Portland Comics Legends the Pander Brothers Are Re-Releasing Their Dark, Dystopian Graphic Novel Just in Time for Trump

It's the story of journalist Hans Nobel battling the machinations of a global cabal in Amsterdam.

The Pander Brothers, Arnold and Jacob, are Portland's original comics provocateurs—they're the artists behind the first issues of Matt Wagner's legendary 1980s comics series, Grendel, and probably the only Portland comics artists who've ever had their works banned in England and New Zealand.

"A tribunal in New Zealand recognized the artistic merit," says Jacob of their 1990 sex-murder comic Exquisite Corpse, but banned it "because its form and shape would be attractive to a young person. That might have been our best review."

"We actually had to smuggle our own book into London," says Arnold. "We were interrogated by the border authorities. There were two manila envelopes—one with Exquisite Corpse and one with pencils of Triple X, which had no sexual content. Luckily, the one they grabbed happened to have the more benign art. Only weeks before, bobbies had been going into comic-book stores and confiscating issues off the racks."

The dark, political conspiracies fueling that more "benign" comic, Dark Horse Comics' 335-page graphic novel Triple X, now seem as if they could be ripped from the post-Trump headlines—the story of journalist Hans Nobel battling the machinations of a global cabal in Amsterdam. With an all-new "Issue Zero" focusing on Hans' flight from a fascistic 2032 New York, the Panders are now re-releasing the graphic novel one page at a time on thedissidentdaily.com, in full color for the first time.

But now, the densely plotted saga will bear its original title: The Dissident.

Related: Dark Horse Comics' Secret Origins—as Told by the People Who Were There 30 Years Ago

The brothers had argued against Dark Horse's insistence on Triple X as the title. Arnold still remembers "driving down Broadway when a TriMet bus pulled out with this huge ad down the side for the Vin Diesel movie, Triple X. We had spent most of our 20s finishing this very large, personal piece—our magnum opus, if you will—and, boom, the name was co-opted by a film franchise. To have the title pulled out from under us was just devastating."

Having reclaimed its name, the online pages of Dissident: Resurrection XXX will also link up to Amsterdam's actual streets. The Panders drew on their familiarity with Amsterdam when originally drawing Triple X, incorporating the real urban geography to further the creeping verisimilitude. "You'll be able to experience where the story's taken place," says Jacob. "We lived there off and on for two years and drew all of these scenes in actual places. When we launch each one of those pages, they'll be hotlinked to the locations in Amsterdam on Google Street View, so you'll be able to leap right out of the comic to the very street where the action was taking place—a kind of quasi-walking tour of Amsterdam, with an add-your-own dystopian filter."

The Panders are no stranger to multimedia enterprises. "It's more like the technology has caught up to our creative process," says Arnold. Arnold had a brief stint as fashion artist-in-residence for America's Next Top Model, and the pair spent a decade pursuing film and video projects, including a full-length, Selfless, before a triumphant return to comics with 2015's vampiress-in-love graphic novel, Girlfiend, from Dark Horse.

In many ways, they think the current societal discontent and fears of dystopia will prove far more amenable to The Dissident than the relative peace and prosperity of the mid-'90s.

"So many of the concepts we've been tackling in the series have been bubbling up," says Arnold. "One of the reasons we did [prequel] Opt Out was to contextualize the bigger project within a contemporary setting. There's a lot of anxiety right now about the direction of the world. Some of these fears are existential, but when you look at history and how fast things can change, they're also very real."

The Dissident: Resurrection XXX is being released one page at a time on thedissidentdaily.com.

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