**The master of the visual mash-up returns with his signature
idiosyncratic take on the Constitution
**
R. Sikoryak is the master of the pop culture pastiche. In Masterpiece
Comics, he interpreted classic literature with defining
twentieth-century comics. With Terms and Conditions, he made the
unreadable contract that everyone signs, and no one reads, readable. He
employs his magic yet again to investigate the very framework of the
country with Constitution Illustrated. By visually interpreting the
complete text of the supreme law of the land with more than a century of
American pop culture icons, Sikoryak distills the very essence of the
government legalese from the abstract to the tangible, the historical to
the contemporary.
Among Sikoryak's spot-on unions of government articles and amendments
with famous comic-book characters: the Eighteenth Amendment that
instituted prohibition is articulated with Homer Simpson running from
Chief Wiggum; the Fourteenth Amendment that solidifies citizenship to
all people born and naturalized in the United States is personified by
Ms. Marvel; and, of course, the Nineteenth Amendment offering women the
right to vote is a glorious depiction of Wonder Woman breaking free from
her chains. American artists from George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and
Charles Schulz (Peanuts) to Raina Telgemeier (Sisters) and Alison
Bechdel (Dykes to Watch Out For) are homaged, with their characters
reimagined in historical costumes and situations.
We the People has never been more apt.
