How to use this Page

Fans got the chance to read the brand new A-Force #1 last week but Marvel has already announced a brand new creative team for the series. Writer Kelly Thompson (Gem and the Holograms) is joining artist Ben Caldwell (Prez) to take over the series from writers G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel), Marguerite Bennett (Angela: Queen […]

"I hope that...when people read PREZ, they'll have a laugh. Then, the next week, when someone has sex with a pig...they say 'wait a second, that sounds familiar.'"

Prez #1

By Harper W. Harris

Of all the new DCYou titles that have come out so far, Prez by Mark Russell and Ben Caldwell may be my favorite. It takes a sharp, satirical look at the future and the American political process in a way that is a bit shocking to see in a DC comic book. Although the title and concept is an older one from the early ’70s, Beth Ross is a brand new Prez for a new generation. I got a chance to sit down with Mark Russell and talk about the origin of his version of Prez and the darkly hilarious future he presents in the new series.

Harper W. Harris: In Prez #1, you have a lot of really smart and really funny ideas about the future that you put forth. How did you decide what ideas or concepts you wanted to exaggerate for that future, and did you do any research to pull that together?

Mark Russell: Well, I think the things that I really like really take a lot of time to build the world in which they exist, so I spent a lot of time thinking about the world before I even started writing stories about Prez. So a lot of the things that I decided to populate it with were sort of nascent technologies that we have now that I see either dark things they could be used for in the future, or things that are used for dark things now that I think could be made to serve people better in the future. So it was literally a critique on how we’re misusing technology and people now, and I figured I would just extrapolate ways in which things could be further abused or how we could change the way these technologies and humans are treated in the future.

HH: You’ve got a lot of experience with satire in the past particularly with religious satire in God is Disappointed in You. How did you turn your eye to political satire, and how has that differed for you so far?

MR: I think my worldview can best be described as irreverence, which I see as a breed of honesty. I don’t revere anything enough that I won’t look at its flaws, but I don’t hate anything enough that I can’t see its virtues. So that’s the sort of prism I want to turn on to anything I’m writing about. In terms of politics, the only thing that really was different from God is Disappointed in You was the research I was doing, and the opinions I have about the world and the direction it’s going is formed by recent history. But otherwise it’s exactly the same beast.

Beth becoming the infamous Corndog Girl

HH: A lot of your past work has been in prose form, or with single panel cartooning. How has working with Ben Caldwell been, and with working in a more sequential art form?

MR: I have to think a lot more visually as opposed to writing something as exposition or having the character say something, I can actually show it in the panel, which is really liberating. It’s really helped me to start thinking in those terms. Plus, Ben comes up with a lot of great background details and stuff, so a lot of times he will come up with something that will inspire me to write a line of dialogue that addresses it. Like one of my favorite things that he’s drawn so far is in issue one when Beth is working at the corndog place. I just put in my notes, “the employees are wearing ridiculous costumes.” But what he came up with were these people wearing these like dachshund hats. So I actually started incorporating lines about the hats in future issues–she doesn’t want to give up her hat after she becomes president. She has to go back to the corndog place and ask for an advance on her paycheck even after she becomes president, and they’re like, “What do you care, you’re the president?” Well yeah, but they don’t pay until the end of the month. So it’s the kind of thing you have to think about when you’re a teenager working at a corndog place, even if you are the commander in chief. You gotta make it until payday.
HH: Very nice! So let’s actually talk about Beth a bit. When you starting work on the book and getting ideas for it, how did you decide to make Prez a totally new character from the original Prez, and how do you feel she’s different?

MR: I wanted to do a very different comic book than the original Prez. I think that the original Prez was more relevant for the early ’70s–it was about that they thought youth culture was about to take over the world now that 18 year olds could vote, and we’re in very different world now. We’re in a world where youth culture has largely failed, where the government and politics are largely controlled by elites and non-egalitarian forces. So I wanted to do a comic that was about this political reality, and to make that separation as cleanly as possible I wanted to come up with a completely different character in as many ways as possible from the original Prez Rickard. Although, I will say, Prez Rickard does show up as a character in the new Prez: he’s super old, in his 70s, and he’s a failed wunderkind from the past. He did not become president in my world, but he is there. I wanted it to be a very different comic about a very different time in American history.

