Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAGG - part 2

For everyone who thought Yesterday's post about AMERICAN FLAGG was my idea of an April Fool's Day prank no, I was serious. And to prove that - and also because I just finished adding the rest of the original Howard Chaykin artwork to that post - here is the second part which I promised.

Now the attentive blog visitor may have noticed that some of the covers from AMERICAN FLAGG that I included in our first post on this seminal series are the original covers by First Comics - like the one you can see above - while some of them sport the Dynamite Entertainment logo.

That's because most of the scans from the original comicbooks that one can find on the interwebs ( and I want to stress again that 90 percent of what I use in my posts consists of material that I find on the internet and that I don't own any of the original artwork you see here as some people think I am loaded with money ) are of really poor quality and so I used scans from Dynamite Entertainment's DEFINITE COLLECTION reprint which sadly only covers the first twelve issues. Although to be fair these twelve first issues are considered to be the quintessential AMERICAN FLAGG issues which tell one big story while later you have Howard Chaykin leaving the title and other writer and artists coming in. So I understand Dynamite Entertainment's decision to stick to the good part especially in light of the fact that there will be only a limited interest even in that since AMERICAN FLAGG is not as sought after as it should be.

In any case, usually I stick to the scans from the original comicbooks as I prefer the subtle and varied colour palette they used back in the day over the glossy, thick computer colouring they use nowadays which more often than not overpowers the original line art. However I also want to bring my readers the best visuals so in cases where the original scans are not very good I go for the reprints. And you will find more of the scans from the original comicbooks in this post so you can judge for yourself if you would have made the same decision. As for the order in which I am posting the pages, as longtime followers of the blog know I like to keep pages from the same issue in the same post but since these BLACK AND WHITE posts ( which is not a racial slur and only means that you have the original black and white art alongside the corresponding coloured pages ) are made to showcase the original artwork I skipped a few pages to include more original artwork. Apart from that I am sticking to the original publishing order from the first AMERICAN FLAGG series which lasted 50 issues, skipping the parts that were done by other artists and continuing with the second AMERICAN FLAGG series where First Comics managed to lure Howard Chaykin back in and which lasted 12 issues.

I am not including any artwork from the AMERICAN FLAGG SPECIAL ( At least not at the moment. Later on, who knows ? ) because I have already enough of a big headache figuring out which page is from which series.

oh say can you see

flagg stuff

flagg links

flagg videos

howard chaykin

controversial

issue one

written by howard chaykin

briana smith part three

daimn these girls

behind the scenes photoshoot

alle jahre wieder

a different version of the folk tale

videobuck shivers

david cronenberg predicting the future in shivers

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flagg quote of the day

Howard Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAGG - part 1

Keeping in mind that the last three posts have been about Jackson Guice one might think that I would start INDEPENDENT COMICS MONTH with his brilliant CrossGen series RUSE but that's exactly why I decided against it.

I mean, naturally I thought about it or doing another general CrossGen Comics tribute post but as longtime followers of the blog know I like to switch things up whenever I can in order to keep things interesting for my readers but more importantly myself. Because let's face it, the posts are way better when I am invested in the topic that I am writing about.

So instead of that I am doing a post which frequent blog visitors might remember that I promised to do when I was writing the in - between posts for SWAMP THING MONTH . With that said I don't know that much about Howard Chaykin's groundbreaking AMERICAN FLAGG because - like the majority of comicbook readers from my generation - it is a book that has always intrigued me but I never got around to delve into until now.

I don't know why that is, maybe because of the political topics that I was not that interested at the time it was published or maybe because of the sexual content in the book ( which should have been a reason for me to read it and which was way tamer than I thought when I finally checked it out much like in his famous - or infamous as your mileage may vary - BLACK KISS especially when compared to what you can find in european comics ) but AMERICAN FLAGG was always on the backburner. It also may have something to do with the fact that the original series was published by an independent comicbook company like First Comics and as far as I know only two albums have been published in Germany by Feest Comics.

Whatever may be the reason I am not the only one who has overlooked AMERICAN FLAGG which was so innovative that it influenced revered works of comicbook art like Frank Miller's re - imagination of the Batman mythos THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons WATCHMEN yet is always ignored when people speak about comicbook series that shaped the comicbook landscape we are living in right now.

What may be one reason why this seminal work is virtually unknown to Today's generation of consumers ( which is always a big incentive to showcase series on this blog ) is that it is very layered and the story underneath the surface takes a lot of work to decipher. As for the story when it came out it was a vision of the future but Today an America rules by a ruling class made up of egoistical despots where every town is just one big mall and the general populace is kept docile by a steady diet of porn, drugs, consumerism and reality tv is the reality of people's lives.

Speaking of porn, like I mentioned the sex contained in this series was way tamer then I expected and in most cases it is in service of the story or the characters. One thing that may also be off putting to Today's comicbook reading generation is that it is always consensual and both parts enjoy the act. I mean, in the comicbooks that come out Today the women have to be at least bi - sexual if not outright lesbians ( although the argument could be made that most women are practically lesbians because while they are labelled as bi - sexual you never see them having sex with men ) while men ( who are always at least gay or bi - sexual which also is played as gay since you almost never see them having sex with women ) are just to be used if they are used at all and are always to blame for everything that is wrong. Also Howard Chaykin's women are emancipated women in positions of power instead of just pretending to be like Today's mindless interchangeable avatars for political agendas.

Coming to Howard Chaykin's art that is hit or miss - like a lot of his series - but he is consistent. So far I have not written much about him and he mostly popped up in the birthday section - back when I had time to go over all of the celebrity birthdays - but I'm sure that I wrote about some of the more mainstream series he worked on like THE SHADOW, BLADE or WOLVERINE or his POWER & GLORY series for Malibu Comics ( yes, the guys who did the original MEN IN BLACK comicbook on which the movies and the cartoon show are based on ) Bravura imprint that also featured such creators like Kevin Maguire ( STRIKEBACK ), Dan Jurgens ( DEUCE ), Walt Simonson ( STAR SLAMMERS ), Jim Starlin ( BREED, BREED II and DREADSTAR ), Norm Breyfogle ( METAPHYSIQUE ) and Gil Kane ( EDGE ).

Man, before Marvel Comics bought Malibu Comics because they needed their colouring department to compete with the guys from iMAGE Comics who blew every other publisher away with their computer colouring they published some great books like DINOSAURS FOR HIRE, EX - MUTANTS by Paul Pelletier , ULTRAFORCE with artwork by George Perez , PRIME with art by Norm Breyfogle , RUNE with art by Barry - Windsor Smith and last but not least NIGHT MAN ( who even got his own short lived tv show ).

One of these days I have to make a post about that. And the last thing I am going to mention about Howard Chaykin in this part of the post - because there is definitely going to be a second part - is that he also worked for television and wrote episodes for the 1990s THE FLASH tv show and VIPER, the last one will definitely pop up in the pop culture trivia / cult siren section. For now here's some more AMERICAN FLAGG.

back then a vision of the future now everyday life

american stuff

american links

american videos

howard chaykin

american flagg

howard chaykins scorpion for seaboard atlas comics

more briana smith part two

full show

american banner

american quote of the day