Customer Reviews

Why Do They Kill Me?

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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.

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.

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.

This book is full of brilliant drawings that show the dark side of America, as well as excellent texts along with them. Kreider is a great writer, which he usually deserves little credit for, because he is also a great artist.