A very long time ago, I (being the only person in the world who’s so interested in Mike Mackey’s feverishly paranoid and anti-liberal comic reviewed here, here…aw, screw it, just click through) mentioned that Liberality for All had a spinoff coming in issue three: a short series about the misadventures that befall the imperfect clones of Howard Dean, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Teddy Kennedy. And now, to conclude my four-week session of recapping that very same issue three, I present the first chapter of Libarro World.
sober sincere tale of the liberal-baiting heroes of the black helicopter crowd for whom the Bush Administration is dangerously far to the left. And while it would be easy enough to mock anything that represent modern politics in a futuristic sci-fi setting, mocking a story where one of the most pathetic bloviators in American history is recast as a cyborg with a lightening bolt arm is almost reductively easy: I just relate the story and let the laughs come.
Libarro World is a comedy.
That doesn’t mean it’s funny. In fact, it’s where funny goes to die a lonely death. But the fact remains is that there are “gags” and “satire” here, and if modern culture has constantly reinforced one thing, it’s that the Left has a pretty rock-solid monopoly on funny:
Liberal humor- “We define our zero of wingnuttery as Charles Darwin’s classic ‘The Origin of Species’, and our zero of wankery as Steve McQueen, the only man to live through the 1960’s without ever having a stupid haircut. Moving upwards from our axis of wingnuttery we pass through lines of increasing wingnuttiness, while moving to the right from our zero-wankery line implies ever higher degrees of wankitude, until, after many, many sheets of graph paper, we find ourselves at the Burning Man festival.” –The Editors
Conservative humor- “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” -Ann Coulter.
So whereas reading Liberality for All entails an endless series of Gilliamesque nonsequiturs and fantasy, reading Libarro World is just a string of deeply unfunny jokes, and there is nothing in this life more unpleasant than unfunny jokes.
Which is my way of saying that if you want to bail out now, I won’t think less of you.
Still here? You poor sad fools. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
We open on the empty Senate chamber. Empty, that is except for a strange machine and four figures watching a man who proudly wagers his Berkeley tenure on the success of “it” “working.” It is important to recall that to the wingnut, Berkeley, CA is the epicenter of all liberalism in the United States, because in the 1960’s there were a lot of hippies there. Remember boys and girls, all modern liberals were hippies in the 1960’s!
Moving in closer (imagine your own “whooooosh” sound, the Professor – a man with a terrible red combover, for no apparent reason – assures the assembled (who, we shall presently learn, include Senators Kerry, Kennedy and Clinton, and Howard Dean) that after a trip through his duplication ray, they will be able to bash President Bush twice as hard. Why these four? Only one of them can be legitimately called a vocal opponent of Bush, and surely this concept would lend itself to some killer “Michael Moore is a fatty!!!” jokes. The best I could come up with is that the secret project was funded through a Senate backchannel known only to the politicians who initiated it. And Mike Mackey named the only four Democratic politicians that most of his target audience could name, even though e.g. Russ Feingold would have made more sense. Let us be thankful that he didn’t drop Joe Lieberman into the story, althought that would have been funny.
Now we hear from the best and the brightest of the American Left: John Kerry is a pussy and Howard Dean is angry at him, and Hillary Clinton is, I don’t know, voguing. All three of them have scary white eyes. This is one of the panels that I’d really like to frame, if I never wanted to have guests again. It’s a perfect example of all that’s wrong with this miniseries: the characters are all completely ugly, speaking in a way that does not reflect in the slightest the way they actually speak, posing inexplicably (essay question for the comments: what in the hell is Kerry doing?).
Next up we hear from the Right’s classic bête noire, Ted Kennedy. Why Ted Kennedy? is a question that years of well-intentioned liberal investigating have never answered (he’s not one of our heroes, why is he one of your enemies?). Let us lay it aside. Let us instead attend to the mind-blowing depiction of Kennedy, easily the most bizaare and painful element of Libarro World.