HH: So yeah, you see the original Prez as being about youth culture having failed…do you think now that’s a thing that’s changed, an idea that holds more water?

MR: I think in a way, youth culture is far more threatening or promising now than it was in the early ’70s because it’s transcending politics. It’s more about recreating the world using technologies and social media that was inconceivable back then. As enlightened as the hippies may have been, they still had to work within the media and social paradigms of their time, they still had to somehow get on television. They still had to spread their message through the mass media. That’s no longer the case: social media the youth movement and millennials to completely create their own culture independently of what the people who own the means of communication can channel them into.

Prez #2

HH: So it’s a matter of different channels and different tools that they have available to them, okay. So another thing that’s really different about your Prez story is that most of the early stories are really short. How did you hit on 12 issues, and how do you plan to expand that world into a longer form story?

MR: The 12 issues is what DC originally came up with because it will take us up to the 2016 election and they figured there was going to be more interest in political satire because of the election. But I’m really starting to think of it as two six-issue long story arcs, which is good because it’s not like a bad ’30s radio serial drama, it gives me room to world build and to have side stories that really make the universe or Prez come alive in a way that I couldn’t if I had to do a succinct complete story every single issue. Plus I think that single issue approach lends itself to impossibility–like in this one he’s fighting vampires, and the next one he’ll be boxing a gorilla. Whereas if you have a few issues to take your time and tell a story, you can deal with the complexities of real life and real politics.

HH: So tell us a little more about the format of how you’re going to approach it; you said you’re breaking it into two six-issue arcs, will each issue deal with specific idea, or is it more building towards the ends of those two stories?

MR: Both. Each one has its own sort of unique issue. Issue one was largely just about introducing the characters, issue two is about the absurdity of the electoral process. There’ll be an issue about drone warfare…but at the same time they are all advancing the central plot about Beth coming to power and becoming a seasoned politician and able president because she has the two assets that no other president in history has had: she doesn’t owe a lot of favors–she doesn’t have to pay people back for their support–and she’s not a product of the system. She hasn’t learned what she can’t do, so to her there’s no reason to believe that she can’t do anything she comes up with.

Everyone’s new favorite form of fast food: Taco Drone

HH: Looking at Prez #1, it’s a very dark and messed up world you’ve presented us with, and like you said we’re going to see how Beth comes to power and deals with those things. So all-in-all, when the series is done, do you think the story is a more optimistic or cynical one?

MR: I want it to be an optimistic story. I think you have to paint a portrait of what’s wrong with the world before you can say what should be done. But if you don’t say what should be done, or you don’t have opinions about ways in which the world could be better, then what’s the point? Otherwise you’re just moaning, you know?

HH: Last question: where can I get a taco drone? I’m kinda hungry…

MR: I’m working on one in my garage. The taco is coming along much better than the drone right now, but I’ll let you know.

Prez #1 is on stands now, with issue two of the twelve issue series coming out on 7/22.

Ben Caldwell dazzles us this week with his eye-popping cover art for Catwoman’s Teen Titans GO! variant. In addition to comics, Caldwell has worked as a toy designer, on various animation/video-game projects, and childrens book illustration. He also writes and draws a popular series of “how to” books called Action! Cartooning. It’s nice to see more and more artists like Caldwell bringing their “animation-style” to comics. It makes perfect sense since there’s so much crossover nowadays between comics & the TV/movie industry.

Ben Caldwell is also known for The Dare Detectives! series of graphic novels, The Wizard of Oz All-Action Classics adaptation, and Star Wars Clone War Adventures comics.

