I tried. I really really tried to like this. Michael Chabon gave it a glowing review in his Maps and Legends which was the spur for me to read this comic that I remember seeing prominently featured in shops and magazines when I was a kid. However, I was a little too young for it when the series started, and I never got around to trying it later. Well, I might have waited too late. Chaykin's art is definitely the high point. Unfortunately, the writing can't keep up. It's a series of incidents and...

there are two kinds of confusion a reader can experience: one is the "I don't know what's going on, but it will probably be made clear later." The other is the, "I have no idea what's going on, and I don't think I ever will." This book had me wavering between the two types of confusion the entire time. That said, it is a brilliant dystopian world. I can see why this book is considered a classic in comics. It does so much that certainly wasn't done before. The characters are well-defined, the Wor...

Planning to alienate some good friends by loving this book. It's good to have goals!

One of the best of the best. From First Comics (sadly gone now), American Flagg! was one of the most thought provoking, irreverant, beautifully drawn comics of the 1980s. I'm glad to see it available digitally. Whoever is doing this simply needs to add the entire run as fast at they can. I still have my originals, but this will extend their lives. This book features a brilliant cast and story, some of the greatest lettering (Ken Bruzenak) ever, and it endlessly entertaining. For me, this is Howa...

Just like Pat Mill's Marshall Law, Chaykin's Flagg is a thing of polemics. It is not easy to recommend this comic because the author took "dystopia" seriously. There's a scenario that insults almost every reader and the hero, Reuben Flagg is a very problematic personality. No one is a model to follow here... But the comic still kicks asses! Very well written, very well drawn and very well scripted.

If you want a glimpse of a possible future, just read this graphic novel.

A true auteurist vision, with all the author’s personal quirks and preoccupations on show. An almost impossibly dense concoction sometimes, this is a work of barely restrained ambition, of a jazz player, having been stuck playing rhythm in various pickup bands, finally getting to be bandleader and already trying for masterpieces. The talk is very fast, and the art is alternately immaculately designed, then jagged and sparse. The story moves at 600 mph and expects you to keep up. It seems like al...

I read this in the early 90s, and remembers it being a good cyberpunk story in the vein of Judge Dredd that left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Rereading it now, both its quality and sense of discomfort are amplified. It has areas that haven't aged well, naturally, but a Jewish man struggling against a Nazi-affiliated organization trying to take over the United States is disturbingly prescient.

Some times satire doesn't hold up well after a few decades. This book does. Very nice art.

3,5*American Flagg is often considered as one of these milestones comics, one of those who influenced many authors who bloomed later. And I can see why. If you manage to go back in the early 80's Flagg is innovative, provocative, satirical and whatnot. This is probably the best period for Chaykin, boiling with ideas and creativity.So, if I had read it even a few years late, say late 80's, early 90's, it probably would have blown me out. As it is, more than 30 years after the deed and thousands o...

Howard Chaykin wrote this strange comic that feels a bit like The Running Man and a bit like a Paul VerHoeven satire of the 1980s. The television references, the insane politics, the shoulder pads and high angled hairstyles. Elements of the satire are spot on: everyone living in malls, parody politics, mixtures of slapstick and ultra-violence. Chaykin's world is lush and you can feel the influence on comics book writers and artists like Frank Miller just a few years later. While this was sexy an...

The complete collection of the incredibly influential 80s indie comic. A brutal look at an America ruled by a absentee government on the planet Mars. The main character is a former porn star drafted into working as a ranger for the violent city of Chicago. The author pulls no punches in violence, language, or content matter. Incredibly fast paced and yet still chock full of material, this book is entirely plot driven with little to no character development. Yet it is still an amazing read with a...

It's fun, finally reading now in 2018 what Chaykin did in 1983, knowing everything he did afterwards. Sex, political incorrectness, uncomfortable political points of view, an sarcastic sense of humour, an acid social critique wrapped in a graphical deluge. What an amazing book.

Humble Comics Bundle: Fan Faves & New Hits by Dynamite, 2019)

Sexy, smart and smashingly well executed, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! made just about every other adventure comic in the 1980s look like drivel. Originally intended as a futuristic take-off on the TV series Gunsmoke, Chaykin created a satirical pop dystopia that cut to the heart of the Reagan-era zeitgeist. He exaggerated various cultural trends--the emphasis on style over substance, the feeling of information overload in a media-driven culture, the lionising of ruthless opportunism for its...

In the future we all live in malls, the government is living on Mars, basketball is a blood sport and our only hope for justice is a retired TV star turned sherif, his talking cat and a lunk-headed robot.It's wild, political, cynical, sexy and the humor has a dark slap sticky feel to it. It's Howard Chaykin being Howard Chaykin before he got self consious about his image.too many cast members are up to something, but Chaykin was doing dark and flawed before it became trendy and he still does it

To update my previous in-progress review, this picks up a bit once you get into it. This is a comic that I've heard of throughout much of my comic-reading life, but had never read. I've been a big Chaykin fan for years, but these were never easily accessible, and I was never interested enough to track them down issue by issue. So I was excited at the release of this big collection of the first 14 or 15 issues. Then I got it and started reading it, and was no longer excited. I think it's like...

American Flagg! is an indie classic from the 1980s that still holds up today in many respects. It's a brilliant satire that is spot on in its tone, if not in the specifics of any future predictions. The scary part is how relevant it still is.Features sharp writing and great storytelling and draftsmanship/design by Chaykin.If you think Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Swamp Thing were the only great things happening in 1980s comics, you are in need of a history lesson. So much more was going on...

Aces. Chaykin's vision of America's future is compelling. Rueben Flagg's brand of self-absorbed, bed-hopping heroism makes for a dynamic lead character. The excellent design work displayed throughout the artwork, from Chaykin's layouts to Ken Bruzenak's lettering, make for a unique reading experience. Put it all together and you've got a legendary comic worth all of its hype. People often point to one of these three elements when discussing why Flagg! is so highly regarded, but it's the combinat...

Written in 1982 (I think), and it shows in a lot of places - but not in as many as you’d think. You can see the influence on other comics.