least the casual sex is fun. However, after Krieger is murdered, Flagg finds himself promoted to Chief Ranger and made the unexpected heir of a pirate TV station Krieger operated. Armed with his new authority and the station’s resources, he vows to do his modest part to undermine the Plex and return America to something more like the country he imagined.
That final, hopeful note notwithstanding, Flagg! sounds almost unbearably grim, but it’s anything but. The darkness of the milieu is leavened by the irreverently witty atmosphere Chaykin provides. Parodies of advertising and the media abound—absurdist catchphrases like “The Geopragmacrats—manifest is the only destiny we acknowledge” echo across the pages. There's also plenty of promo imagery for the various TV shows, including “White Sluts on Dope,” “Firefight—All Night Live!” and “Interspecies Romances.” (“Tonight—a man, a woman… and a duck.”) The news media specialises in fawning over visiting VIPs, crime-scene sensationalism, and laying odds on the various wars that erupt from the whacked-out geopolitical scenarios Chaykin has dreamed up. A healthy share of the dialogue is smart-ass banter, and Chaykin thankfully doesn’t handle the sex with dead-earnest seriousness. He likes the humour in flirtatious foreplay, and he certainly gives himself plenty of opportunities to indulge in it—Flagg gets laid in almost every episode, with Chaykin often keeping the reader on the scene up until the bodies hit the bed. One character says that life in 2031 is “like a fun house—without the fun.” One wouldn’t want to live in Flagg’s world, but when it comes to reading about it, sorry, one can’t agree.
Beyond the humour, a reader is also carried along by the dynamism of Chaykin’s storytelling. He plays words and images off each other like no one else. He’ll use a panel as a static tableau for the dialogue, which he breaks up into strings of alternating balloons in an extremely successful rendering of the rhythms of human speech. The dialogue is often used to lead one’s eye across the page to where it joins with an emphatically visual element—examples include a close-up of a character’s face, a full-page action pose, or even a logo, sound-effects banner or some other kind of advertising-style graphics. Chaykin’s pages don’t look like anyone else’s, either. Most cartoonists’ pages, no matter how sophisticated the construction, rarely look like more than collections of panels. Chaykin’s pages often resemble posters, with the panels and other visual elements layered in a way that creates a coherent design whole. He makes everything he puts on a page function both dramatically and decoratively, creating a balance between storytelling and visual flash in which the sum is greater than the parts.
Chaykin’s style, ahead of its time in the 1980's, may have finally found its moment. When Flagg! was first published, a number of people complained that it was too difficult to read. Chaykin was fond of beginning dialogue scenes with the speakers off-panel or buried in the background of a panoramic drawing, and he often mixed the conversations with background chatter from the TV broadcasts. People have since become far more used to multi-tasking in their experience of the media, and the layering of unrelated information in a single space has become so common that it’s now the standard in television news programming. One no longer has to point to Robert Altman movies and their use of overlapping sound to explain what Chaykin is doing; all that’s needed is to turn on cable news.
Chaykin’s influence on other creators is also being recognized. In his introduction to this collection, author Michael Chabon rightly mentions Flagg!’s contribution to cyberpunk style, and he takes care to note how much landmark adventure comics like Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are indebted to Flagg!’s concepts and tone. If one is making a list, the film RoboCop definitely belongs, as it appropriated a great deal of Chaykin’s satirical vision and flourishes. (The film’s producers apparently agree; they included Chaykin in the film’s acknowledgements.) There’s also Miller and Gibbons’ Martha Washington series, which is unimaginable without Flagg! It features a similar mix of dystopian adventure and political and media satire, with the most conspicuous debt being the character of Martha herself. She’s a dead ringer for Flagg! supporting character Medea Blitz, and despite the superficial differences in their backgrounds, their personalities are virtually the same.
