When you've got a creative line-up like this one, it's pretty easy to guess that the book is going to be great, and Birth Of A Nation doesn't disappoint. It's not as laugh-out-loud funny as I would have expected, but it's exceptionally smart and surprisingly touching and real, even though it deals with the very unreal notion of the community of East St. Louis seceding from the U.S. after their voting rights are taken away from them during the federal election. In many ways, I read Birth Of A Nation as the same sort of wish-fulfilment political storytelling that I loved in the first few seasons of The West Wing, with a specific focus on race relations as they relate to politics thrown into the mix as well. This is an outrageous book that will no doubt anger those of certain political stripes, and I'd love it for that alone, even if it weren's such an enjoyable read.
Birth Of A Nation starts from a premise that is outrageous, equal parts comic exaggeration and legitimate grievance with the way the 2000 elections were run. Essentially, East St. Louis, a bad place to live in reality, is the target of the disenfranchisement that was suffered in Florida during the real 2000 elections. Rather than essentially being forced to take it without much more than grousing, though, these folks get up and do something about it. With the help of an idealistic mayor and a couple of powerful businesspeople, the city secedes from the union to form their own nation.
From this outrageous premise comes a very intelligent book about politics, commerce and the way our world works. The central reason that "The Republic of Blackland" works is one that is based on international banking, and while it's morally a little skeevy, it's kind of fun to see the good guys (in this case, the citizens of East St. Louis) screwing the all-powerful bad guys using their very own tools against them. McGruder and Hudlin paint their characters as noble and righteous, but they don't fail to include human foibles, including greed, short-sightedness, fear and all the other things that infect people at all levels of power, high and low. In fact, much of the story centers not around the conflict from without, but the conflict from within, as everyone's varying goals for the new nation butt heads.
It is this realism that makes Birth Of A Nation rise above simple comedy. There are comedic elements to the characterization, such as the friendly nicknames and banter between Habib or the overly earnest nature of the N.A.P.P. activist group, but it comes out of believable places, which makes it both funnier and more real. I also got a kick out of seeing McGruder and Hudlin deal with the realities of a new nation, from the mail to law enforcement, in a way that is both funny and well-thought-out. There are a few elements (such as the cheap, reusable power) that are strictly in the realm of fiction, but for the most part, Birth Of A Nation stands out as one of those things that could happen in a perfect world, which means that despite this being a book that came out of disappointment and anger with the system, it is very much an optimistic book.
The artwork is by Kyle Baker, but it's not exactly true to call this a comic book. The format is more like that of the cartoons in the New Yorker, a format that Baker has used to good effect before. By that I mean there aren't speech balloons or sound effects or thought bubbles, but instead pictures with text beneath them. This takes away some of the immediacy of the action, feeling more like a cross between comic book and illustrated novel, but Baker's illustrations have the same strong mix of realism and exaggeration that the writing does, which makes him a perfect fit for the story. In addition, there are some simply beautiful pages, such as the two-page splash of a dogfight over St. Louis's waters or the opening page, which instantly expresses the dichotomy between St. Louis and East St. Louis, that makes this book a delight for the eyes as well as for the mind.
