Good Against Evil is a spiral bound artist book by Raul Marroquin published in 1981. Good Against Evil is an exclusive edition of Fandango, an artist magazine conceived of by Marroquin. This publication is about a fictional political figure, Juan Maranas, and his campaign against vampirism. Good Against Evil tells the story of the rise of populist candidate Juan Maranas and his ambitions for global domination. The publication establishes a clear threat from the rising attacks of vampires and delineates Maranas’s plan to fight back. Maranas, described as a newspaper editor, playboy, philosopher, poet, philanthropist, military strategist, scientist, and avant-garde composer, pledges to use television as a vehicle for global political victory. In this publication Marroquin is satirizing the use of television as a viable and trustworthy form of communication. He establishes the ways in which politicians monger fear in order to garner blind loyalty from constituents. Good Against Evil was published on the occasion of the pilot screening of The Political Campaign of Juan Maranas in May 1981 in an edition of 200 by the Agora Foundation. This artist book also includes glossy postcard inserts advertising the Maranas fictional campaign.
Artist Raul Marroquin was born in 1948 in Bogota, Colombia and lives and works in Amsterdam. He first studied at the School of Fine Arts at La Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia and later studied at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Marroquin is considered to be one of the pioneers of video art in the Netherlands. His work has been screened and exhibited globally. Morroquin combines television excerpts from sitcoms and advertisements in deliberately low quality video in order to emphasize the artificiality of television. Marroquin’s later work focuses on the implications of surveillance in public and private spaces.