The U.S. government has been in the comic book business since World War I, and many state and local authorities have followed suit. Government Issue can't begin to exhaust the topic—there are too many officially produced funny books moldering in the archives—and, given the artistic mediocrity of many selections, it's hard to call it a “best of.” It's interesting nonetheless as a collection of material often funny in ways its creators never intended. Check out Captain America, drafted to fight the “War on Drugs” (the pushers are space aliens), or the EPA's Captain Bio, battling pollution—and then there's the helmeted and bow-tied Cold War turtle, advising kids to “duck and cover” in the event of an atomic attack. Some of the work in Government Issue, however, represents a more sophisticated approach to the medium. The greatest surprise is finding Badger State underground cartoonist Denis Kitchen, who drew the very witty Consumer Comix (1975) for the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
