Public Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collection [Paperback]

Aaron McGruder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 26, 2005

Here’s the next big collection of Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks, the most subversively funny, controversial, and politically engaged strip to be found in America’s comics pages. Featuring Huey Freeman, a radical preteen conspiracy theorist, and his little brother Riley, a desperately cute thug-in-training, The Boondocks skewers targets from George W. Bush and Ralph Nader to Queen Latifah and Bill Cosby. With more than 500 previously uncollected strips—including strips banned from newspapers around the country—Public Enemy #2 is a must-have collection of the sharpest satire being crafted today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Outrageously provocative.” —Entertainment Weekly

“The most biting and consistent critique of the war and its discontent in the nation’s mass media.” —The Nation

“One of the most successful comic strips ever.” —Black Enterprise

“Sacred cows should graze with caution in the boondocks.” —The Crisis

“McGruder may consider himself a comic strip creator first, but his controversial work has turned him into both political lightning rod and intellectual heavyweight.” —Seattle Times

“Sociopolitical cartoonist Aaron McGruder is peddling a humorous but insightful cultural revolution to 20 million people a day with his comic strip The Boondocks.” —Jet

“McGruder’s scathing take-no-prisoners wit is usually dead on.” —The Comics Journal

“Controversial, unapologetically political, and very entertaining.” —Black Issues Book Review

About the Author

Aaron McGruder is the creator of The Boondocks, which made its print debut in 1997 in The Diamondback, a student newspaper at the University of Maryland, and now appears daily in more than 300 newspapers around the country and online at www.boondocks.net. He is the author of the bestselling A Right to Be Hostile and the coauthor of Birth of a Nation. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1ST edition (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400082587
• ISBN-13: 978-1400082582
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.5 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent comic, November 28, 2004

By 

B. Brenner "TV Junkie" (Freeport, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Public Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collection (Paperback)

I am wild about Aaron McGruder. He captures the very essence of political satire with his adorable characters in the Boondocks. I have watched him on Bill Maher and can certainly see why he has remained so popular. Huey and Cesar often ponder a world in which the Democrats regained control of the country, but realize that Kerry was just a punk. Grandad's crusty ways make me laugh every morning on the way to work, and Riley's thug attitude brings it all back to Earth, proving that even the most serious political pundit can have a sense of humor and still get his point across. I also think Aaron McGruder is hot.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow! An actual important piece of modern pop culture!, September 4, 2005

By 

Nicholas Adam Chupka "Metalhead" (Derwood, MD) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Public Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collection (Paperback)

The Boondocks is undoubtedly the most important mainstream comic since its obvious and admitted predecessor, Doonesbury. However, the connection these strips share is in purpose, because their contents are dramatically different.

Picture the white-picket fence tranquility of your stereotypical suburb within comfortable driving distance of the thuggish-ruggish city.

Everything is just peaches, and roses, and whatever else, until this family moves in. Now the old fella, Grandpa, he's cool because he's soooo old he's just happy to be living, and indifferent to most current affairs, because hey, at least he doesn't have to run from a crazy mob of Klan members like they had to in the old days.

His grandsons, however, are different. Riley, that pint-sized DMX/50 Cent/Ja Rule wannabe, brings the real ghetto (or so he and they think) to this used to be perfect setting. Even worse is older Huey, whose calls for revolution contain too much fire for this complacent community.

Throughout their daily lives, Huey rails against modern politics, race relations, and pop culture, while Riley embraces these and any other establishments that are either down with, or help his cause to get his swerve on.

What prevents this collection from receiving the five star rating I give the first collection is its incessant reliance on aforementioned topics, in lue of strips which work to expand on the vivid characters of the strip. In the last collection, many strips were dedicated to themes and issues immersed in current affairs, but they only existed within the context of this local community and its citizens. Every strip in this new collection calls attention to more recognizable and global topics/issues/people, and rarely within the context of simply this local community. The result is a sometimes tiring focus on Beyonce, Condoleeza Rice, GW, etc.

Regardless, University of Maryland alumni (Go Terps!) Aaron McGruder is still one of the most important writers of today. Through the genre of comics, he is able to reach a wider audience which includes those with short attention spans. He is one artist in the mainstream media who speaks the inarguable truth with ferocity and no holds barred. He challenges his cultural race, and indirectly the human race in general, to be upfront and honest about all the important issues we lie to ourselves about for comfortability and peace of mind: war, poverty, excessive living, immorality, and perverse freedom.
Pick this collection up as a way to lend laughter to your otherwise brimming dissatisfaction with these issues.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and insightful, December 2, 2005

By 

johnnie b. baker "johnnie b. baker" (http://budgetfiles.budgetpress.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Public Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collection (Paperback)

This is a collection of the newspaper comic Boondocks. I love this comic! If Doonesbury was the 70s, Bloom County the 80s, and Calvin and Hobbes the 90s (though not as political as the others), Boondocks is now. This collection seems to cover 2003-2004, including, of course, the Bush-Kerry election. McGruder really expresses the anger, disappointment, and fear of the election by those of the left in a way that I totally and completely relate to. There is obviously a debt to Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes in his comics, though with a bit more righteous anger. His lampooning of pop culture and frankness regarding race also rarely miss the mark. Even when I don't read the paper, I go online to read Boondocks. It makes me feel like I'm not alone, and reminds me of the humor in everything.