In 2031 the American government has decamped to Mars, leaving the country to be run by a shopping-mall corporation. Reuben Flagg, a former television star, arrives in Chicago as a Plexus Ranger, a kind of policeman, and discovers that the whole system is rigged, the television is lying and his talking cat has opinions.
Chaykin's satire of media, sex and consumerism was decades ahead of its time, and his page design, with sound effects, adverts and on-screen text woven into the art, changed how American comics looked. It is loud, crowded and sometimes exhausting, and in a world of rolling news and targeted adverts it has aged into something close to documentary.
