Watch NPR's Ron Elving and Harvard Law's Alan Jenkins Discuss 1/6 The Graphic Novel
Watch NPR's Ron Elving and Harvard Law's Alan Jenkins Discuss 1/6 The Graphic Novel #comics #comicbooks
USCHS Trustee and NPR News Senior Editor and Correspondent Ron Elving moderates a fascinating discussion with Harvard Law Professor and author Alan Jenkins about his comic series, 1/6: The Graphic Novel. Written by Jenkins and Gan Golan and illustrated by Will Rosado, 1/6 answers the question: What if the January 6 Insurrection had been successful?
This graphic novel chillingly demonstrates how…
1/6 The Graphic Novel #2 Blends Art and Advocacy - Out now!
1/6 The Graphic Novel #2 Blends Art and Advocacy - Out now! #comics #comicbooks
The anticipated second issue of 1/6: The Graphic Novel is now available, offering a deeper and more complex exploration of a world where the January 6th insurrection was successful. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Jenkins and author Gan Golan, alongside artist Will Rosado, continue their provocative narrative under the auspices of the Western States Center. In 1/6: The Graphic Novel #2, the…
1/6 : A What If? comic about The Insurrection. Join Prof. Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan and GP Radio to answer this "what if" question #comics #comicbooks #jan6 @gangolan @Opportunity1 @Elana_Brooklyn
What if the attack on the US Capitol succeeded?1/6 is a 4 part comics series written by Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan and illustrated by Will Rosado. Prof. Jenkins and Golan joined me on the podcast to talk about their comic which combines comics journalism, speculative fiction and activism.
Drawing on real-life events, 1/6 travels the road that led from back-room meetings, white supremacist…
Disclaimer: The Very Canadian Brain Gremlin waxes political therein. Proceed ahead if you're not too exhausted by the North American climate. Feel free to skip this if you'd rather go for something more cheerful, I'll entirely understand.
Last year, and pretty much ever since, we've all had a series of painful reminders of how fragile democracy and peace can both be. January 6th 2022 is a day that'll live on in infamy in this aspect, no matter if you are or aren't American. As a Canadian, seeing the next-door neighbor more or less have a violent and self-destructive seizure that could've ended in far, far more blood than what was already spilled was chilling, largely because most of everyone who's grown up between the Ministerships of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his son, we considered America to be the occasionally fractious, but mostly stable next-door relative we either loved, or loved to poke fun at.
A year ago, I and several others earned an object lesson on what it feels like to fear America. Not in the "I'm a terrorist hiding from drone strikes in a foxhole" sense, but in the sense that the entire apparatus that is democracy could go frightfully wrong at practically every Congressional session. The fact that it doesn't is both a small miracle and a testament of the effects of a handful of watchdog policies that a dwindling political elite still holds onto. With the Republicans now holding majority in the House of Representatives and Kevin McCarthy's role as Speaker needing several days' worth of a dog-and-pony show to be confirmed, we're again shown that there's major defects in the system, loopholes that allow charlatans to use a democratically-elected position as a sort of Reality Show of self-righteousness and jingoism - typically in the hopes of bolstering their brand.
It might pale in comparison to January 6th, but it still worries me. You shouldn't get to sit at the House of Reps to dunk on your rivals or to land Twitter buzzwords for the right crowd, but in order to speak for and to your constituents.
1/6 is what you get when a Black Harvard Law professor (Alan Jenkins) teams up with an Israeli American activist who's dabbled in comics (Gan Golan). It's effectively a speculative fiction, sketching out a late 2022 that unfolds very differently from our own version of the recorded events. Sometimes, the changes are as simple as suggesting that Officer Eugene Goodman could've actually failed in diverting the crowd for a few crucial seconds. Instead of going left, the MAGA crowd and the QAnon hardcore push right and overrun the single cop posted there.
They run into Mike Pence, who's just in the process of being ushered away from the Capitol.
Disaster follows.
Some aspects of the tale feel believable, to a degree. We're shown Stateside militias being given judicial powers by a now power-hungry Donald Trump, and TV news broadcasts being shut down in accordance to the "Fair and Balanced News Act" of 2022. The anchor protests, demands that the cameras keep rolling and cites his First Amendment rights to an Oakley-wearing and tacwear-sporting gentleman with a Union Jack festooned on his helmet.
He, snidely, asks the man if he's heard of the Second Amendment - and shoots him in cold blood.
In another part of Washington, we're shown that a rift is forming in the first-hour MAGA faithful. Most tow the line and willfully ignore blatant lies, but some have paid the insurrection's price with the blood of their loved ones. The truth of what happened is burned in their minds - and their allegiance is tested. Can you still bleed red when your compatriots hold up lies you, yourself, do not condone, even as a lifelong Republican?
We're also shown "blue plate specials" - as in, diners serving as fronts for a Democratic resistance, in the midst of their managing to save and account for 2022's electoral ballots. In this reality, it's the Democrats who know the election was stolen from them - and with hardcopy proof, this time around.
