Warning: If you’re a comic book lovin’ gay Republican, who believes George Bush is the greatest thing since “Heroes Reborn”, then don’t read on. (Also, these views are my own and don’t reflect the views of Prism Comics.)

Just so you know where I’m coming from—George Bush in my eyes has robbed the country blind and should be thrown in prison for international war crimes. This is not to mention how he’s ground our economy to the nub and shoved the Bible down our throats. Obviously, he has to go.

If there’s one good thing to come out of George Bush’s catastrophically successful presidency, it’s the renewal of the activist spirit (okay, everyone’s in Gap jeans, swilling Starbucks, but still…). This effort against Dubya is being fought on many fronts, from the streets to the stump to our culture. There’s the Dixie Chicks, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Madness of George Dubya (a Dr. Strangelove-like play that ran in London), a panoply of non-fiction books, and now a comic book.

Tex!, by Jonathan Dysart and Brad Rader, beautifully targets this fake presidency with its sharp satire, in a world that increasingly eschews nuance, ambiguity, symbolism, satire (or even science), or anything that makes George Bush feel dumb. Perhaps, Mr. President, the schools have gone overboard in raising the self-esteem of their students rather than making them feel stupid when they truly are stupid. Perhaps some children should be left behind. Perhaps you should have been left behind.

Not that Tex! is exactly subtle (which is a good thing since we’ve been much too nice to this parasitic President). The cover of Tex! says it all. Tex, aka George Bush, dressed as a pseudo-military NASCAR Doc Ock sort of superhero, rips the Constitution to shreds, with a miniaturized Donald Rumsfeld riding on his back. Who couldn’t love it? His head’s topped by a ten-gallon hat emblazoned with skull and bones, while his crotch bulges forcefully, showing he is our nation’s virile, war-time President (did he start the war just so he could call himself that?).

And this is the angle the story takes—that George Bush is the world’s liberator, its new John Wayne, its Islam-inator. The action starts on the campaign trail as George Bush jetpacks into a McDonald’s parking lot while evil mastermind Karl Rove shouts from a bullhorn “Get me one of them colored kids for a photo-op!” We then get interrupted by a campaign ad, approved by Dubya, paid for by Women Against Women and No Millionaires Left Behind, which declares that John Kerry doesn’t believe in the war on terror, hates kittens and is wrong on “saving our daughters from the rapist whordes”, while depicting an Arab in an alleyway with a freshly-raped female.

We then get thrown right back into Karl Rove’s circus, with George-the-performing-monkey riding a unicycle and juggling flaming bowling pins among real performing monkeys, seals, and trapeze artists. The political references come fast and furious: from the administration’s insistence there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11, to the loyalty pledge both Bush and Cheney require everyone to sign at their campaign events, to the CIA agent outed because her husband contradicted the White House’s case for Saddam’s possession of WMDs, to tax cuts for the rich and on and on. Along the way we’re treated to terrific visuals including Tex! and a Saudi royal getting lapdances from Thai sex slaves (courtesy of the Carlyle Group!), a billboard for Hooters Kabul and finally Iron Dick (Cheney) in his bunker with everyone’s favorite supervillainess, Katherine Harris, Florida’s Secretary of State in charge of fixed elections.

Ms. Harris, garbed in something the Huntress would die for, narrates the “Origin of Tex”, chronicling the way Bush stumbled and snorted his way to the “position God had intended for him all a long… ruler of the free world!” Like Fahrenheit 9/11, we get a lot of information the mainstream media never reports such as Bush’s 1972 arrest for cocaine possession that was expunged from his record by a judge George Sr. helped get elected (there’s a very detailed and well-researched appendix in the back explaining each of these references) and the Administration’s ties to the oil companies (Condi Rice, Gail Norton and Rumsfeld worked for or represented Chevron-Texaco, Occidental Petroleum and BP Amoco).

Then comes 9/11, the best thing that ever happened to George Bush. After his brain fart while trying to “read” to the children of Emma E. Booker Elementary, he’s rushed to Cheney’s secret bunker. Half-robot Iron Dick explains that Dick Cheney is no more—that he was wounded when the “missile…uh…the passenger airline struck the Pentagon”. (I had heard this theory before, but in the appendix, the writer explains it’s only a rumor and he included it just for the purposes of humor.) Anyhow, Cheney explains the evil master plot that the administration will now put into motion because of 9/11. This neo-con plot, naturally, concerns gaining control of the world’s oil supply (“the resource wars”). Bush loses interest, yawning, prompting Cheney to shrink Donald Rumsfeld into Mini-Rumi. Dubya packs Mini-Rumi on his back, pretty much to act as his brain, and is transformed into Tex!

Thus, Tex! is unleashed unto the world. We see him fighting a giant turbaned baby in Afghanistan in a segment punctuated with comments from our favorite fascist airhead Ann Coulter, who accuses liberals of treason every time she has a bowel movement. We see George formulating his plan to fabricate reasons to invade Iraq against all reason, explaining “Here comes our oil pipeline, Iron Dick!”, while Ann cheers him on over the Fox News headline, “Isn’t It Time You Had a Wargasm?”

Of course the war in Iraq is a complete mess and for a moment, Tex wonders if he may have made a mistake or two. Rove corrects him, saying, “You can’t make mistakes, Tex. You’re a war leader!”

At this point, the writer breaks into the story, saying he can’t continue trying to make it funny, that he can’t just laugh George Bush off. He implores the reader “I beg you, don’t make me write a second issue.” Of course, as the reader, I want more. It’s terrific satire. But upon reflection, it's probably not quite worth another four years of those who do evil in the House they call White.

Support PrismComics.org—buy Tex! here!

David Stanley, Editor of "Queer Eye on Comics", spent most of his formative years in Japan before settling in West Hollywood, California. After graduating from UCLA film school, David turned to theater, writing "Delos," "The Outing Game" and "AIDS! The Musical," and is currently preparing the graphic novel "Summer in Mykonos".

All images and characters © 2004 Atomic Basement. review © 2004 David Stanley.

Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).