‘Plutocracy’ warns of selling our souls to The Company | Comic Box - NJ.com

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In the past four years, there have been a lot of accusations and claims that the world we live in has become increasingly Orwellian, specifically in the vein of his seminal classic “1984.”

I won’t claim that this notion is overblown or wholly inaccurate, but I do think it misses a certain point. In Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future, his chief concern is with government control, individuals coming to power and pushing an agenda through legislative means and bureaucratic power. They then maintain that through propaganda and misinformation and, at times, outright brainwashing.

In many ways we have seen the beginnings of this, but the root isn’t solely government control through broken legislative means. The true source of power and control are those people who truly control the narratives in our lives: corporations.

Abraham Martinez isn’t the only one who has noticed this or been inspired by it, but his new graphic novel “Plutocracy” stands out with its straightforward confrontation of this fact and powerful imagery.

Martinez’s story begins in 2056, during the fifth anniversary of The Company. After decades of mergers and acquisitions, buyouts and hostile takeovers, the world has been left with a single global corporation that controls all business. The Company has become the sole controller of political power and, thus, the government.

The corporate spin posited this as a positive: Since all citizens of the globe were now employees of the company, the world had achieved a utopian vision of cummunist unity.

Unsurprisingly, that isn’t actually the case.

With The Company having total control, it wasn’t long before most people forgot what life used to be like.

Martinez tells the story through the eyes of one-time corporate detective Homero Durant. After becoming disillusioned with his position within the company, Homero leaves, deciding to pursue the story of The Company and its founding. He is shocked when The Company supports him in this, even helping him to uncover the truth of its founding member, or a version of it at least, and the deepest machinations of The Company and its system of control.

Illustrated in a style reminiscent of Bauhaus, Martinez’s work feels timeless and also rooted in a time of societal reflection. It has a tangible sense of weight and importance as it describes a world that springs from the very darkest depths of Marxist nightmares.

“Plutocracy” is a piece of speculative fiction that presents a reality that is only different from ours in degrees. It is both chilling and illuminating, and like any great work it presents a story that will bring a reader to a new awareness of the reality around them.

WILLIAM KULESA can be reached at jjournalcomicbox@gmail.com.

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