Flagg! falters at times. Its most conspicuous weakness is Chaykin’s handling of the women. Male characters like Flagg and Hammerhead have distinctive personalities from the get-go, but Chaykin can’t manage a memorable female character unless, like Hammerhead’s daughter Mandy and the businesswoman Ester Maria de la Cristo, she’s a manipulative, opportunistic bitch. Chaykin tries to give the women some complexity to counterpoint his cheesecake visual treatment, but he can’t seem to flesh out the outlines. Several female characters, such as Medea Blitz and the Jewish Nazi Titania Weis, behave one way when they’re introduced and another way during later episodes. The shifts are deliberate, but Chaykin can’t reconcile the contrasts. Medea goes from being an incorrigible bad-girl brat to a straight-arrow, take-charge leader, but one can’t see the seeds of the later character in the earlier one or feel the remnants of her old self after she’s changed. Chaykin’s superficial handling of another female character also undermines a significant plot twist in the later episodes. A woman the others thought had left their lives years earlier turns out, thanks to amnesia and a case of mistaken identity, to have been living among them for some time. Chaykin doesn’t seem particularly interested in the character in the early episodes, so he neglects to give the twist much foreshadowing. The other members of the cast show no signs of being even unconsciously aware of the truth, and so, when the revelation comes, it carries no punch.
However, flaws aside, Flagg! is an exhilarating piece of pop entertainment. At the top of his game while working on the feature, Chaykin poured more into it than any reader expected, and sometimes more than they wanted. He left us with a dense, witty roller coaster ride that carved out its own stylistic niche and then saw the rest of the media to catch up with it years later. The excesses of ‘80s culture that he satirised have only become more pronounced as time has gone by, so his satirical touches, which one might expect to have become dated, seem more relevant than ever.
February 10, 2019
I tried. I really really tried to like this.
Michael Chabon gave it a glowing review in his Maps and Legends which was the spur for me to read this comic that I remember seeing prominently featured in shops and magazines when I was a kid. However, I was a little too young for it when the series started, and I never got around to trying it later. Well, I might have waited too late.
Chaykin's art is definitely the high point.
Unfortunately, the writing can't keep up. It's a series of incidents and characters intended to shock and outrage; which it does--some things perhaps more now than in the 80s. This is obviously satire, but do I fault myself or the work for sometimes being confused as to the targets? Maybe forty years distance has blunted its edge, but I think it was more broad than focused in the first place.
The transitions between scenes are almost non-existent, so following the action became more of a chore than it was worth. The characters never felt distinct enough for me to know or care who was who. And I'm pretty sure the dialogue was supposed to be funny but I didn't laugh once.
American Flagg does seem somewhat prescient, but I'm not sure that's a marker of how successful the book is or rather a commentary on how stupid our present era is.
If this was great, I didn't get it.
(Read in individual issues.)
Michael Chabon gave it a glowing review in his Maps and Legends which was the spur for me to read this comic that I remember seeing prominently featured in shops and magazines when I was a kid. However, I was a little too young for it when the series started, and I never got around to trying it later. Well, I might have waited too late.
Chaykin's art is definitely the high point.
Unfortunately, the writing can't keep up. It's a series of incidents and characters intended to shock and outrage; which it does--some things perhaps more now than in the 80s. This is obviously satire, but do I fault myself or the work for sometimes being confused as to the targets? Maybe forty years distance has blunted its edge, but I think it was more broad than focused in the first place.
The transitions between scenes are almost non-existent, so following the action became more of a chore than it was worth. The characters never felt distinct enough for me to know or care who was who. And I'm pretty sure the dialogue was supposed to be funny but I didn't laugh once.
American Flagg does seem somewhat prescient, but I'm not sure that's a marker of how successful the book is or rather a commentary on how stupid our present era is.
If this was great, I didn't get it.
(Read in individual issues.)
November 23, 2016
Howard Chaykin wrote this strange comic that feels a bit like The Running Man and a bit like a Paul VerHoeven satire of the 1980s. The television references, the insane politics, the shoulder pads and high angled hairstyles. Elements of the satire are spot on: everyone living in malls, parody politics, mixtures of slapstick and ultra-violence. Chaykin's world is lush and you can feel the influence on comics book writers and artists like Frank Miller just a few years later. While this was sexy and transgression from the 1980s, its not as transgressive as soon of Chaykin's own work from the time period.
The dialogue bubbles and the over-saturation of content in the panels though can be distracting and make American Flagg hard to read. It also dates itself more readily than other more old and grim comics from around the same period such as Alan Moore's work as well as Frank Miller's late 80s work. It is completely over the top and the plot is so convoluted, it is hard to follow. It's very good, but also very much limited by reading it almost 30 years too late.
