Times Like These Review

If you're reading this, you're at least like me enough to feel like everything is pretty horrifically awful right now. And however much you're engaged or not at the moment -- and, trust me, I totally get why you might feel like checking out and generally ignoring the world in favor of reading about some superheroes or something -- you're likely doing what you can just to get through each day. You're dealing with rapidly increasing food and fuel prices, and job insecurity at a minimum; possibly active threats of governmental violence and/or the possible 'disappearance' of yourself or loved ones. So what good is looking at a book filled with protest art and comics?

I'll defer to editor Tony Wolf. In his introduction to Times Like These, he writes...

I believe that all art -- even protest art -- is an exuberant expression of one's mind and heart. History has shown us fascism can steamroll everything (and quickly) if there is no pushback. Our current leaders have continually been shattering norms and 'flooding the zone' with lies, as they move the goalposts ever closer to dictatorship and pushing oppressed communities out of society. When a President campiagns on the fear of immigrans "poisoning the blood of our country," you know things have taken a turn. The years go on, and still we say "No" to this dehumanizing rhetoric.

In organizing this book, I thought about how we now look back at protest art from the Vietnam era, the Civil Rights era, World War II, McCarthyism. Surely even my more cynical peers will acknowledge that dissent efforts (of all kinds) mattered during these periods. If we make it through these years with our democracy somewhat intact, this collection can be seen as one among many snapshots of resistance art. If nothing else, protest art and nationwide protests like No Kings show that Americans didn't let go of democracy without a fight...

We are, of course, but a small portion of Americans around the nation making our voices heard, still believing there is a chance for a better tomorrow.

The art on display in here runs the gamut from satire to commentary to, in some cases, just portraits of those who've been murdered by ICE agents. Likewise, the artistic styles range from cartoony to realistic to interperative. Normally, I'd say with a collection like this that there's something for everybody to like, but given the subject matter, I don't know that "like" is the operative word. Suffice it to say that the book includes work by Bill Sienkiewicz, Emil Ferris, Peter Kuper, Rick Parker, J.T. Yost, Dean Haspiel, Alex Hernandez, and many others. There is no shortage of talented people saying variations of "Trump and his ilk are shitstains who are murdering thousands of people, destroying lives of hundreds of thousands, and tearing the country down to nothing."

Once the printing costs of the book are covered, all the proceeds will be donated to the ACLU, who has obviously been exceptionally busy trying to legally halt pretty much every awful thing this administration is doing. And since "every awful thing" is, in this case, literally everything, they've got their hands full and could use all the help they can get. Is the ACLU better off if you just send them $20 directly, rather than buy a book which has to take at least some of that $20 to cover printing costs? Technically, yeah, probably. But there's more than a little to be said about seeing others' perspectives on what's most important to them, and getting some measure of catharsis by seeing that you're not the only one who thinks this whole administration and everyone who supports it are on some bullshit.

Time Like These is available now through Comic Lion Productions for $20 US. Check out some of their other comics while you're there too.

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