Caldwell graduated from the Parsons School of Design for Illustration and currently lives in New York with his family.

You can see the latest sketches and project updates by following Mr. Caldwell on his twitter page here.

For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com – Andy Yates

Writer:

Mark Russell

Artist:

Ben Caldwell

Inker:

Mark Morales

Colorist:

Jeremy Lawson

Letterer:

Travis Lanham

Meet Beth Ross, the first teenaged President of the United States. In a nation where corporations can run for office, the poor are used as human billboards, and tacos are delivered by drone, our only hope is this nineteen-year-old Twitter sensation. But the real question isn’t whether she’s ready for politics – it’s whether politics is ready for her. Don’t miss the start of this new, 12-issue miniseries!

After the surprise announcement of Prez as part of the New DC You(niverse,) fans had no idea what to expect. The concept even contained a new female lead who seemingly has little to do with Prez Rickard, the original character that first wore the (Prez) mantle (if there was/is a Prez mantle to be worn.) DC chose prose author Mark Russell mostly known for his own satirical views on religion with the book God is Disappointed in You to write the tale. In the new Prez mini-series, Russell is joined by artist Ben Caldwell — a cartoonist containing the alternative sensibilities that really makes the book stand against the current house style at DC.

The concept of the story is a really odd mix of a traditional narrative and wish fulfillment. Thankfully, Russell seems to be aware of exactly how silly this concept about a young girl winning the presidency actually is (especially in a big superhero shared universe.) He depicts the various politicians as individuals who are desperate and looking to quickly fill the hole at the very top of the White House with someone that has a limited number of scantily clad selfies floating around the internet. The series takes place in the future, and shows the degeneration of our culture due to advancements of technology in really striking ways. While we as a society seem to lack a certain amount of empathy as it is, this is the next generation who were plugged into Iphones before they were out of diapers. The world of Prez looks different from our own, but shows a natural and dangerous version of the future.

Ben Caldwell’s art perfectly suits the story at hand. The rounded edges in his linework humanize Beth and illustrate something morose bleak future of Prez #1, turning it into a place that readers should be at least slightly afraid of. Caldwell’s art will miss a detail in a certain panel on a facial expression and at times, his own sparse linework will actually add to the unique style being evoked directly to the page. No matter how serious a panel in Prez, there’s always something unique and interesting about it — whether it be a strange pattern on a curtain in the background, someone feminine equipped with a thin mustache, or little jokes littered within the holograms on the side of panels. This comic serves as a warning to jaded millennials everywhere but does so with style and grace via the deft eye of Caldwell, Mark Morales, and Jeremy Lawson.

So…this book has a pretty bleak outlook on the entirety of society. Instead of littering Beth Ross herself with flaws, Russell turns his eye towards the degeneration of society and points to some pretty striking truths. Can politics and the internet coexist in a peaceful matrimony? Prez doesn’t think so, and presents many reasons why these two things cancel out each other. When Justin Bieber and Obama are guests on the same Youtube show, this comic turns into a biting satire of the internet age. This is all connected to the first title starring Rickard, as the original 70’s title was also a seething take on the corrupt world of politics. Thankfully this incarnation has something different to say while still honoring the spirit of the original series.

Speaking of the original series, fans will be delighted to see the surprise reveal at the end of this issue harkening back to the already established canon of Prez. Unfortunately, this issue is so concerned with tying all the mythology back into the plot that the character of Beth Ross is not fleshed out very well, barely able to interact with the story. This issue is mostly texture, filling in the ultra-detailed world of the future and setting the landscape for those that are invested in the story. For new fans, I would really recommend picking up the first four issues on sale and diving into those before going ahead and starting this story so the last page reveal won’t be lost on you and the texture and tone of the world will be more familiar to you. If not, a quick google search will suffice. Caldwell and Russell may not introduce Beth Ross to her fullest extent as a character, but they have created a really interesting world showing us how staring at our screens has alienated us from the political realm.