''Floyd Farland - Citizen of the Future'' is a creator-owned

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

graphic novel written and drawn by Chris Ware, and published by Eclipse Comics in 1987. It was a reworking of strips Ware created as

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

for

student newspaper A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also repor ...

The Daily Texan ''The Daily Texan'' is the student newspaper of University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Austin. It is one of the largest college newspapers in the United States, with a daily circulation of roughly 12,000 during the fall and spri ...

'', and his first nationally published work. The story revolves around Floyd Farland, a citizen in an Orwellian state who is such a conformist his own government believes him to be a fearsome subversive. Ware has since dismissed the story as

juvenilia Juvenilia are literary, musical or artistic works produced by authors during their youth. Written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appears as a retrospective publication, some time after the author has become well known for later works. ...

Creation and publication

Ware originally created the strip in serial form for ''The Daily Texan'' while a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1986 (where he also debuted '' Quimby the Mouse''). During the mid-1980s black-and-white

independent comic Alternative comics cover a range of American comic book, American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream sup ...

boom his work was read by Fred Burke, an Austin native who moved to Guerneville, California to become an editor at Eclipse Comics. Burke showed the strip to Eclipse publisher

Dean Mullaney Dean Mullaney (born June 18, 1954) is an American editor, publisher, and designer whose Eclipse Enterprises, founded in 1977, was one of the earliest independent comic-book companies. Eclipse published some of the first graphic novels and was on ...

, who loved the strips and arranged their publication as a graphic novel. At the time Ware was only 19 years old. ''Floyd Farland'' was published as a one-off square-bound volume, a format recently popularised by DC Comics' ''

The Dark Knight Returns ''The Dark Knight Returns'' (alternatively titled ''Batman: The Dark Knight Returns'') is a 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries starring Batman, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Miller and Klaus Janson, with color by Lynn Varley, and pub ...

''. Ware was initially bemused by a publisher that worked with Alan Moore being interested in publishing his work. ''Floyd Farlands abstract art style saw it spotlighted along with the similarly minimalist Larry Marder's ''

Tales of the Beanworld ''Tales of the Beanworld'' is an independently published comic book created by Larry Marder. ''Beanworld'' features stories about the life and times of the Beans, minimalistic characters which Marder has been drawing since childhood.Larry Marder, ...

'' and Matt Feazell's '' cynicalman'' in an Eclipse advertising campaign titled 'The Changing Face of American Comics'. The novel also included in-universe advertisements for 'Taxation' and 'Tastee Brand Food Paste', and contained brief afterwords from Ware and his mother, who expressed her relief that he was drawing in comics rather than on walls.

Synopsis

Through control of the media, a totalitarian regime has complete command of the people - aside from a valiant group of rebels known as The Underground. The only person who isn't a member of the underground is Floyd Farland, who is happy to be a brainwashed Population Engineer, unflinchingly subservient to the state. However, misunderstandings and various Underground members covering their status soon sees Farland treated as a subversive rebel himself. He is unprotestingly arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to execution. Both the government and the rebels view Farland's contentment with the regime as being part of his cover. Despite his best efforts, Farland is rescued from prison by the Underground, who acclaim him as the messiah of the rebellion. Unnerved, he flees, while the government initiates a mission called 'Find and Destroy Floyd Farland' - which is largely inept due to ongoing sabotage by the Underground. Farland changes his identity to Frank Masterson and gets a job delivering pizza, but his new name is the same as another rebel and his attempts to be taken back in by the government are interpreted as further evidence he is a powerful 'Thought-Warrior'. Farland manages to get himself and a cell of rebels imprisoned a second time, and despite beatings from both his fellow inmates and the guards he remains upbeat and confident the system will clear up the confusion. He is eventually able to get hold of a Pastmaster history altering device, but instead of using it to free everyone instead restores his happy life as a drone-like Population Engineer, bring the story around to the beginning once again.

Editions

Reception

Bob Hughes of ''

Amazing Heroes ''Amazing Heroes'' was a magazine about the comic book medium published by American company Fantagraphics Books from 1981 to 1992. Unlike its companion title, ''The Comics Journal'', ''Amazing Heroes'' was a hobbyist magazine rather than an analyt ...

'' referred to it as "1984 meets Woody Allen".

Gerard Jones Gerard Jones (born July 10, 1957) is an American writer, known primarily for his non-fiction work about American entertainment media, and his comic book scripting, which includes co-creating the superhero Prime for Malibu Comics, and writing for ...

was highly positive about the book in a review for the same publication, calling it "Weird, satirical, hard-edged, a little perverted. And very good", praising Ware's stark artwork and use of panel layouts in aiding the book's paranoid atmosphere. He also noted Ware's maturity.

Disownment by Ware

Conversely, Ware has gone on the record several times to voice his dislike of the work and even disavow it. During a 2001 interview with Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club, he stated he would send a letter of thanks and a drawing to anyone who mailed him their copy of ''Floyd Farland'' as he would "like to eradicate any trace of its ever existing, if possible.". He has also called it "''Blade Runner''/''1984'' stuff from high school" and "painfully bad" As Eclipse went out of business in 1994, ''Floyd Farland'' has been

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book ...

since - having the side-effect of making the graphic novel expensive on the

secondary market The secondary market, also called the aftermarket and follow on public offering, is the financial market in which previously issued financial instruments such as stock, bonds, options, and futures are bought and sold. The initial sale of the s ...

References

External links

* {{Eclipse Comics American graphic novels 1987 graphic novels 1988 comics endings Black comedy comics Comics about politics Comics by Chris Ware Comics characters introduced in 1987 Dystopian comics Eclipse Comics titles Fiction about government Fiction about rebellions Satirical comics