The dialogue bubbles and the over-saturation of content in the panels though can be distracting and make American Flagg hard to read. It also dates itself more readily than other more old and grim comics from around the same period such as Alan Moore's work as well as Frank Miller's late 80s work. It is completely over the top and the plot is so convoluted, it is hard to follow. It's very good, but also very much limited by reading it almost 30 years too late.
August 12, 2015
American Flagg! is an indie classic from the 1980s that still holds up today in many respects. It's a brilliant satire that is spot on in its tone, if not in the specifics of any future predictions. The scary part is how relevant it still is.
Features sharp writing and great storytelling and draftsmanship/design by Chaykin.
If you think Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Swamp Thing were the only great things happening in 1980s comics, you are in need of a history lesson. So much more was going on outside the Big 2 publishers. Amazing, exciting, influential work was going on at indie publishers, including First Comics which originally published American Flagg!
Check this out and discover (or rediscover) what made that era such a glorious time to walk into the comic shop every week.
Features sharp writing and great storytelling and draftsmanship/design by Chaykin.
If you think Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Swamp Thing were the only great things happening in 1980s comics, you are in need of a history lesson. So much more was going on outside the Big 2 publishers. Amazing, exciting, influential work was going on at indie publishers, including First Comics which originally published American Flagg!
Check this out and discover (or rediscover) what made that era such a glorious time to walk into the comic shop every week.
January 19, 2018
One of the best of the best. From First Comics (sadly gone now), American Flagg! was one of the most thought provoking, irreverant, beautifully drawn comics of the 1980s. I'm glad to see it available digitally. Whoever is doing this simply needs to add the entire run as fast at they can. I still have my originals, but this will extend their lives. This book features a brilliant cast and story, some of the greatest lettering (Ken Bruzenak) ever, and it endlessly entertaining. For me, this is Howard Chaykin's best work ever.
November 28, 2022
The 80s were a pretty wild time for comics, and when Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! first landed, it was like a meteor among the dinosaurs - an independent book that wasn't about superheroes or for kids, and brimming with a whole lot of sex, satire, and swagger. As a teenager, I was thunderstruck by it, and re-read my first two trades - Hard Times and Southern Comfort - many times over. But now, with plenty of time for hindsight, I went back to this to give it another look. And while I'm pleased to say that most of what I enjoyed about American Flagg! is still there, a bit of the shine has surely come off.
To say this book is all about the male gaze would be a dire understatement, and Chaykin - who has always been convinced of his own brilliance - really lets it fly here, with a kind of braggadoccio that grates as much as it entertains. Chaykin's strengths in writing dialogue, world building and character art are as strong as ever but his panel and page composition really falls apart in places, sometimes to the point where it's hard to tell what's going on. This is especially true of action sequences, and even in scenes where a major plot development happens in a small frame, almost off-handedly. These were distractions then, and they are so now. Also, the ribald tone of this is sometimes progressive, sometimes transgressive, and there are a few scenes in this that really made me wince.
Perhaps the most enduring quality of this is its status as one of those hyper-kinetic, stylized satires of American culture, in which everything has become corporatized, soulless, and cheap. The Plex of 2031 feels like if MTV had done its own early 80s version of Brave New World. When you see that kind of satire in Robocop and the Running Man, know that Chakyin did it first, and did it best. And that's where this book retains so much value. Some of its various prognostications obviously have aged out, and there are others that work differently than intended and one wonders if Chakyin were to reboot this again, how different would it feel? We'll probably never know, but that's alright. It's a good thing that American Flagg! has been collected in this great edition, which combines the series at its best and most vital. Just remember to take a Mañanacillin (TM) afterwards.
To say this book is all about the male gaze would be a dire understatement, and Chaykin - who has always been convinced of his own brilliance - really lets it fly here, with a kind of braggadoccio that grates as much as it entertains. Chaykin's strengths in writing dialogue, world building and character art are as strong as ever but his panel and page composition really falls apart in places, sometimes to the point where it's hard to tell what's going on. This is especially true of action sequences, and even in scenes where a major plot development happens in a small frame, almost off-handedly. These were distractions then, and they are so now. Also, the ribald tone of this is sometimes progressive, sometimes transgressive, and there are a few scenes in this that really made me wince.