I will quote his dialogue in full: “Ehh, it is nearly four o’clock and I have…ehh, an early, ehh appointment.” The expiration date on drunk Ted Kennedy jokes is about twenty years gone now, and yet wingnutes keep! bringing! it! up! for a reason that has never and will never make sense to anyone anywhere left of the Center. But that’s his sole trait in this comic: he’s no liberal firebrand or Bush-attacker, he’s just a fat drunk. What a great character! And that attempt at a Massachusetts accent is indefensible. Think of Kennedy’s voice. Now try to imagine him saying that line. No, I can’t do it either.
Hillary Clinton, looking grotesque, snarks at him for being an alcoholic.
Page 2 begins (Yeah…I figured that if I deconstuct it enough, it might make sense). Responding to Clinton’s snark (making a point of calling her the junior senator), Kennedy asks if she’d like “a ehh…scotch and Whitewater.” Wow, I’d literally forgotten about that scandal. And the Democrat infighting is strange, given the four people involved, but I suppose if that’s what gets Mackey off, I won’t judge. It takes all sorts. Clinton shuts Kennedy up and turns to the professor, who has now lost his combover.
Kerry suggests that they seek U.N. approval before cloning themselves, which is not funny because it’s stupid, and Dean threatens to back Gore in ’08 if Kerry doesn’t come along, which is not funny because it’s not true. In fact, in one line there are three incorrect assumptions: 1) that, in a room containing Hillary Clinton, Kerry is the likeliest presidential candidate; 2) that Kerry will in fact ever come within spitting distance of a presidential candidacy again; 3) that there is any chance that the head of the DNC would back anyone besides Gore, ever. Meanwhile, Clinton puts scare quotes around Howard Dean’s “genius,” and John Kerry’s “heroism,” because deep in the heart of every liberal, we know that Kerry was a pussy in ‘Nam, and purple hearts yada yada yada, and less than 1.5 pages in I’m starting to feel physically sickened by this comic.
The professor talks about shooting mice through the machine. Indeed, they were “slightly improved.” Foreshadowing!
In the most hideous image I have ever seen in a grapic novel, comic book, comic strip, or life, a contorted gargoylesque parody of Hillary Clinton makes a “takes a village joke.” I hate this goddamn comic. Teddy Kennedy asks what sort of ehh…improvements the professor is talking about, which is a really valid question. It remains unanswered as the machine glows green and says “zak.”
The four clonees look amazed, disgusted or whathaveyou, and Dean screams “yeeehaa!” which is definitely not a spelling of the “Dean Scream” that I’ve ever encountered. As good a time as any to mention, not one of the four looks remotely like they do in real life (Dean looks more like Tom DeLay), not even the eminently-caricaturable John Kerry.
Reverse shot! Kennedy’s clone is slim and black-haired (because alcohol is the only reason a 74-year-old man would have white hair), Kerry’s clone is muscular and wearing a military uniform, Clinton’s clone has very large breasts and Dean’s clone is a disgusting conehead. None of it makes very much sense, although my gut instinct tells me to hate the Dean clone the most.
Real Dean starts sputtering as he looks at his clone. Said clone responds in one of the most tortured sentences I’ve read in ages: “Unequivocally, my incoherent counterpart is attempting to surmise why the duplication process went so far astray.” I’ll spoil it for you: the Clone Dean is supposed to be super-smart (because apparently Real Dean is an idiot? I’ve missed that meme), and it’s obvious that Mackey is signifiying that by putting lots of big words into his mouth. But that really doesn’t demonstrate anything to me other than Mackey’s unfamiliarity with smart people in real life, a fact I probably could have guessed anyway.
Nice short page, that.
Clone Dean continues to be a bad parody of Spock, while Real Clinton asks if Slutty Clinton’s curtain matches the carpet. Not really, but mine is funnier. The professor talks about how he filtered…he means…improved the subjects, and if I were going to backpedal to avoid insulting three U.S. Senators and the DNC chair, that’s not how I’d do it. The professor begins the sentence, “In Dr. Dean’s case, his duplicate…” and Clone Dean interrupts that he prefers to be called “Deaniac,” which proves nothing so much as that Otto Binder needs to rise from the dead to punch Mike Mackey in the gonads. The professor never completes his thought.
