Remember the 1960s, when crazed hippie teenagers and their "free love" threatened to destroy the very fabric of Western civilization? Neither do I. Well, as fast as the yippies were destroying society, legions of paunchy squares were cashing in on the youth culture fad. in 1967 the film WILD IN THE STREETS postulated that lowering the voting age to 14 would mean a teenage President, concentration camps for the over-thirtys, and most shockingly, a non-comedic role for Richard Pryor.
Six years later DC Comics published their own version of Teenage President USA. Way to stay on top of the trends, DC. This painfully unhip comic was known simply as... PREZ.
Four issues in and the novelty of a teen president has worn off. Bring on the monsters!!
One of Prez's earliest appointments was to appoint a total stereotype Indian as head of the FBI. At least THIS director won't be wearing dresses. Prez Rickard is noted for wearing a red sweatshirt decorated with a never-changing photostat of the "Prez" logo, which is symbolic of the artist, Jerry Grandenetti, being totally lazy.
When he's not building canals in foreign nations, Prez plays a mean game of ping pong with Mao Tse-Tung (you see, in the early 1970s ping-pong became an Olympic sport and the Chinese were really good at it, so there was this half-assed stereotype of Chinese people playing ping-pong that got a lot of play in comic strips and lazy standup routines. People took a lot of drugs in the 1970s.) in the "Groove Room", noted for its walls of Zip-a-Tone. Man, that Grandenetti is some lazy artist.
Americans can rest easy knowing that their chief executive is ably protected by a crazy Indian who bursts hollering into the room at the first sign of trouble.
Turns out the canal Prez built in Moravia took all the water from the neighboring country of Translvania. Which is hidden by a dark cloud so no one can find it. Gentlemen, and chicks, should note that Prez's military advisors (a) are little people and (b) enjoy saying things in SPOOOOOOKY VOOOOOIICES.
Alerted, as usual, by the Director Of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation bursting through the door screaming at the top of his lungs, Prez Rickard whips into action by quoting dialog from the film "The Creeping Terror".
What diabolical plan do the monsters of Transylvania have in store for us? Something so horrible that it defies belief. Well, that fits in perfectly with the rest of this comic.
The great revenge plan is to... release some rabies-infected bats. Which America already has, and which medical science already has a cure for. As horrible, belief-defying plans go, this one could be stopped by some kids with BB guns. However, Big Chief forgets To Knock wants a special session of Congress! Doesn't he know how much those things cost?
Defied by Congress, Prez and Eagle Free send a suicide squad of birds to clog the jet engines of Transylvania's sole airplane. Will America send foreign aid to rebuild Dracula's domain? Why not? We hand out cash to everybody else!!
Note the blurb at the bottom of the page - DC's first big step forward in 1974 was to cancel the hell out of PREZ. That's right, this was the last issue of this painfully dated, out of touch attempt by middle-aged hacks to tap into some of that sweet teenage pocket money. One wonders how this comic got published in the first place. Luckily, here we have documentation of the meeting of the DC Editorial Board where their reactions to PREZ were recorded for posterity..
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