Perhaps the most enduring quality of this is its status as one of those hyper-kinetic, stylized satires of American culture, in which everything has become corporatized, soulless, and cheap. The Plex of 2031 feels like if MTV had done its own early 80s version of Brave New World. When you see that kind of satire in Robocop and the Running Man, know that Chakyin did it first, and did it best. And that's where this book retains so much value. Some of its various prognostications obviously have aged out, and there are others that work differently than intended and one wonders if Chakyin were to reboot this again, how different would it feel? We'll probably never know, but that's alright. It's a good thing that American Flagg! has been collected in this great edition, which combines the series at its best and most vital. Just remember to take a Mañanacillin (TM) afterwards.
March 29, 2018
Aces. Chaykin's vision of America's future is compelling. Rueben Flagg's brand of self-absorbed, bed-hopping heroism makes for a dynamic lead character. The excellent design work displayed throughout the artwork, from Chaykin's layouts to Ken Bruzenak's lettering, make for a unique reading experience. Put it all together and you've got a legendary comic worth all of its hype. People often point to one of these three elements when discussing why Flagg! is so highly regarded, but it's the combination of all three that really sets this series apart. Plenty of comics and sci-fi have been prescient about our future. Lots have anti-heroes. Some even have great art. Chaykin does it all, and does it better than anybody else.
If I have any complaint, there's a little too much soap opera with Mandy and Medea being revealed half-sisters, and the one tedious flashback issue revealing how their mother is still alive (it's issue #13; Chaykin stopped doing art after #12, so it's goofy and poorly drawn). Still, that's only a few small sequences and one issue in 15 issues of greatness. Definitely look for this one.
If I have any complaint, there's a little too much soap opera with Mandy and Medea being revealed half-sisters, and the one tedious flashback issue revealing how their mother is still alive (it's issue #13; Chaykin stopped doing art after #12, so it's goofy and poorly drawn). Still, that's only a few small sequences and one issue in 15 issues of greatness. Definitely look for this one.
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June 20, 2020A true auteurist vision, with all the author’s personal quirks and preoccupations on show. An almost impossibly dense concoction sometimes, this is a work of barely restrained ambition, of a jazz player, having been stuck playing rhythm in various pickup bands, finally getting to be bandleader and already trying for masterpieces. The talk is very fast, and the art is alternately immaculately designed, then jagged and sparse. The story moves at 600 mph and expects you to keep up. It seems like all the various prominent political factions of the 80s feature, making it necessary to have brushed up on your late Cold War history to get the most out of this. As a stew of the Western, post-Blade Runner sci-fi, Cold War politics, media satire, Chandleresque one-liners, US excursions into Latin America, jazz riffs, well-dressed Jewish heroes fighting neo-Nazis and peripheral celluloid porn aesthetic, there’s undoubtedly nothing else quite like it
July 27, 2017
Muy clasico Byrne y Simonson, Miller es un monstruo, Moore es un clásico, pero no nos olvidemos de Chaykin que es una BESTIA.
Estados unidos y el mundo están rotos, y Flagg es un policia,ranger que se movera entre la violencia, el sudor,la droga y el sexo, intentando sobrevivir y arreglar un poco el mundo. Hay mucho de Robocop,Verhoeven, Mad Max, y el poder de esta obra se ve al dia de hoy en trabajos de Brian Vaughn ,Matt Fraction, aunque su arte tiene en momentos a ser roto y brusco, en otras viñetas es épico y preciosista. preciosa introducción de Michael Chabon.
Estados unidos y el mundo están rotos, y Flagg es un policia,ranger que se movera entre la violencia, el sudor,la droga y el sexo, intentando sobrevivir y arreglar un poco el mundo. Hay mucho de Robocop,Verhoeven, Mad Max, y el poder de esta obra se ve al dia de hoy en trabajos de Brian Vaughn ,Matt Fraction, aunque su arte tiene en momentos a ser roto y brusco, en otras viñetas es épico y preciosista. preciosa introducción de Michael Chabon.
February 23, 2020
The complete collection of the incredibly influential 80s indie comic. A brutal look at an America ruled by a absentee government on the planet Mars. The main character is a former porn star drafted into working as a ranger for the violent city of Chicago. The author pulls no punches in violence, language, or content matter. Incredibly fast paced and yet still chock full of material, this book is entirely plot driven with little to no character development. Yet it is still an amazing read with amazing art by the author.