Then, there's what's arguably less believable. Take, for instance, banner-holding drones cruising down Pennsylvania Avenue as the Dotard-in-Chief has what's suggested to be one of several military parades in his honor, with other drones blasting snippets of Trump's various diatribes on a loop, to the glee of an exultant crowd. Not far from the Lincoln Memorial, a ten-foot gold-plated statue of Trump posing with a thumbs up and a Bible is the object of Instagram stories - with several panels having an almost Riefenstahl-esque tone to them. Triumph of the Most Bigly Will, if you would.
Jenkins has his "MAGAtstaffel" pin the sacking of the Capitol on Black Lives Matter proponents, and insinuates that bonafide death squads could've started prowling Democratic fiefdoms like Chicago. Another statue is unveiled, giving us a Neoclassic Jacob Chansley with horns, spear and all, carved out of granite for the next several generations to gawk at.
It's all certainly striking, it does have airs of a fairly well ruminated speculative fiction - but it's big. It's unsubtle. It misses the mark where any murder of a government official would've only been another marker on a slow downwards curve, and the fact that most left-leaning judicial bodies wouldn't have bowed down without a fight. God knows us Progressives like to wax concepts like ACAB, while forgetting that in extreme situations like this, we likely would've seen a few good souls step into view from the midst of even North America's most hated Civil Service corps, from cops to firefighters.
1/6 effectively posits the idea that America would've taken it lying down, that the international community wouldn't have weighed in on the matter. It skips over trade embargoes, locked borders and all the disadvantages of Isolationism, and is so preoccupied with yelling "Watch out!" - with good reason, I'll admit - that it forgets to actually make sense.
What struck me after reading through the first issue was this was effectively the American Left's little Red Dawn moment, in complete ignorance of the fact that playing with the same narrative devices as John Milius' doesn't exactly make for a good look.
I get it, we're all afraid of those self-styled zealots with M16s on a personal crusade to put the worst comb-over to ever grace the airwaves back into the White House. We're afraid of what they represent. I'm from Montreal, for God's sake, and even I wince and cringe whenever some moron shows up with a MAGA hat - even if I can see the dumb irony of unilingual Francophones thinking that the son of Fred Trump would give a damn about them.
The thing is, giving these chucklenuts any sort of attention that gets media coverage fuels them. The best defense I've ever found against airwaves from the chigger-infested backwoods of Northern Quebec that blast raw sewage and distilled hatred is to change the channel, to excise them from my mind.
We've had our own scares over the past years. Trump didn't just galvanize America's morons, his discourse found ears and hearts as far up as Baie-Comeau, where the Saint Lawrence's valley gives way to tundra and entire seas of dark green pines, and where anyone coming up from Quebec City - or God forbid, Montreal - feels like an alien. Lovecraft's Innsmouth, basically - just with less brine and more red flannel.
For a few years, La Meute (translated as "The Pack") represented French Canadian MAGATs, usually uneducated rubes with barely a fourth year in High School but decades of ingrained mistrust and hatred for practically anyone who wasn't local.
Did you make it to University? You were poisoned, according to them. Are you in favor of Montreal's famous open-mindedness and lauded multiculturalism? You're a sheep, or so they'd tell you. Quebec would only, only ever be truly saved the moment we'd renounce our secular ways, went back to Sunday Masses given in Latin, and locked our women where they belong. In the kitchen, naturally.
They showed up in campuses and parks, outfitted in the Sporting Goods section of the local Canadian Tire. Armed, dangerous and ready.
We laughed them out of town.
Occasionally, we hear about a few of 'em making a splash down West, grouping up with the equally-inefficient Far Right militias in Alberta or Saskachewan. Americans think of a few dozen guys, all well-drilled and in a well-stocked compound, when they hear that word.
We Quebec natives think of cowards hiding behind Facebook posts, who then come crying when the RCMP arrests them for fucking around with hunting pistols and rifles during an Instagram video upload. Most of them are barely in their twenties.
They're young and confused. Angry at things they can't even name.
We love our stand-up comics, up here. Laughter might be the best medicine, it's also a pretty badass weapon in its own right.
So, yeah. I understand what Jenkins and Galan are driving at, but it feels as dangerous to me, if not moreso, than actually trying to confront the problem on an equal footing.
I'd recommend as a thought-provoking exercise in speculative fiction, but nothing more.
1/6: Graphic Novel answers The Question: What if the January 6 Insurrection Was Successful?
1/6: Graphic Novel answers The Question: What if the January 6 Insurrection Was Successful? #comics #comicbooks #graphicnovel
From One Six Comics, 1/6 answers the question “What if the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol succeeded in overthrowing our Democracy?“. Written by Gan Golan and Harvard Law professor Alan Jenkins, it features art by Will Rosado, with colors by Lee Loughridge, and letters by Tom Orzechowski. The graphic novel also features work by comics masters Shawn Martinbrough and Jamal Igle.
The first…
How do you create powerful works of art and culture that can reach new audiences, ignite the public imagination and shift the debate? How do you collaborate on innovative design and media projects with artists, performers and creators of all kinds? Together, we will reverse-engineer some great cultural interventions on issues from Immigrant Rights to Economic Justice. The Culture Group’s Liz Manne will discuss cultural strateges 101. Favianna Rodriguez will explore web-based art interventions using the Art/Strike and Artists vs Walmart projects. Gan Golan will discuss satire and public spectacle, using the Tax Evaders video game project. Finally, we will present best practices guide for social justice organizations working with artists and culture makers.
