1/6: The Graphic Novel may well be Harvard Law Professor Alan Jenkins, NYT bestselling author Gan Golan, and veteran comics illustrator Will Rosado’s magnum opus. Not necessarily in terms of standard, elitist magnum opus appearance. Comic books are still easily dismissible in certain circles, regardless of masterworks that have helped redefined the concept of the graphic novel – the epic project Watchmen by British creative team Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins coming to mind. Yet read both the lines, and between them, and you’ll find comics being the most viscerally comprehensive analogies and arbiters for the societal ages in which they were developed.
Stan Lee’s X-Men comics are a particular example of this. Birthed during the communist, cold war hysteria in the sixties, X-Men not only proved durable and imaginative parables for the McCarthy witch-hunts, but simultaneously for the struggles of various minority groups through the years. Be they African-Americans, Jews, gays, Muslims, or otherwise, the concept Mr. Lee instituted of the ‘mutant’, particularly the factions of mutants fighting ‘for a world that hates them’, has proven a timeless analogy for groups around the world doing just that. Fighting for a better future, often in many ways one impacting all of us. 1/6 appropriately lacks, however, any true sense of escapism.
Part of this is due to the fact the world it depicts very nearly became our own on January 6th 2021. Another reason is the fact everything it depicts may also become a reality now, depending on who the ballet box elects for the leader of the free world in Fall 2024. There’s no analogy, no parable. Our reality is merely a counterpart to what hypothetically might happen, and which we would rue the day of should 1/6 prove eerily prophetic.
“Whenever I hear someone say, oh, you know, comic books are becoming so woke now, that’s true if you just ignore the entire history of comics and where they came from,” Gan Golan states, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. The article also summarizes his intentions with the book, specifically: “1/6 will feature both fictional characters and real-life figures. The second issue will move away from the graphic novel’s alternate America and delve into actual events that took place before Jan. 6, like the fake electors efforts in in Michigan and other states. It also will recount the U.S. Capitol attack up to the point where Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman led the mob away from the Senate chamber, according to Golan.”
In the same article, Professor Jenkins states: “It seemed like a natural way to tell this story that would reach lots of everyday people who won’t be reading the Jan. 6 committee report… who may not be soaking up the news on this, but who care about our democracy, who care about the equal dignity of all people and can be moved to take action around it…Popular culture can be a way of getting beyond people’s ideological blinders, beyond their polarized, algorhythmically-driven news consumption, to get to the human level.”
Garth Thomas