July 20, 2025
Criminally underrated
Here we have a 1983 work about a dystopian future — chaotic yet strikingly familiar to our times. What few people know is that American Flagg! significantly influenced many comics and artists that followed, most notably Watchmen and The Dark Knight. It’s a shame that Chaykin doesn’t receive the same recognition today as others who came after him, being hailed as revolutionaries in the industry. It’s a great comic — highly entertaining, interesting, with spectacular art — and as a bonus, we get to see a futuristic vision of Brazil in this universe.
Here we have a 1983 work about a dystopian future — chaotic yet strikingly familiar to our times. What few people know is that American Flagg! significantly influenced many comics and artists that followed, most notably Watchmen and The Dark Knight. It’s a shame that Chaykin doesn’t receive the same recognition today as others who came after him, being hailed as revolutionaries in the industry. It’s a great comic — highly entertaining, interesting, with spectacular art — and as a bonus, we get to see a futuristic vision of Brazil in this universe.
February 17, 2019
I read this in the early 90s, and remembers it being a good cyberpunk story in the vein of Judge Dredd that left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Rereading it now, both its quality and sense of discomfort are amplified. It has areas that haven't aged well, naturally, but a Jewish man struggling against a Nazi-affiliated organization trying to take over the United States is disturbingly prescient.
November 8, 2020
Just like Pat Mill's Marshall Law, Chaykin's Flagg is a thing of polemics. It is not easy to recommend this comic because the author took "dystopia" seriously. There's a scenario that insults almost every reader and the hero, Reuben Flagg is a very problematic personality. No one is a model to follow here... But the comic still kicks asses! Very well written, very well drawn and very well scripted.
June 13, 2018
It's fun, finally reading now in 2018 what Chaykin did in 1983, knowing everything he did afterwards. Sex, political incorrectness, uncomfortable political points of view, an sarcastic sense of humour, an acid social critique wrapped in a graphical deluge. What an amazing book.
June 3, 2020
A obra foi originalmente publicada em 1983, o que fez com que alguns aspectos da mesma ficassem bem datados. Porém o humor, o sarcasmo e as personagens bem construídas, com diálogos ácidos, tornam a experiência de leitura proveitosa.
June 1, 2024
I eventually discovered what the hype was about, and it was solid
Great, kind of, messy artwork, it fit with the gritty undertones and tour of the story
I may travel farther down the Flagg rabbithole,
Great, kind of, messy artwork, it fit with the gritty undertones and tour of the story
I may travel farther down the Flagg rabbithole,
January 11, 2021
Some times satire doesn't hold up well after a few decades. This book does. Very nice art.
July 5, 2025
Somewhat confusing, and surprising what language was able to make it in.
February 5, 2017
If you want a glimpse of a possible future, just read this graphic novel.
May 17, 2019
Humble Comics Bundle: Fan Faves & New Hits by Dynamite, 2019)
November 20, 2013
I appreciate the influence that this series had on later groundbreaking comics, but Chaykin's pacing is just chaotic. His art is ridiculously lush (especially considering he was writing and drawing 28 pages per month at a time when the norm was only 24), but his story telling has never been a strong point. I read this series as original single issues and stopped after issue 13 (not collected in this book) when Chaykin gave the art duties away to some less talented artists but continued to pen his convoluted stories. Up to that point I wasn't exactly enjoying this book, but I continued to pick up the next issue none-the-less. (Edit: Chayking comes back on to do art duties at issue 15. I continued reading up to about issue 30. His editors seemed to reign him in around issue 15 when they spent 4 pages of each issue doing a informative pin-up of each supporting character, explaining to the reader where we met this character and how they fit in. Chaykin also seemed to use about half the number of supporting characters for each story arc after this point, which helped.)
I had a hard time keeping track of the multitude of characters. In general it seemed that everyone was sleeping with everyone else and that everyone was related (which you would think would cut down on the sleeping with everyone).
My other huge complaint about Chaykin's story telling centers on his convoluted scene changes. Here is an example from American Flagg! Special No. 1. (This issue isn't collected in the book being reviewed here. It's just the issue I happen to be reading right now, but it is a typical example of how Chaykin changes from one scene to the next throughout American Flagg!, including the issues that are reprinted in the book being reviewed.)
