The Amazing Obama Man

There’s been a lot of discussion of President Obama’s performance lately, what with the economy and war and all, and it’s brought out some thoughts I’ve had floating around for quite a while now.



It’s not saying anything new to say that even a year and a half ago one could tell there was something different about the then-senator from Illinois. Hell, lots of people have written about it, most probably better than I ever could. But what really struck me, especially around this time last year, was the way the comic people jumped all over Obama.

Even before he was elected, you had successful comic characters (and by extension, one would think their creators) making no bones about their chosen candidate:



When he did get elected, it was unprecedented. Sure,other presidents had appeared in comics before, but none like this. In terms of sheer volume and scope, Obama (or at least his image) was blazing all kinds of new trails.











What’s really interesting is seeing how the interpretations developed over time. While most comics were content to simply involve the president in a storyline or two, Devil’s Due took it a step further



…and then Antarctic Press took it even further than that:



Even his detractors, it seemed, couldn’t help but fall back on comic book imagery:



Taking all of this in, it’s easy to see that Obama isn’t just the president, he’s a full-blown Pop Culture Phenomenon. I know, a little late to the game with that one, huh? But seeing it laid out like this raises certain questions about not just the president, but his fans as well.

There are certain parallels one can draw between President Obama and Tiger Woods – and most are probably too obvious to even point out. But the main similarity (for the sake of this discussion) is the way with each that the Image overlaps with the Actual Human Being.



With his recent domestic troubles and subsequently dodgy behavior, it seems that Tiger Woods’ biggest problem of late is that his dramatically adult personal life is clashing with his image as the clean, driven, “aw shucks” kind of guy who was as charming as he was good at golf. (Think back to that Dave Chapelle sketch of Tiger Woods awkwardly declaring, “I’ve always wanted to say this – fer shizzle!”) With people learning that off the field Woods is just like lots of other celebrities – all too fallible – his popularity and position in the public’s good graces is in question.

We’re seeing some hints of this with Obama in the political field as well. With the troop escalation in Afghanistan, the total mess the health care debate has become, the continued corporate bonuses, etc., a lot of people on the political left are starting to feel disillusioned with Obama. Put simply, they’re finding the man in the office isn’t the same guy who was in that Spider-Man issue.



One thing America likes to do to its celebrities is, after having built them up, to tear them down. Tom Cruise certainly got a lot more press after jumping on Oprah’s couch than he did before that. So what happens when the celebrity happens to be the man in charge of running the country? What happens when his comic stops selling? What happens when the Symbol of Hope turns out to be just another guy in a suit doing a job?

What if Clark Kent really isn’t Superman?



Or conversely, will the Idea of Barack Obama overshadow the man to the point where all we have left is the image, devoid of any but the most basic associations? Will Sheperd Fairey’s famed “Hope” poster simply become the newest perennial t-shirt design?




(Please note, I’m not trying to make any overt political statements, but more examining the whole person/persona issue when played out in four colors.)

Jumping the Undead Shark

Well, hello there. Yeah, guess it has been a while, and the blog was starting to resemble one of those abandoned houses Time Magazine is writing about – you know, not taken down, but not maintained, just a withered reminder of the glory that once was and we all hope could return.

So in that spirit, and appropriate to the upcoming holiday, the topic at hand for this post is: zombies.

I had set out to write this entry after reading about the Night of the Stripping Dead, but before I could, I encountered last week’s Savage Love article, which featured a question form a reader regarding the ethic of – you guessed it – zombie sex (you’ll have to scroll down for it).

In case you missed that, someone wrote to a national sex columnist to get advice on the morality of having sexual intercourse with the living dead.

Seriously, people.

All of this reinforces a question I’ve been asking myself lately: has the zombie phenomenon hit its peak?

Of course, a lot of this ties into the release of the movie Zombieland – which, despite its use of the modern running zombie is hilarious and worth seeing. Interestingly, it seems that whoever did the marketing for that movie knew their stuff, as I’ve seen the movie promoted by several Zombie Walk groups (including

Detroit’s own). And with AMC producing a televised version of Image Comics’ series The Walking Dead, it seems the march of the pop culture undead is going to be a hard to put down as the monsters themselves. (In this case it may not be a bad thing, since if the show turns out even half as good as the book, it’ll be one of the best series on TV). And lest we forget, while you’re waiting for the show you can always read some zombiefied Jane Austen.

Yes, everywhere you look, there be zombies.

But why does there seem to be this tendency of late to turn everything into a phenomenon anyway? Time was, you could be into pirates or ninjas or robots or primates or whatever it was, and it wasn’t a big deal, it was just what you were into. Mainly because you were ten, and ninjas were the baddest-ass thing you’d ever heard of in your entire decade-long life. But now, it doesn’t seem to be enough to just like, say, pirates. You have to be “OMG!! Pirates!!!” Everything becomes this grand statement pop cultural identity.

To further illustrate this, I give you a prime example: bacon. Once it was simply fried pig flesh that many people enjoyed at meals. Then came Baconnaise, and all its offshoots. Then the April Fool’s Day joke Bacon Lube, which proved so popular it became a real item. There are bacon t-shirts. I’ve seen a Beer and Bacon happy hour at some hipster bar. That thing that used to be just to make you stop being hungry? It’s now something you show off to demonstrate your hipness.

This could be a result of the constant barrage of cultural input we get. If you’re some artist or Hollywood executive trying to cut through the endless sea of stimuli to get your product/creation/message across, and you see some wave that people are actually paying attention to (especially if those people are in your target demographic), well, wouldn’t you try to ride it as far as you could?

Or maybe it’s just that I’m not used to the things I like being mainstream. It’s kind of like watching a band go from playing dive bars to packing stadiums – you’re happy for them, but it’s just not the same. Then you start saying how they’re not as good anymore, and anyway none of the new fans get the band like you do.

But I digress…

Now the question is, with vampires making a comeback, will the zombie be pushed out of the undead spotlight? After all, what could possibly be a bigger draw than a bunch of shuffling, rotting corpses?