Slate magazine has a preview up of the new Ronald Reagan “graphic biography” by Andy Helfer, Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton. The book arrives in comic book stores today, and apparently some conservative pundits aren’t too happy with it:
Of course, one can’t expect much of a comic-book biography. In a comic book of less than 100 pages, which is what this appears to be, how much actual text — you know, the actual biography — can it contain? Twenty normal pages? Thirty? The notion that one can write a biography of any person of substance in such a short form is ludicrous, let alone a modern United States President. It’s nothing more than a long-form tract, a pamphlet with as much insight as a protest placard.
The biggest question this raises is not why it got written, or what attention-deficit audience it intends to reach. The biggest question is why Slate felt compelled to serialize such an intellectually and artistically bankrupt effort. Slate readers should feel offended that this is what Slate’s editors think of them.
Related: The New York Sun reviews the book
September 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Personally, I just like the Reagan as Two-Face cover design…
September 6th, 2007 at 11:41 am
“After reading the first installment, I can report that it’s everything one would expect from a comic book. It lacks insight, fresh perspective, and any kind of context — and that’s just the text.”
Burn! Take that, comics!
September 6th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Anything about President Reagan not printed on gilded-edge paper with gold leaf inlay is bound to honk off the old 80′s neocons. Ideally, they’ll keep complaining and put the book on the bestseller list as a result.
September 6th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Reagan read comics in the White House… he’d probably be amused by this, silly idiot conservatives.
September 6th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
It’s good to know the effectiveness and strength of the Reagan presidency is still giving liberals aneurysms nearly twenty years after he left office….though Helfer, Buccellato, and Staton should have realized that all the big money is in all-consuming Bush hatred.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Man, conservatives are a whiny bunch, aren’t they?
Aren’t there, like, over 1000 “traditional” books written about our nation’s 40th President, from the salaciously-dishy, to the critical, to the straight-forward unbiased, to the unapologetically sycophantic tomes. I also remember there was at least one comic version way back in the day. If memory recalls, wasn’t he in an issue of Superman? I know the Gipper was, in patache form, in The Dark Knight Returns.
Still, it just seems like more comic-bashing from the media. Well, from a politically slanted blog anyway.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I always liked the Max Headroom/Ronald Reagan character that appeared in Doonesbury.
September 6th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
If anyone bothers to read the whole danged thing, they’ll find both the good and the bad about Reagan. I’m way old enough to have been an adult through most of Reagan’s political career (I attended college in California while he was governor), and I like the book. I refuse to align myself with either political party and prefer to find my own way through our murky political waters. I never idolized nor demonized Reagan. And, gad, did anyone here ever sit through one of his movies? Yeesh. Being President was the best role he ever played. Yes, I did mean to say that.