Comic Review: Postal #1- White, Christian, Misogynist, Homophobic, Violent, Criminal, Racists.

Writers: Bryan Hill & Matt Hawkins
Artist: Isaac Goodhart
Publisher: Image Comics for Top Cow Productions.
Released: 4th February 2015


***Spoiler in review***


Get ready, because here I go on another bout of liberal drip bashing, guaranteed to offend every tender ‘politically correct’ soul lisping away in simpering denial of reality in their safe under prison lights, carbon neutral, agenda 21 box of white guilt solitude.

More cowardly Christian bashing

Raise your hands high to the spaghetti monster in the sky god of Richard Dawkins atheism, state dependency and worshipping of the lying box. We’ll have no discrimination here. All are welcome, just as long as your brain has been state sanctioned to acceptable levels of PC cleanliness. Please leave your ability to discern reality, your morality, your common sense, and most importantly, your right to defend yourselves at the door.

What am I going on about here? Perhaps I really am going ‘Postal’ this time? Have I finally snapped? Has it all becoming too much for this sane person to take? Probably, because after what I’ve just read in Postal #1 by Top Cow Productions I feel that the only thing ‘left’ for me to do is to run out into the street, wave my hands in surrender and join the maddening crowd of murder hungry mainstream media watching somnambulists.

Sorry. I’ll calm myself down now, and attempt to explain what has driven me into this state of manic, bozo the clown, bouncing off the ceilings ‘state’ of despair and surrender inducing incredulity.

You can tell a lot about a book, and the world-view presented by its authors, by studying the characters that it contains. Postal #1 includes helpful biographies that clarify exactly who the characters within the narrative are supposed to be. I find it very telling that their biographies are presented in the style of a Police report, because that is exactly what this book is, a comic book that reads like it has been written by a team of government employees or police officers.

I’ll briefly scan those characters now, as they will illustrate everything that you need to know about this book.

Character No 1: Daniel P. Messersmith- An armed and dangerous drug taker, dealer, and criminal deviant. White guy, middle aged.

Character No 2: Atticus F. Nixon- A Christian pastor, and member of both the KKK and Aryan Brotherhood. Narcissistic, violent and dangerous. White guy, middle aged.

Character No 3: Dana Shiffron- Mayor, female (but likes misogynists for some reason) involved in organised crime, drug dealing, firearms distribution and has conviction for ‘conspiracy to murder.’ White female, middle aged.

Here's our mentally ill 'Sheldon' protagonist

Character No 4: Rory Ashley Lafleur- Sheriff, criminal, dishonourably discharged from army, ex Hells Angel, frequenter of prostitutes, homophobic, insecure about his own gender identity. White guy, middle aged.

Character No 5: The Chef- French anarchist, criminal, terrorist speaks only in French, unpleasant and rude. White guy, middle aged.

Character No 6: Mark Chiffon- No criminal history. Young and good looking. Has Aspergers syndrome. Childlike. Main protagonist of narrative, with the reader being introduced into the story from his first person narration, thus we are encouraged to empathise with this individual. White male, young adult.

Character No 7: Margaret Prendowski- Pretty young waitress. Criminal records for non-violent, victimless crimes involving marijuana and tax evasion. Portrayed as somebody the reader should have empathy with as she befriends the main story-telling protagonist. White female, young adult.

Character No 9: Robert R. Sampson- A giant Indian with outstanding warrants for criminal trespass and sexual assault (I expect that these warrants will later be shown to be false). This stereotypical character is the voice of nature, and a reminder that evil white men are destroying it.

All of these characters are living in a self regulating, isolated commune/town and are criminal fugitives from the law, with the exception being the Aspergers suffering main protagonist who is living with his criminal mum. I’m not exactly sure why, but the FBI, rather than going into town and simply arresting everybody in it, are instead trying to infiltrate it with informers.

Anarchist French Chef. So unpleasant.

The book begins with some predictable Christianity bashing (portraying them as violent, gun crazed zealots) and concludes ***SPOILER ALERT*** with a murder on the commune. The narrative will continue with an investigation (from the point of view of the Aspergers suffering protagonist) and I expect the local ‘authorities’ to use the murder to try to gain legal access into the community.

Did the authorities commit this murder, or is it something more mundane? I expect the later, but the former is not out of the question if the book wants to be ‘dangerous’ and accuse the beloved, state sanctioned Gods (aka the Police) of doing such a terrible thing.

Here’s my problem with the book, and please bear in mind that I don’t have a crystal ball, so I cannot look into the future and envision where it’s eventually going to go:

The criminal fugitives in this town/commune are portrayed as racist, religious (Christian, of course) bigots, misogynists, KKK members, drug dealers, drug abusers, tax cheats, terrorists (not Muslims, obviously), anarchists, violent criminals, narcissists, homophobes and sexually deviant gun nuts, and they are white, very, very white.

Do you get my point here? They are the most politically correct, liberal friendly, expedient group of white-faced bible loving Christian criminals that this world has ever seen.

Do you suspect that there might be an agenda going on here, or is it just another unimportant comic book that I’m reading far too much into?

And here's the 'Penny' of the book.

Look at all of those character profiles again. The message of this book is very clear, and that message is that if you are not a good little politically correct, government supporting, tax-paying slave to the neo-liberal corporate whore consensus then you are a criminal, and you’re probably racist, and white, and all of the rest of the things that I’ve previously mentioned in this review.

Still think it’s just another unimportant comic book that I’m reading too much into? Look at the main protagonist of the book, a mentally ill young man who is portrayed as a beacon of kindness, light and sincerity amongst all of the horrible racist white people living amongst him. Do you know what that is saying to me? It’s saying that it’s cool to be a mentally ill liberal. That it’s cool to act like Sheldon in the wetter than a haddock in a raincoat television show ‘The Big Bang theory.’ A show where socially awkward losers are made to look like the most fascinating guys in town, a show where liberal losers get to date girls who wouldn’t go anywhere near them in the real world.

Tell me that I’m wrong. Tell me that the comic is cleverer than that, tell me that in five issues time the people living in this commune/town will be flipped, and portrayed as the good guys, and that the mentally ill young liberal substitute will be the villain of the narrative. Can you really suggest that this is going to happen, because at the moment this story can only go in one direction, and that direction my friends, is straight to statist, neo-liberal, politically correct Hell.

Rating: 4/10 (For the clear art with easily discernible character types, and easy to follow script)