If I’m talking about this book a lot, it’s only because it didn’t initially sell nearly as well as it should have, and now that Dan Goldman has o8 coming out this week, I wanna try and drum up some more interest in it again. The following was originally written by me in September 2004 as part of my report on the Small Press Expo, and the tenor of my report centered a great deal about the Bush/Kerry election. Everyman is a fictitious story of a black man who becomes president, and had it taken off, it would have been the first in a series of graphic novels that would have explored his administration, and indeed, the Goldmans lay the seeds for future storylines in this book. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring it with me when I moved, so I can’t make a more detailed comparison between it and the events of the 2008 campaign, but I can say that the character in the story comes from outside the political system and the focus of his campaign centers around thinking outside the box and searching for unconventional solutions to the problems that have plagued America for generations. So in that sense, he’s not too different from Barack Obama. If you do pick up 08 this week, please also consider getting this book as well.

One of the most passionate entreaties at SPX for a change, however, came from the Goldman brothers, the writing duo behind the political graphic novel Everyman: Be The People, which debuted at the show. “We spent a lot of years in college and after having no faith in the system whatsoever, and I guess things got bad enough for us to not only start paying attention more, but to try and get involved,” said co-writer Dan Goldman. “And once I did, I realized that I really do care about this country. Maybe I don’t believe in what’s going on in the political arena now, but that doesn’t change the dream. That doesn’t change what the country was founded on, which is something that does shine a light in the world, despite what’s going on now in the name of that dream. The practice of [it] and the spirit of [it] are two completely different things… What we are doing in Everyman, basically, is pointing back in the direction of the way we think the founding fathers intended this nation to be, and our place in the world. We’re trying to show people that the America of our dreams is not really as far away as you might think.”

A work of fiction inspired by the 2000 election and the Bush regime in general, the protagonists of Everyman share the goal of holding their administration accountable for their actions that run contrary to the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws of America. The Goldmans talked about informing their local congressman, whom they believe shares the same ideals they have, of their book. By presenting their views in this format, they say, they can bypass the more traditional media outlets that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. “People are always saying, ‘Well, if you believe so strongly in this, why don?t you get involved?’” said co-writer Steven Goldman. “This is how we’re gonna get involved. We’re writers. This is what we do best to contribute to the ideas and to get in people’s faces and to try and get them to think harder about the system. Especially with Be The People – everybody’s worried about the voting system being manipulated, but they’re not worrying that hard. Our leaders are not listening when we say these things don’t work and the system is vulnerable to hacking and manipulation and we don’t feel we should be voting with these machines. And they’re buying them anyway. They’re buying them according to a plan that was put into place after the 2000 election debacle, which was honestly more the result of partisan politicking than it was malfunctioning machines… What kind of message are you sending the American electorate when at any time you can be put on a list and suddenly [be] written right off of the American electorate system?”

While the Goldmans liked how Kerry came across in the first debate on September 30, they believe he’s still got a long uphill battle. “He’s up against the Bush machine which has their fingers in the major papers, the networks, the advertisers on all of those,” said Dan Goldman. “Everything’s pretty much stacked against him. I hope and pray that Bush doesn’t sit in that chair for another four years, and that’s all I can do.”