Bush McCain Tijuana Bible at the Democratic National Convention

Any complete account of the evolution of communications media in the twentieth century must include the Tijuana Bible--small pornographic comics featuring bootleg versions of popular comic strips and celebrities. Tijuana Bibles are arguably the secret origin of the contemporary comic book. While newsstand publishers were reprinting newspaper strips, Tijuana Bibles offered new adventures of pop culture icons in a cheap and easily replicable form. We're seeing this same dynamic today, of course, as porn drives innovation on the web.

Although Tijuana Bibles eventually faded away with the arrival of cheaper photo reproduction tech, their legacy remains. And as commonly happens with archaic media, they have been revived and adapted by the avant garde.

In Denver this week, delegates to the Democratic National Convention will have the opportunity to get printed versions of this Bush-McCain Tijuana Bible, presented as a replica of a prophetic 1934 comic from Lieberman's Lil' Squeezer Books. Whatever one's moral stance regarding porn & politics, it's a rather clever piece of neo-retro performance art.