Did you have any idea that between these three panels there were multiple conversations going on between characters at two different locations? I didn't the first time I read this, because the word balloons all use the exact same font, color and appearance, and they point to nothing. If your story has too many characters it become that much more important that the reader be able to tell who is saying what.
Many other reviewers have noted American Flagg!'s influence on later groundbreaking comic titles such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns . While the only similarity I can find with Watchmen is the dystopian future setting, American Flagg! may have been a stronger influence on The Dark Knight Returns . Chaykin and Miller both often used a panel showing a report by a TV news anchor as a narrative device. Also, Lynn Varley colored the first two issues of American Flagg! before starting her long career (and eventual marriage) with Frank Miller.
I had a hard time keeping track of the multitude of characters. In general it seemed that everyone was sleeping with everyone else and that everyone was related (which you would think would cut down on the sleeping with everyone).
My other huge complaint about Chaykin's story telling centers on his convoluted scene changes. Here is an example from American Flagg! Special No. 1. (This issue isn't collected in the book being reviewed here. It's just the issue I happen to be reading right now, but it is a typical example of how Chaykin changes from one scene to the next throughout American Flagg!, including the issues that are reprinted in the book being reviewed.)
Did you have any idea that between these three panels there were multiple conversations going on between characters at two different locations? I didn't the first time I read this, because the word balloons all use the exact same font, color and appearance, and they point to nothing. If your story has too many characters it become that much more important that the reader be able to tell who is saying what.
Many other reviewers have noted American Flagg!'s influence on later groundbreaking comic titles such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns . While the only similarity I can find with Watchmen is the dystopian future setting, American Flagg! may have been a stronger influence on The Dark Knight Returns . Chaykin and Miller both often used a panel showing a report by a TV news anchor as a narrative device. Also, Lynn Varley colored the first two issues of American Flagg! before starting her long career (and eventual marriage) with Frank Miller.
June 23, 2017
A grim and realistic view of earth's potential crumbled future and the fallout being a pain in the balls.
November 29, 2011
Warren Ellis mentioned this title in a recent blog post, putting it in the same category as Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. So naturally I had to check it out. I don't think it quite stands up to that high praise, but it's a fascinating comic nonetheless, and now stands as the best science fiction graphic novel I've ever read. Chaykin has a frenetic voice, heavy with ellipses and dashes, that is perfectly suited to the bizarre post-apocalyptic and yet strangely familiar world he's built, where everything is going 100 mph. His art is solid and chunky as a counterpoint to that, but the experimental layouts and over-the-top sound effects help complete the breakneck effect. The story is multilayered, with an impressive double plot structure that serves both one-issue stories and the multi-issue plotlines equally well. If you're gathering that it's a bit dense, you're right -- it took me a while to get into the world and figure out the characters. It is far from an effortless read, but it's worth the work, especially if you're interested in science fiction comics.
September 8, 2008
A clear precursor to the 1980s-inspired, media-saturated grimness of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN, AMERICAN FLAGG! as a breakout work for Howard Chaykin is tough to describe. The narrative - complex and oft unnecessarily Chandlerian - is classic Chaykin, and it's pretty sharp to see his abilities as a storyteller evolve through the course of the story.
Still, after the years of hype around FLAGG!, I expected a lot more. Chaykin's art is certainly AWESOME to behold as it always is, but it's clear that he's grown in leaps and bounds from the new FLAGG! story included as a bookend in this edition. Enjoyable, but a bit of a chore to get through instead of being the seminally engaging standard so many comics pundits have tagged it as for the past 25 years.
Still, after the years of hype around FLAGG!, I expected a lot more. Chaykin's art is certainly AWESOME to behold as it always is, but it's clear that he's grown in leaps and bounds from the new FLAGG! story included as a bookend in this edition. Enjoyable, but a bit of a chore to get through instead of being the seminally engaging standard so many comics pundits have tagged it as for the past 25 years.
March 3, 2013
I think my brain melted. I remember American Flagg as being better than this. Then again it was breaking new ground when it came out. It was edgy and the writing was cool - sure the art was a bit jarring but I've seen loads that were unintentionally horrible and this is just stylistically different. Actually in lots of ways it still felt pretty current - pretty good for something 30 years old. But definitely not enjoyable. Still good to see the lots of the First Comics runs are still easily available.
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