Book News
Wooing the superhero vote.
Barack Obama wins the endorsement of a green, scaly, superhero with Chicago connections and big biceps.
Sarah Palin wields a hockey stick so she can whack the Crypt Keeper and his cronies on a “Tales From the Crypt” comic cover.
Is this comics as usual in an election year?
Not to sound like a waffling politician, but the answer appears to be yes — and no.
“For almost as long as there have been comic books in the United States, there have been comics about political figures,” says Joe Field, owner of Concord’s Flying Colors Comics. “But this year seems a bit different.”
Walt Kelly, creator of “Pogo,” delighted in slyly skewering the likes of Richard Nixon and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, among others. In the ’70s, Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” carried on that spirited tradition.
Yet comic experts agree something more substantial is at work in this rough-and-tumble election. Four years ago, the likelihood of seeing George W. Bush, John Kerry or Dick Cheney on a comic-book cover seemed implausible. Today, nearly all the candidates (sorry Sen. Biden) have been cartooned.
Perhaps a cartoon, even more than a picture, is worth a thousand words. Especially when it appears in the midst of a volatile election year.
mercurynews.com/books
First Lines
Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge
“George Canaris is the first faculty member of this college in half a century whose death merited an obituary in The New York Times. He was our best-known professor, one of those outsized characters who arrives in an obscure place and makes it his own. “A writer, a critic, a professor, a campus legend and a national figure, the very embodiment of the liberal arts,” the Times obituary said. And a mystery. He was the author of two well-received novels and a book of essays, all published more than 30 years ago. Taken together, they were the beginnings of an impressive shelf to which, in all his years here in Ohio, he added nothing. “Compared to Faulkner and Dos Passos at the start of his career,” The Times observed, “in the end he resembled Harper Lee.”
Hardcover religion bestsellers
1. Before You Do, by T.D. Jakes
2. Sommer: A Paradise Novel, by Ted Dekker
3. Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs, by Emerson Eggerichs
4. Jesus Calling: Seeking Peace in His Presence, by Sarah Young
5. Have a New Kid by Friday, by Kevin Leman
6. Acadia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life, by Kathleen Norris
7. Become a Better You, by Joel Osteen
8. Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, by Alex Harris and Brett Harris
9. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller
10. Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, by Charles J. Chaput
Publishers Weekly
