HOPIUM

The early-FKN catalogue ends mid-2009. The seventeen episodes between January and April are dense and tightly written — the format and voice are fully matured and Deek is no longer building anything, just delivering. The macro story is the Obama transition: BUSH FAREWELL BYE ASSHOLES (Jan 16) and OBAMA - FIRST BLACK PUPPET OF AMERICA (Jan 23) bracket the inauguration.

The 'hopium' coinage — used in US TROOPS HARVEST HOPIUM IN AFGHANISTAN (Feb 20) — is the era's mascot word. It's the bittersweet recognition that the Obama administration is going to do everything the Bush administration did, only the audience will be too high on hope to notice. The episodes flag the continuity early: Gaza is still on fire (GAZA DEATH 2 EASY, Jan 2), the Afghan surge is being arranged, the banks are still being rescued (LAUGHING ALL THE WAY FROM THE BANK, Feb 26).

The Davos and G20 meetings get the bankster-mafia treatment (WORLD ECONOMIC MAFIA MEET IN DAVOS, Jan 29; G20 - LYING SCUM, Apr 3). The final catalogued episode — WAR PEACE FREEDOM IGNORANCE SLAVERY (Apr 9) — is an Orwell-referencing valediction. After this date the on-disk archive is empty; Deek's later catalogue (2010 onward) is elsewhere.