By Tim Kreider (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-398-9 (PB)
This book is intended to make adults laugh and think. If the title isn’t clue enough, please be warned that these pages contain nudity, sexual imagery, intentionally insulting images of political figures and rational opinions clothed in harsh language and thought-provoking political comedy. Some people think the author didn’t go far enough, but hey…
If that sort of thing offends you or you believe that blasphemy is a sin and/or a crime, read no further and don’t buy this book. The rest of us will just have to manage without you.
The opening years of the 21st century were plagued with horrors and disasters exacerbated by a hideous global proliferation of lying, greedy, venal, demented and just plain stupid rulers leading governments who finally elevated politicians to that phylum of useless tools and pimples on the butt of humanity once only occupied by lawyers and faith healers. Since then, bankers, astrologers, “influencersâ€, doorstep evangelists, celebrity gossip columnists and all types of psychics joined their rarefied ranks and I’m thinking I need to cut down on coffee or reassess my critical parameters…
With the benefit of a decade’s distance it’s clear that we didn’t learn anything and have only devolved into even worse as a species – if only in selecting people to guide and be in charge of us…
I can’t currently bring myself to laugh at the current crop of imbeciles-in-charge as we all collectively watch the bravest and noblest amongst us be daily betrayed, fobbed off and cheated of the money, tools and support they need to save lives in hospitals across the planet. All I can do is look back at when some folk – me especially – believed we could never do any worse in choosing leaders. Looks like were wrong then and now I’m looking for another hit of graphic retaliation and indulgent graphic stress-release…
If you require similar, this old paperback is readily available in digital formats. Trust me, only the names have changed: the assholery remains the same…
When George Dubya Bush acceded to the throne of America there were a lot of apologetic liberals and whooping goons. There was also essayist and cartoonist Ted Kreider.
Born in 1967 and raised on comicbooks whilst actually paying attention in school, Kreider is an erudite and passionate man with thoughtfully reasoned opinions on politics, religion and the human condition among the many other things. He is also an extremely gifted writer and cartoonist who began self-publishing in 1994.
By 1997 The Baltimore City Paper had picked up his deliciously polemical panel strip-with-accompanying essay ‘The Pain – When Will it End?’ and they were closely followed by the Jackson Planet Weekly, Illinois’ Indy in Bloomington-Normal, The New York Press, The Stranger, Philadelphia Weekly plus other independent and alternative papers. In September 2000 Kreider began releasing the material as a webcomic.
Although at the time a self-confessed left-leaning Democrat, that never stopped him punishing his own camp’s many gaffes, goofs, lies, embarrassments and ideological idiocies. Like our own Gerald Scarfe and Steve Bell with Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair/em>, Kreider was lucky enough (if you discount elevated blood-pressure, maxed-out sense of disbelief and perpetually outraged moral compass) to have been given the gift of a perfect incumbent target in the Bush administration of 2000-2008 and the right-wing anti-intellectual, Christian-fundamentalist crusade/pogrom that brought them to power and still remains to blight he world – fully as much as every other dogmatic, monied special interests group does…
Along the way, Kreider also managed to incense other churches and faiths from Catholics to Moslems, all manner of bigot from racists to homophobes and outrage proponents of all those other aspects of modern US society that makes all us non-Americans nervous and giggly in equal measure.
Subtitled ‘Volume II of the Chronicles of the Era of Darkness 2004-2009’ and this weighty and hilariously biting collection of gags and commentaries covers the – to Kreider especially – incomprehensible re-election and second term of the Republican Saviour and his dark apostles Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice and the rest, whilst still finding room and Reasonable Cause to pictorially pummel Chinese expansion, assorted religions’ definitions of life and attitudes to sex, aspects and definitions of Freedom, geopolitics and Big Oil.
Under his excoriating lens also fell Intelligent Design, the new Russian Empire, Secret Fantasies of the rich and statesmanlike, Crackpot Theories and all sorts of Science: from the author’s spirited defence of Pluto’s planet-hood to Human-Animal Hybrids, Parallel Universes and new roles for the Giant Squid…
With stunning examples of the cartoonist’s eternal roles as social conscience, intellectual champion, puncturer of pomposity and lampooning last bastion of grace under oppressive political pressure, Kreider boldly kicked the shins of the smug over-class and stamped on the toes of all the entrenched whited sepulchres and obnoxiously applied shibboleths that made him annoyed and ashamed of huge swathes of his fellow Americans. Not that Britain or any other colonial power has any moral high ground to sneer down from…
The collected work covers the period November 4th 2004 to October 29th 2009 and includes the shocked rapture of a Democratic win and the nation’s first non-white president – and ends with a shaky dawning suspicion that all politicians might just be the same. Same as it ever was…
Particularly effective sallies to relive include ‘Jesus vs. Jeezus’, ‘The Conservative Christian’s Guide to Compassion’, ‘I “heart†Saddam’, ‘The War on Christmas’, ‘Americans vs. ‘Muricans’, ‘What is Freedom?’, ‘Me & George, We Got Problems’, ‘Silver Linings of the Holocaust’, ‘What You Can Do to Fight the War on Sex’, ‘Everything I Know I Learned from the Bush Administration’, ‘Secret Vices of the Liberals’, ‘Republican Sex Toys’, ‘God: Republican or Democrat?’, ‘After All the Money’s Gone’, ‘We Even Yet?’ and the 5-part ‘Contributions of the World’s Religions’ but there’s guaranteed to be something to shock or offend everybody here – you might even be compelled to think for yourself and question a little bit more…
Forensic, withering humour and viciously necessary satire tellingly rendered combined with savage yet personable, winningly intimate reportage make this one of the best cartoon coshes ever applied to the politics of this century, and I mourn with honest grief the fact that Kreider has left the current Republican administration alone all this time…
I look forward with desperation – if not hope – to more from him in light of confirmation that people didn’t get less stupid, rulers never change their spots and religions have all amped up dictating what their followers can think or feel…
You have to laugh, don’t you…?
Cartoons and text © 2011 Tim Kreider. All rights reserved.