Real Kennedy gets another line that he would not conceivably say (all of his lines share that distinction, but I lack the enthusiasm to transcribe all of them…they’re worse than the fucking ReaganNarration): “I am used to seeing double, but this is ehh, ridiculous.” His clone introduces himself as “Teddie,” and given the sort of person Mike Mackey is, I presume this means that the clone is gay, which given the sort of person Mike Mackey is, doesn’t seem like it’s supposed to be an improvement. Clone Kerry salutes and shouts “Lieutenant Kerry reporting for duty” to no-one in particular, and the professor muses that the “profound” changes to each clone are “obvious.” Yes, they’re all thirty years younger, except for the one with the awful mutant head.
The fifth interminable page cranks up, with Real Kerry flailing about complaining how he should have checked with the U.N. or focus groups or Theresa before they began the experiment. And I’ll spot Mackey the focus groups gag, because that was something that didn’t work out too well, but I suspect that the implication is that Bush is a greater man for ignoring the polls, and I have to think that you’d do the same thing, if you were Bush? Oh, and Kerry’s jacket has changed color since the last time we saw it. Ted Kennedy takes a belt from a flask while someone who I imagine is supposed to be Dean, but who looks like nobody we’ve seen so far, stands behind him.
Slutty Clinton asks everyone to calm down and introduces herself to Real Clinton as “Miss Rodham.” Clinton asks if she doesn’t mean “Ms.” and Slutty Rodham replies, “Ms.? Oh, heavens no, honey!” while putting her hand to her mouth and having the word “giggle” appear over her shoulder. There is problematic representation, and then there’s Problematic Represenation, and then there’s coming right out and saying that the real problem with the world today is that women think they should be treated like people, and if nothing else I respect Mackey for not trying to sugarcoat his opinion. His vicious, nasty, regressive, bigoted opinion.
What confuses me is that Slutty Rodham is unmarried. Single women are bad, aren’t they? I’m not up on my rampaging misogynist talking points.
Slutty Rodham saucily puts her hand on her hip and jokes about burning her bra and joining the “National Association of Gals,” setting up the oh-no-you-didn’t worst joke of the whole goddamn issue, “You know, N.A.G.?” Margaret Dumont Clinton huffs that she is a proud member of N.O.W., to which Slutty Rodham riffs in the other oh-no-you-didn’t worst joke of the whole goddamn issue, “N.O.W. ‘member’ship, that is so funny!” because apparently being cloned not only made Hillary Clinton single and thirty, but also a frat boy. Clinton reacts to this by looking unimaginably horrified (sounds about right to me…) and looking off the edge of the frame, a great big no-no of composition, but what do I know, I just studied film in school. Ted Kennedy offers Teddie a drink while Senator Kerry berates the lieutenant. It reminds me of a picture I drew when I was about six years old, the characters from the Ghostbusters cartoon doing God only knows what, but I recall (not from drawing it, but from the fact that it occupied a place of pride on my bedroom wall for far too long) that when I was all done, I hadn’t included one of the ghost busters in my very carefully choreographed mise en scène, and so I just stuck him in the background fighing a random ghost. It looked like a grey blob urinating on a red blob. Anyway, that’s what the image of the Kerry’s reminded me of. Way to go, guys. Oh, and Kerry is now wearing a third jacket.
Teddie refuses the drink, and Ted steps back, amazed. “Oh…dear…Lord!” he screams. And that is our first Libarro World cliffhanger: there exists a sober Ted Kennedy. Oh my, I have the vapors.
It’s obvious where this is going (the clones take over the real people, and the world is freed for puppies and free markets and war profiteering), and it’s the proof, finally, that Mackey isn’t just a real subtle satirist. The fact of the matter is that no liberal would be able to come up with this. Not only do we not view Kerry and Dean and Kennedy in that way, it’s really hard for us to get our minds around the fact that wingnuts actually do. (The Clinton represenation is sadly predictable).
And it’s so fucking ugly. The close-up of a snarling Hillary Clinton is one of the most unpleasant images (both aesthetically and morally) I’ve ever seen. The characters change clothes constantly and they look nothing like their real-world analogues, so it’s nearly impossible to keep track of who’s who. It is vindictively bad; maybe the worst-written and -pencilled comic I’ve ever seen. I hate it more than I’ve ever imagined hating Liberality. Just recapping five pages was one of the most trying things I’ve ever done.
I can’t fucking wait for the next issue.