2024 - Ted Rall
I discovered where they keep the graphic novels at the nearby library branch, and promptly checked out several. I've seen some of Ted Rall's cartoons before, but I'm not exactly sure where. His characters are drawn with bold lines, and have a sort of flounder-ish quality to them: you can always see both of their eyes, even in profile. The book is based on George Orwell's 1984, but updated with things like WebTV. I'll have to go back and actually read 1984 again to see how it compares; nonetheless, Rall manages to paint a bleak picture of a future that parodies our present. In the world of "neopostmodernism," paper records don't exist and therefore history can be rewritten without any way to check up on it. Winston does a little creative editing himself, and eventually forgets his own part in it. People live to consume, corporations run the government, and—oh, yes—the world is still segregated, with blacks in the Hope Sector. "Whites were only allowed into the Hope Sector during shopping hours so they could buy exotic foodstuffs and music files."
Humor, sex, violence, non-sequiturs. Welcome to the future.
Fed to jhliu's brain | July 11, 2003
