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Billi 99, by writer Sarah Byam & artist Tim Sale, was a four-issue miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics in 1991. It presented a sort of detective story set in a dystopian near-future. It was not technological science fiction, but social commentary. On the inside back covers were short essays about the themes & politics of the story.This page has the essay from issue #1. It is very much about the invented setting of the fictional story, but still worth reading on its own for its view of the American popular mentality. |
from issue #1 / from issue #2 / from issue #3 / from issue #4 |
World War III came and nobody noticed. Well, it didn’t come the way we expected it—and Americans hate to lose—so we collectively ignored the whole thing. Much better, we decided, than enduring a change in our nationaI self-image.
The French (who always viewed us with a mixture of awe and contempt) called this the “frog soup syndrome.” Throw an American frog in a pot of boiling water, and he has the brains to jump out. If you heat the water slowly, however, the same frog happily swims himself to death.
The fable wasn’t lost on the Japanese. The Chinese. The Arabs. The European Common Market. Or any of the other neighbors we managed to insult in our adolescent aggrandizenient since 1945.
For the better half of the 20th century, America was the most powerful, ingenious, productive—and wealthy—nation on earth. Deservedly so, we told them, and not the least bit related to the fact that after two world wars, much of Europe, Africa, and Asia was healing from its battle scars. Fields, factories, and entire cultures had to be painstakingly rebuilt while America profited.
TheYankee peddler sold whatever he wanted, to whomever he wanted, at his own price. American goods were the best goods available—often the only goods available. But around the mid ’70s, when our neighbors had started to recover and compete with U.S. manufacturing, we lost interest in making things. It was easier to make money.
So we printed lots of paper. Elected reassurances. Cannibalized our industries, and lived off the fat we had inherited—our seed grain. We got drunk on fuel that made it cheaper to buy widgets from Korea than to build our own. Fired the widget builders. And borrowed more money.
With the money we borrowed, we went to see movies about the good old days which made us feel better. Pretty soon we couldn’t tell the difference between movies and reality. So we voted for war movies. And actors. And rumors of war.
While the balance of power shifted to other countries.
And the balance of wealth shifted to the upper class.
And the economy ground to a screeching halt.
The Toleado was quintessentially American. BriIliant Inventor. Generous Entrepreneur. Anonymous Crime Fighter. Young, hopeful, just. When he feared for his country, he committed himself to changing it. The heroic icon inspired millions. So we killed him.
And in the year ’99, Billi Chadam inherited his trousers.
