2007, Image Comics, Berkeley, CA

I find myself following Mister Hickman’s work eagerly, thrilled with his ‘dystopia now’ view of our world. As much as I have veered away from comics as ‘writing with crutches’ I am beginning to appreciate the medium at an entry level. Don’t expect me to understand any sort of visual art. That would be asking a lot of a guy who lived with a lady for six years and was still unable to identify the color of the walls and drapes when she would cover my eyes and quiz me on the couch.

There is something much more about comics, which has recently grabbed me. As an author who has dealt with five book and periodical publishers I can tell you that self-censorship by publishing houses is relentlessly driven by mainstream political correctness even on the fringes, particularly in fiction. I find it endlessly fascinating that fiction publishers are more PC than non-fiction houses. Perhaps this is an acknowledgement of the power of fiction in shaping the collective human narrative. I had always thought of comics as the stronghold of corporate PC and American self-worship in tights. But companies like Dark Horse and Image are putting out content as harsh as what my editor recently told me would limit my readership.

The Nightly News follows a cult of anti-media terrorists, intent on murdering as many of our corporate media mouthpieces as possible. This was written in 2007 and predicted our current terrorist trends, such as the Boston Bombing and the D. C. Naval Yard Shootings. Hickman braces his fictional narrative with a lot of media research, even quoting perennial anti-establishment Geek, Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT.

Jonathan felt it necessary to place many disclaimers in the text. I quite understand. His research is so good you could use this for a primer on corporate media corruption. This cannot be made into a TV series or movie, even on FX or A&E, so you will have to get the comic. Hurry up and get yours. I do not see even fringe publishers getting away with this type of thing for long.