Blog post written by Kelly Lindberg, Instructional Design Librarian
Conspiracies, Capitalism, and Collage:
How Artists’ Books and Comics Confront the Chaos
In an era where conspiracy theories shape political realities and deepfakes blur the line between truth and fiction, it often feels like we’re living inside a comic book. The Department of Truth takes this unsettling idea to its extreme: what if reality itself was determined by mass belief?
Almost a month into Trump’s second term and almost five years after the pandemic started, I’d like to recommend this comic that I’ve paired with several artists’ books that resonate with the current state of the country. We’ve been in this world overwhelmed with misinformation, disinformation, and deepfakes for quite some time now, and it often feels like everything is changing too fast for any of us to keep up. To cope with current events, I’ve recently read every single issue of the comic The Department of Truth, which I first discovered by attending my local comic shop Bat City Comic Professional’s Fresh Start Book Club, all of which I cannot recommend enough.
Much like The Department of Truth, artists' books have long been a medium for questioning dominant narratives, exposing political manipulation, and challenging how we perceive reality. By pairing these works, we can explore how visual storytelling—whether in comics or book art—helps us navigate this post-truth world.
The Department of Truth and the War on Reality
Writer James Tynion IV, artist Martin Simmonds, letterer Aditya Bidikar, and designer Dylan Todd form the brilliant team behind The Department of Truth, which was first released on September 30, 2020. The series presents an alternate America in which Lee Harvey Oswald is alive and leading the government’s “Department of Truth,” an organization designed to push the nation’s agenda by propelling mass belief in constructed realities. In this world, every conspiracy theory that gains enough traction becomes real.
Tynion has noted that his inspiration for The Department of Truth came from the 2016 presidential election. The comic explores how misinformation spreads and how belief shapes power structures, reflecting the challenges we face in today’s media landscape.
Fig. 1: pg 79 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
Fig. 2: pg. 199 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
I firmly believe that Ringling staff and students will particularly appreciate how much depth and care was put into the creation of this series. In a fantastically enlightening interview with the comics’ creators, The Nation points out, “A reader experiencing The Department of Truth for the first time will likely make connections to the collage-heavy art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, like surrealism or pop art. The most direct influence seems to be Brought to Light, a “graphic docudrama” anthology by Alan Moore, Bill Sinkiewicz, Joyce Brabner, Tom Yeates, and Paul Mavrides from 1988, whose style was partially influenced by the propaganda comics the CIA once issued in countries like Nicaragua to disrupt leftist movements.” Simmonds tells the interviewer: “My relationship with collage goes back to my love of comic artists Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, and Jon J Muth, mixed-media artist Robert Rauschenberg, and graphic designer David Carson, among others”.
Martin Simmonds' visuals using mixed-media techniques reinforce the idea that truth itself is fragmented and contested. You can see an example of this in Figure 3 (shown below) which uses inverted, cut-up pieces of the pledge of allegiance as the gutters of the comic.
Fig. 3: excerpt from pg. 195 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
Fig. 4: pg. 309 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics
While I’m amazed by Simmonds’ artistry throughout the whole series, as demonstrated in the snapshots above, I’d like to highlight issue #7 of the comic, a flashback story illustrated by guest artist Tyler Boss, who tells the story of a young “Doc” Hynes who publishes and circulates his manifesto “Resist the Men in Black!”. Inspired by early science fiction fanzines, this issue connects the comic’s themes to real-world conspiracy subcultures, making it an especially relevant discussion point. Hynes eventually wears tin foil as a makeshift hat to shield his brain from telepathic brain waves, inspired by an article he read in an issue of Amazing Stories. The Ringling Library collection has a copy of a similar publication called Astounding Science from 1938, and you can view it by appointment.
Fig. 5: pg. 172, Fig. 6: pg 174, The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One,
Tyler Boss, Image Comics
Artists’ Books as Counter-Narratives
Photograph of materials in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center at Ringling College of Art + Design
Just as The Department of Truth unpacks the mechanisms of misinformation, many artists’ books challenge the political and social structures that enable it. Similarly, artists’ books use mixed-media and experimental design to disrupt conventional narratives. As Jane Anne Carlin notes in Artists' Books as Catalysts for Social Change, “Approaching conversations about difficult issues using the artists’ book as a jumping-off point causes us to slow down, reflect, and think deeply.” This deep thinking also allows for the capability of differentiating fact from fiction—a skill we all need to harness.
Listed below are some powerful works that, much like the comic, force us to question the narratives we’re told:
Louise Odes Neaderland’s Trump Circus and Trump Wallpaper Borders reflect the manipulation of political spectacle—much like the Department’s work in the comic.
Fig. 7: photograph of the opened box of Trump Wallpaper Borders,
Another favorite of mine that we have in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center by Neaderland is the Nuclear Fan.
Fig. 8: photograph of the Nuclear Fan, Louise Odes Neaderland
Fred Hagstrom’s The Blue and The Red examines the January 6th attack on the Capitol, using congressional testimony and archival photographs printed in relief and silkscreen to document the real-world consequences of misinformation.
Fig. 9, 10: photographs of pages from The Blue and The Red, Fred Hagstom
David Stairs’ Living in Denial, U.S.A. juxtaposes economic statistics with maps of Oregon, questioning the realities we accept about data (I also highly recommend viewing Mona Chalabi’s TEDTalk on bad statistics for more on this topic).
Fig. 12, 13: photographs of pages from Living in Denial, U.S.A. by David Stairs
Dale Edwin Wittig’s Capitalism’s Collapse ruminates on a near-apocalyptic vision of crumbling global capitalism with his hand scrawled captions and graphic illustrations, mirroring themes of instability explored in The Department of Truth.
Fig. 14: photograph of pages from Capitalism’s Collapse by Dale Edwin Wittig
Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach’s Whereas... we declare compiles text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (proposed to the United Nations by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948) alongside statistics on immigration, challenging governmental narratives about rights and citizenship.
Fig. 15: photograph of pages from Whereas... we declare by Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach
All of the artists’ books mentioned can be viewed in Ringling’s Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center by appointment. You can read the first issue of The Department of Truth for free online through Image Comics, or check out the omnibus from the Alfred R. Goldstein Library.
**For combatting misinformation, I’d also recommend reading How to Win the War On Truth : an illustrated guide to how mistruths are sold, why they stick, and how to reclaim reality by Samuel C. Spitale, illustrated by Allan Whincup, or you can book a session with me and I’ll nerd out over Mike Caulfield.
P.S. - Jordie Bellaire is a Ringling alum who was a colorist for The Department of Truth!
About the Author
Kelly Lindberg is an Instructional Design Librarian at Ringling College of Art + Design’s Alfred R. Goldstein Library, with a longstanding interest in zines and comics. She actively incorporates these passions into her teaching of information literacy to students. A shorter version of this blog was published on bookarttheory.org for the College Book Arts' Association.
Feel free to connect with her at klindber@ringling.edu, or on Instagram: @comic.kelly
Works Cited
Keljera, ML. “A Comic That Captures the Antic Energy of a Post-Truth World.” The Nation. March 2023.
Neaderland, Louise Odes. The Nuclear Fan. 3rd ed. Brooklyn, NY: Bone Hollow Arts, 1999.
Neaderland, Louise Odes. Trump Circus. Brooklyn, NY: Louise Neaderland, 2017.
Stairs, David. Living in Denial USA. Mt. Pleasant, Mich., D. Stairs, 2005.