Why Do They Kill Me? [Paperback]

Tim Kreider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2005

"Kreider rules."—David Foster Wallace.

For years Tim Kreider's cartoons, as collected in 2004's The Pain: When Will It End?, were single-panel non sequiturs in the tradition of B. Kliban, about the squalor and ridiculousness of the human condition. But after the takeover by the Bush-Cheney regime and the War on Terror, he focused his bitter humor on more timely issues. His political cartoons have been, in the words of Ted Rall (not known as a sentimental softie), "among the most viscerally anti-Bush work around." As reality has become ever more nightmarish, Kreider's been driven to push the outer limits of humor to parody it. In this collection you will find:

• The Girls of Hamas calendar
• The artist's conception of "Negropolis" (Strom Thurmond's proposal for a lunar colony for the repatriation of African-Americans)
• John Ashcroft imagining eating Donald Rumsfeld as their bunker crumbles around them
• U.S. jets bombing the Great Pyramids in the War on Horror
• An analysis of the all-important Shithead Vote
• An expose of the link between homosexuality and terrorism
• And an ashen stake driven, just as a precaution, through Ronald Reagan's heart

Cynical, astute, blackly hilarious, and deeply biased, these cartoons are neither the superficial, obvious jibes that appear in your daily paper's editorial section nor the didactic left-wing rants syndicated in your local alternative weekly; they are the artistic equivalent of hollow-point bullets fired from a high-powered rifle with a laser sight directly into the brain of the Bush administration. 136 pages of black-and-white cartoons

Editorial Reviews

Review

Anyone who considers himself a lover of great satire will adore this. (The Comic Book Bin )

Not only is [The Pain—When Will It End?] the funniest comic strip ever, but, well, that’s it: it’s the funniest comic strip ever. (Walrus Comix )

About the Author

Tim Kreider's was born and educated in Baltimore, MD and lives in an undisclosed location on the Chesapeake Bay. His articles have appeared in Film Quarterly and The Comics Journal. His cartoons appear every week in the Baltimore City Paper and the Jackson Planet Weekly. Kreider's books include Twilight of the Assholes, Why Do They Kill Me?, and The Pain—When Will It End?

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (June 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976632
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976639
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bush & Cheney are not amused!, July 2, 2009

By 

Thomas E. Davis (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Why Do They Kill Me? (Paperback)

If you like your political humor scaldingly sarcastic and brutally bleak, I have just the thing for you. It comes from the Lenny Bruce of cartoonists, a man who takes no prisoners (and that includes himself). Tim Kreider's collection, subtitled "Scream, Honky, Scream: A Chronicle of the Era of Darkness 2000-2004," is as personal as it is political, a product of the nightmare known as the Bush Administration. Don't put it on your wish list unless everything about our previous president and his supporters appalls you. The subtitle is truth in advertising; this book is one long, cathartic scream.

Unlike an earlier Kreider volume entitled "The Pain - When Will It End?", this volume benefits from dozens of brief, penetrating, hyper-literate essays that accompany the panels and illuminate them. However, just like that other anthology, these cartoons also seem to be the product of untold quantities of misanthropic contempt, mind-altering substances, and emotional self-abuse. Disqualify yourself if you have a weak stomach or think good taste is important. And for God's sake, keep them away from children!

That being said, these books contain some of the funniest, most trenchant words and pictures produced by an American in the past decade, and they deserve much wider appreciation. Kreider aims streams of hilariously nasty and ultimately exhausting invective at every member of the Republican Party and especially at its leaders and ideologues. As far as he's concerned, these monsters deserve to burn in the lowest circle of hell for what they've done to our country and our world. As they have never shown mercy, they receive none in return. Enjoy.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars nowhere near enough. This work has the Truth of all Great Art, December 9, 2005

By 

stark raven maven (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Do They Kill Me? (Paperback)

as a Brit, and not an American, may i simply, with classic British understatement, say that I consider Tim Kreider to be like William Blake, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Noam Chomsky - only better. Everyone I know is getting this book off me for Xmas.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The good sort of pain, December 23, 2009

By 

D. Bednarczuk (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Why Do They Kill Me? (Paperback)

Cartoon genius Tim Kreider does here what he does best - political critique. Certainly not for Republican sorts, this collection is eight years' worth of brilliant spite.