Comic (presidential) relief

Comic books are gaining respect as a field of academic research, as Monitor book reviewer Randy Dotinga recently reported. So it should be no surprise that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have been turned into superheroes.

The San Diego Tribune has a story today announcing that comic books featuring McCain and Obama and their larger-than-life stories will be available in October from IDW Publishing. (Fortunately, neither character are in tights. Pinstripes suits still save the day.)

The comic books aren't an attempt to caricature the candidates (leave that to the political cartoonists) but rather, yep, you guessed it, getting people to pick up a book. Jeff Mariotte, a supernatural thriller novelist who is writing the Obama book, told the Tribune, “We're just using the medium to get the stories of these guys out there, maybe for a different audience that wouldn't pick up a big biography of them.”

Getting people to pick up a big biography doesn't seem to be a problem for Jerome Corsi. His critical treatment of Obama in "The Obama Nation" has shot to top of the bestseller lists and is causing quite a flap in political camps this week. (Corsi also wrote a scathing, bestselling biography of John Kerry "Unfit for Command" in 2004.)

Books may not have the animated powers of YouTube in this political campaign but at least they can still pack a punch.