Ablatio Penis follows the rise of all-American politician André St. Louis. The Republican St. Louis is a workingman’s hero—out to save the economy and create jobs while still remaining charming, suave and good with the ladies. This graphic novella chronicles the capriciousness of the election cycle and explores the persona of the American politician.

It’s pretty obvious I like my politics as much as I like my comics, maybe more so. So take the two and mix them together and you’ve got a comic that I’ll absolutely give a shot. So I was excited to come across creator Will Dinski‘s table at this year’s Small Press Expo.

The comic is a fascinating read, mixing together today’s shallow political reality following a Republican candidate and eventually his Democrat opponent. St. Louis is an interesting politician and I guess the one issue I have with the comic is that it doesn’t hold much in reality of how it all works, and I’m not sure I’d believe St. Louis or his opponent would make the decisions they did.

However, that’s not really the point of the comic, instead of really focusing on the blue and the red that envelops the comic, it instead is an allegory for today’s state of comics, especially issues of gender and personality. Policy isn’t a focus here, instead the focus is on the greater the life characters and the shallowness it’s all become. Take it from me, this comic gets that down perfectly. Much like real life, policy isn’t what’s it’s important, it’s public perception.

Politics has become a business of larger than life characters whose myths exceed reality. That to me is a lot of what this comic is about. How matters that don’t matter can deflate our views and end our support. We might agree with someone 100%, but if we find out that one flaw, our enthusiasm wanes.

As you might guess from the title, gender politics comes into play, a lot, but to go into detail about that would ruin the comics’ twist.

Winski takes his art seriously, the comic has a Union bug on it, indicated a union press printed it. I don’t see that often in comics, and whether that’s normal for his comics, I don’t know. But, it seems very appropriate for this political comic.

Comics like this are exactly the reason I go to comic conventions. Do yourself a favor and track it down and pick up a copy.

Story: Will Dinski Art: Will Dinski
Story: 9.5 Art: 9 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy