The Rise of a Satanic Right?

Did John Kerry fight not only Viet, but Vampire Cong in the Mekong Delta? Is the GOP considering replacing Dick Cheney on the ticket with the zombified corpse of Ronald Reagan? Is the Bush family, along with Martha Stewart, embroiled in a satanic plot to take over the world?

Recently, artists in various media have taken to casting the foes of the Democratic party as monsters. Literally. With so many voters dismissing the Democrats as the lesser of two evils, these characterizations call Republicans the much, much more evil of two evils, – think Barbara Bush (the elder) pulling a baby's head out of a gory sheep bladder – as if to say to conservatives, "You think we're godless and immoral? Well, you worship Satan!"

One of the milder portraits of the "Satanic Right" is in the Image Comics series, Sword of Dracula, which concerns a government agency that hunts vampires. The current issue (#5) includes a brief scene with a courageous swift boat captain helping to track Dracula himself in Vietnam, circa 1968. The soldier is only identified as a lieutenant who once chased on foot a Viet Cong fighter who had fired on his boat with a rocket launcher, but series creator Jason Henderson acknowledges the character's identity.

"I chose [Sen. John] Kerry because Sword of Dracula is about what good can be done when many nations work together – the heroes of the comic are a multinational force," said Henderson. "Kerry's message of strength through multinational respect and co-operation fit well with that."

GOP supporters are unimpressed by this latest account of Kerry's tour of duty (which one might argue is at least as truthful as that in the "swift boat" ads). Audrey Mullen, a partner at Republican public relations firm Advocacy Ink in Washington, D.C., says, "I don't know anyone on the right who has the spare time to indulge in [comic books], but maybe this is how Democrats reach their base. We, on the other hand, have National Review."

Henderson, however, denies that Kerry's appearance is a political statement. "The Republicans aren't evil. John McCain is a righteous man. George W. Bush is a righteous man," he said, although he did let slip that "My hope is that with the next story arc, Kerry will return as the president."

Earlier this summer, Greg Knauss, a 36-year-old computer programmer who is married to a Republican, put up a website devoted to a presidential ticket of Bush and "Zombie Reagan." Not only does the site make merciless fun of the dead, it describes the late president as "a lumbering, flesh-eating corpse" who will replace Dick Cheney because of the current vice president's need to devote more time to bathing "in the blood of virgins."

According to the site, "Zombie Reagan... no longer needs to sleep and can withstand any wound save the complete destruction of his head. By way of example, Zombie Reagan would have been able to shrug off his 1981 assassination attempt and eat his attacker. He and President Bush enjoy clearing brush together."

The site has received more than 400,000 hits, most of which came during its first week online, and its content has been widely circulated on the Internet. It was popular enough to spawn a related product line (mugs, T-shirts, hats and the like) and to inspire dozens of visitors to offer campaign slogans such as "Zombie Reagan – Still Less Evil Than Cheney," "Putting the Voodoo Back in Voodoo Economics."

With the buzz generated by the site, Knauss expected a storm of criticism. It never materialized. "I mean, geez, what does it take to enrage people these days?" he complains. "Here I am, poking a recently passed icon of conservatism with a sharp stick and nobody threatens to kill me? I thought these were polarized, overly serious times!"