With the 2016 Presidential Election breathing down your neck , Citizen Jack is the perfect antidote to political overburden . It ’s the tarradiddle of an average man run for President , with one twist : this Average Joe has the funding of a 12 - groundwork - marvelous ogre .
We ’ve read the first two issues of Citizen Jack , and it ’s a compelling mix of supernatural mystery and sharp satire about how we create and consume political news .
In Citizen Jack , Jack Noteworthy is a small metre Minnesotan snowfall blower salesman who ’s nauseated of his lot in life , so this devil that ’s been stalk him since he was a tiddler make an offering to make him the President of the United States . Jack accept this whirl , and start a wild , tremendously tactless path to the White House — and then Jack suddenly regain himself to be a immense viral success , thanks to the demon ’s intervention .
Recently , we posture down with Citizen Jack author Sam Humphries to mouth all about the book , about how a demon is somehow the least creepy part of the political process — and how Donald Trump ’s function in the 2016 race finish up being the luckiest co-occurrence in the world .
io9 : One of my favourite parts of the serial was Fire Fight , the phony news TV channel covering the election throughout the first two proceeds . Did you always see Citizen Jack as commentary on the way of life we consume news and politics ?
Sam Humphries : Oh god , yes . From the very beginning — I mean , Citizen Jack is a horror drollery . It ’s not overtly political , we do n’t have Democrats and Republicans , we do n’t even use those parole — we do n’t tackle the live button subject . It ’s really a sarcasm of a low political system that is , ultimately terrifying and screaming to learn ! And a massive part of that for me is the medium .
I think , when we look at thing like Donald Trump , or Benghazi , or who knows what go back even further to various wars and 9/11 , comprehend through all that I felt like in a manner the media was censurable , and they had a role in creating the circus that we ’re dealing with now , not just creating it but perpetuating it . It ’s not something where I think that media or journalists are evil , but I think we ’re all kind of like a frog in a tardily - boiling pot , where all of us together , no matter the use we bring , we find ourselves in this political organization we ca n’t quite figure a way out of . I guess it ’s funny for me to be saying this to a journalist , but I felt like If I had to tackle this at all , the medium had to be taken to task for where we are now .
You briefly mentioned Donald Trump — it ’s difficult not to draw compare between Jack and Trump himself while reading Citizen Jack . Was that just a lucky happenstance , or something you aim to replicate ?
Humphries : The timing could not be better ! Nobody trust we did n’t project it this way , so yes , I will take credit for forebode the integral Presidential campaign cycle up to this gunpoint ! [ laugh ] If I could pat myself on the back , I could say the fact that we ’ve been work on this book for over two age , the first exit was written calendar month and months ago , before the candidacy was even a glimmering in Trump ’s heart . I call back it proves that what Tommy [ Patterson , Citizen Jack artist ] and I are talking about in the ledger is actually very prescient . We reckon at the condition of the political system of rules in American and we fantasise about what could come to past tense , and something very similar came to clear in reality ! So yes , I ’ll admit the title of political prophet for Citizen Jack [ laughs ] . verify your reader know I enunciate that with a wry laugh !
If not Mr. Trump , did you look at any other real - life-time political chassis to breathe in Citizen Jack ?
Humphries : Absolutely . Citizen Jack is self-aggrandising than Trump — the reason why we have a Trump [ in the political campaign race ] are the things we talk about in Citizen Jack . We have similarities that could n’t have been plan or counter , really . You could draw similarities between Jack and both Clinton and George W. Bush , Reagan , LBJ . Jack is from Minnesota , as am I — we portion out a rest home state — and Minnesota has its own breed of unequaled and iconoclastic political material body , like Michelle Bachmann and Paul Wellstone , and Walter Mondale . Very singular figures in the American political landscape , which is pretty singular on its own . So Jack is a character that very much fit in that Minnesota family .
When we cope with Jack in the comedian , he can number off as hard to sympathize with . Was it a challenge to make multitude feel for his plight , despite the fact he ’s made a literal deal with the deuce ?
Humphries : It was a significant challenge . It was something that was always on my mind with Jack — if he ’s an unsympathetic type through and through , it ’s going to be an unpleasant recitation experience . Hell , it ’s going to be an unpleasant penning experience for me ! You desire somebody you’re able to root for , to be sympathetic to , that you’re able to colligate to in some agency . And while I ’m not sure Jack is someone you could root for , he ’s definitely somebody who is sympathetic . I do n’t think anybody will read this book of account and hope he becomes President , but I think hoi polloi will read this ledger and hope that he recover a means out of this terrible situation , part because of his own making . It ’s been a very hard argument to balance on , because like you said , he has made this deal with a 12 human foot tall death demon , and if he does n’t do that , we do n’t have a book ! But if you ca n’t sympathize with him despite that , we do n’t have an enjoyable book .
