Almost a month into Trump’s second term and almost five years after the pandemic started, I’d like to recommend a comic that I’ve paired with artists’ books that resonate with the current state of the country. We’ve been in a world overwhelmed with misinformation, disinformation, and deepfakes for quite some time now, and it often feels like the world is changing too fast for any of us to keep up. To cope with these current events, I’ve recently read every single issue of the comic The Department of Truth, which I first discovered by attending my local comic shop Bat City Comic Professional’s Fresh Start Book Club, all of which I cannot recommend enough.
Writer James Tynion IV, artist Martin Simmonds, letterer Aditya Bidikar, and designer Dylan Todd are the brilliant team behind the creation of the comic The Department of Truth, whose first issue was released on September 30, 2020. The series is based on the premise of an alternate America, one in which Lee Harvey Oswald is alive and spearheading the government’s “Department of Truth,” an organization designed to push the nation’s agenda by propelling mass belief of “Truths,” and where every conspiracy theory that exists is in fact real. Tynion says that the inspiration for The Department of Truth began with the 2016 presidential election (read what he says in an interview with Polygon).
Pg. 79 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
Pg. 199 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
I choose to recommend The Department of Truth to the book arts community because of how much depth and care was put into the creation of this series. In a fantastically enlightening interview with the creators, The Nation points out, “A reader experiencing The Department of Truth for the first time will likely make connections to the collage-heavy art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, like surrealism or Pop art. The most direct influence seems to be Brought to Light, a ‘graphic docudrama’ anthology by Alan Moore, Bill Sinkiewicz, Joyce Brabner, Tom Yeates, and Paul Mavrides from 1988, whose style was partially influenced by the propaganda comics the CIA once issued in countries like Nicaragua to disrupt leftist movements.” Simmonds tells the interviewer: “My relationship with collage goes back to my love of comic artists Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, and Jon J Muth, mixed-media artist Robert Rauschenberg, and graphic designer David Carson, among others.”
Excerpt from pg. 195 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
Pg. 309 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
While I’m amazed by Simmonds’ artistry throughout the whole series, a favorite of mine is issue #7 of the comic, a flashback story actually illustrated by guest artist Tyler Boss, who tells the story of a young “Doc” Hynes who writes a publication, “Resist the Men in Black!”, which he purposely distributed to government organizations through the mail. This publication is heavily influenced by early science fiction fanzines (the Ringling library collection has an issue of Astounding Science, which is not a fanzine but is a sci-fi magazine from 1938).
Pgs. 172, 174, The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Tyler Boss, Image Comics
I think that fans of the comic will appreciate many artists’ books that also were made in the response to the current political climate, and vice versa. The revolutionary Louise Odes Neaderland was one of the many artists who responded to the Trump era with her art, creating both “Trump Circus” and “Trump Wallpaper Borders” in 2017. Another favorite of mine that we have in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center by Neaderland is the Nuclear Fan.
Photograph of the opened box of Trump Wallpaper Borders
Photograph of the Nuclear Fan, Louise Odes Neaderland, provided by the author
Fred Hagstom’s The Blue and The Red “uses archival photographs from the January 6th attack on the capitol, coupled with comments by the Capitol Police, convicted rioters and politicians who spoke in support of the attack. Much of the text comes from congressional or court testimony, while the quotes from politicians come from media sources" according to the artist himself. As Jane Anne Carlin points out in Artists' books as catalysts for social change, “Approaching conversations about difficult issues using the artists’ book as a jumping off point causes us to slow down, reflect and to think deeply.” This deep thinking also allows for the capability of differentiating fact from fiction, a skill we all need to harness.
Photographs of pages from The Blue and The Red, Fred Hagstom, provided by the author
Photograph of materials in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center at Ringling College of Art + Design
My final selections are Living in Denial, U.S.A. by David Stairs, which gives the author's personal reactions to U.S. economic statistics against a background of Oregon maps. Capitalism’s Collapse by Dale Edwin Wittig, in which Wittig ruminates on a near-apocalyptic vision of a crumbling global capitalism with hand scrawled captions and graphic illustrations, and Whereas... we declare by Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach, which compiles the text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proposed to the United Nations by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948, with drawn images and statistical information about immigration.
Photographs of pages from Living in Denial, U.S.A. by David Stairs, provided by the author
Photograph of pages from Whereas... we declare by Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach, provided by the authors
You can read the first issue of The Department of Truth for free online through Image Comics. For combatting misinformation, I’d also recommend reading How to Win the War On Truth : an illustrated guide to how mistruths are sold, why they stick, and how to reclaim reality by Samuel C. Spitale, illustrated by Allan Whincup.
Works Cited
Carlin, Jane Anne. "Artists' Books as Catalysts for Social Change." Art Libraries Journal 44, no. 1 (01, 2019): 2-8, https://ringlingcollege.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/artists-books-as-catalysts-social-change/docview/2173848142/se-2.
Hagstrom, Fred, and publisher Strong Silent Type Press. The Blue and the Red / Fred Hagstrom. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2024.
Keljera, ML. “A Comic That Captures the Antic Energy of a Post-Truth World.” The Nation. March 2023. https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/qa-department-of-truth-comic/.
Kellner, Tana, Ann E Kalmbach, and publisher Women’s Studio Workshop. Whereas... We Declare / KaKeArt: Tatana Kellner & Ann Kalmbach. Rosendale, NY: Women’s Studio Workshop, 2018.
Neaderland, Louise Odes. The Nuclear Fan. 3rd ed. Brooklyn, NY: Bone Hollow Arts, 1999.
Neaderland, Louise Odes. Trump Circus. Brooklyn, NY: Louise Neaderland, 2017.
Neaderland, Louise Odes. Trump Wallpaper Borders. Brooklyn, New York: [Louise Odes Neaderland], 2017.
Stairs, David. Living in Denial USA. Mt. Pleasant, Mich., D. Stairs, 2005.
Tynion, James, Martin Simmonds, Aditya Bidikar. The Department of Truth. Portland, OR: Image Comics, 2020-ongoing.
Wittig, Dale. Capitalisms Collapse / Dale Edwin Wittig. San Francisco, California: Red Hammer Press, 2017
Kelly Lindberg is an Instructional Design Librarian at Ringling College of Art + Design, who has always had an interest in zines and comics. She often incorporates her passions into her job of teaching information literacy to students.
