Don't Forget Your Briefcase - Apocalyptic Satire


Don't Forget Your Briefcase is a difficult comic to review without spoiling everything. It wasn’t the comic for me, but I’m glad I read it. 

Don't Forget your Briefcase 
- Author: Eliot Rahal
- Illustrated by Phillip Sevy
- Colorist: Warnia Sahadewa
- Letterer: Frank Cvetkovic
- 128 Pages Long
- Published on 3/17/2026 by Mad Cave Studios

Thank you Mad Case Studios for providing an Advance Review Copy of this ebook for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Vanessa Honken, special aide to the President, is tasked with carrying the nuclear football, a briefcase holding the nuclear launch codes of the United States. Following an assassination attempt on the president, ten-year-old Elmo's school briefcase is inadvertently switched with the nuclear football. Shenanigans ensue and Katrina, Vanessa, and Elmo are pulled deeper and deeper into a spiral of violence and intrigue. Throughout its narrative, we meet shady politicians, warlike generals, cynical anarchists, cutthroat spies, and violent extremists.

On the one hand, it is a bloody political satire in which the apparent stability of American politics is revealed to be filled with charlatans and maintained by acts of violence, small and large. In the world of the comic, the American way of life teeters on a knife's edge and is doomed, like the Roman Empire before it, to decline and fall. It's a sometimes heavy comic intended for adult readers. You can expect violence and language. Your milage may vary. 


The emotional core of this comic, however, is formed by Katrina Milfer, her 10-year-old son Elmo, and Colonel Vanessa Honken. So many of us find our safety and stability in the political and societal structures of America. The story of this comic pulls this rug out from under its protagonists and forces them to grapple with just how vulnerable they really are. In a world in chaos, where can we find a sense of safety and security? 


Don't Forget Your Briefcase is apocalyptic in the ancient literary sense (a word that literally means "unveiling). It pulls back the curtain on America's sense of safety and security. In four fell strokes (assassination, espionage, radicalization, and nuclear war), the old world order is coming to a close. What remains on the other side? 

Each of our key players has their own ideas about what the new world should look like and their own means of getting it there. I’m not sure all of the plot points add up in hindsight, but the ending was excellent. I won’t spoil it, but the comic lands in an unexpected and hopeful place.

I found myself feeling melancholy when I finished this comic, but a good melancholy I think. If you’re feeling discouraged or cynical about the state of the world, this comic might be the catharsis you’ve looking for.


3.5/5

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