A highlight of the book visually are the moments when Tommy Patterson delves into the supernatural side of Citizen Jack . What was it like working with him ?
Humphries : For me , finding the right creative person for Citizen Jack was a turn point for the book . I found Tommy through some common ally , and he had been working on Game of Thrones for Dynamite in a wholly unlike style . He said “ look , I ’ve get something in psyche for this ” , and he come back with some sample pages that were what you see in the book . There ’s this open line style that ’s very Frank Quitely , it ’s cartoony and grotesque , it ’s hilarious and beautiful . For me , I did n’t realize how much I really needed Tommy to tread in and help encounter this book until he did . And once I did that , once I saw what he could do , then the possibility of the volume really opened up .
You said you ’ve been working on Citizen Jack for a long prison term . Was it always planned to wind up lining up with the start of the 2016 election ?
Humphries : No , the timing was a coincidence . We ’ve been working on it for quite a while , and the understanding why it ’s actually coming out in November are so logistical and boring . It was a matter of getting Tommy enough time to get ahead on the book , to get really far beforehand of schedule . It was a matter of feel a really good colorist , losing one and then find another . We ’ve scram an amazing colorist now in John Alderink and really fantastical letter by Rachel Deering . So it was really more about the stars lining up . We nearly launched Citizen Jack in the past March , and if we had n’t had to do a little colorize shuffling , it ’d be out . But now we ’re draw up for November , right in time for the Election , and that ’s the best , good ?
What was your preferent facet of working on the book — the supernatural side or the political ?
Humphries : I would have to say that humor and the repugnance were my favorite parts to function on . The machinations of the political process really come secondly to that . I would say it ’s an American experience to be alienate , and frustrated , and piss off by government , and I require people who palpate that way to scan Citizen Jack and have it be cathartic . Humor is cathartic , horror is cathartic . So those ended up being my favourite piece to work on . To be honest , if we search profoundly at the political stuff it would ’ve been a very different book — we have a operative horizon of the political outgrowth , and the thing we wanted to focus on .
Citizen Jack does n’t pick a side or a particular political ideology . Was it gruelling to say what you want to say about political science while making indisputable you did n’t go after one side or the other ?
Humphries : [ Laughs ] No , no it was n’t , because I truly conceive that the system is broken in a way that give out beyond Liberal and Conservative . I retrieve that there are obviously very licit political divergence between the two ideologies , but I think the way we get in fuss as a nation and as a society issue forth down to the way of life that organization is broken . I consider both sides use that to their reward , both side be and die by that system , take reward of it because it ’s so damaged . It ’s so sprawl now and the involuntariness to either center on the proceeds that make it broken or to fix it , because it ’s boring . It ’s not very aphrodisiac , and politician ca n’t fund-raise on a insurance like that . Media ca n’t generate interview by covering people spill the beans about it . They ’re difficult concepts for voters to take to heart because they ’re so abstract in compare to Immigration or shooter , or what have you . It ’s very hard to see that the problems we have with the system , how we interact with those takings , are the problem behind the problems . So the things I want to let the cat out of the bag about in Citizen Jack are in some ways divorced from conservative and broad ideology . The centre issues have nothing to do with them .
Humphries : [ Long pause ] Wow . That ’s a good query there ! [ Laughs ] I would say , if there ’s one affair I want a reader to take from Citizen Jack , it ’s that we ’re all hangdog . We ’re all complicit , nobody gets away from this . We ’re all at geological fault .
And as long as you do n’t come up an vicious fiend to become President , you ’ll be dead fine .
Humphries : I remember Marlinspike , the demon , is the most innocent fictitious character in the book , to be good ! [ Laughs ]
How much of Citizen Jack do you have planned out so far ? Will you expect to the 2016 Presidential Election for inspiration ?
Humphries : We ’ve got the first arc planned out in great point , I ’m writing proceeds five right now . We ’ve got the next few arc design out as well . We ’ve got big architectural plan : Jack ’s got his great deal on the White House , and so do we . There ’s a lot we want to say and show of Jack , and Donna , his campaign handler . There ’s a lot more to show of Marlinspike — he ’s skulking around in the first issue but every issuance we peel back a footling flake more about him and show who he is , why he thinks it ’s valuable to have [ Jack ] as a creature President . The answers to that are very big in scope and scurf .
I do n’t think it ’ll surprise anyone to discover that I ’m a political addict and I ’ll be paying close attention no matter what , but I wo n’t be appear at the effort for intake . I retrieve Trump prove we ’re on the correct runway , and tugged a very knock-down truth about American government and human nature . I ’m looking forward to Citizen Jack doing the opposite word : to it regulate the Election moving forward ! [ Laughs ]
Citizen Jack # 1 will be available from November 4th .
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