Constitution Illustrated

The master of the visual mash-up returns with his signature idiosyncratic take on the Constitution

R. Sikoryak is the master of the pop culture pastiche. In Masterpiece Comics , he interpreted classic literature with defining twentieth-century comics. With Terms and Conditions , he made the unreadable contract that everyone signs, and no one reads, readable. He employs his magic yet again to investigate the very framework of the country with Constitution Illustrated . By visually interpreting the complete text of the supreme law of the land with more than a century of American pop culture icons, Sikoryak distills the very essence of the government legalese from the abstract to the tangible, the historical to the contemporary.

Among Sikoryak’s spot-on unions of government articles and amendments with famous comic-book characters: the Eighteenth Amendment that instituted prohibition is articulated with Homer Simpson running from Chief Wiggum; the Fourteenth Amendment that solidifies citizenship to all people born and naturalized in the United States is personified by Ms. Marvel; and, of course, the Nineteenth Amendment offering women the right to vote is a glorious depiction of Wonder Woman breaking free from her chains. American artists from George Herriman ( Krazy Kat ) and Charles Schulz ( Peanuts ) to Raina Telgemeier ( Sisters ) and Alison Bechdel ( Dykes to Watch Out For ) are homaged, with their characters reimagined in historical costumes and situations.

We the People has never been more apt.