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Book by Wagner, Pete
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Published January 1, 1980
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October 4, 2017
"Manages to reach to the limits of bad taste!"-Abbie Hoffman
Buy This Book was one of the first graphic novels, but, unlike Maus and most of the others that followed, while it is mostly narrative, telling its story by reading page after page, it is not a "comic book" format but text interplaying against diverse, novel types of hand-drawn graphics, mostly but not all cartoons, which change from page to page. It's innovative design is more reminiscent of Marshal McLuhan's "Medium is the Massage", perhaps crossed with a bit of MAD magazine.
Part One is a collection of political cartoons by me that were published in the various alternative and college newspapers I was staff cartoonist for. These are cartoons on big historical topics and issues, including corporatism, which you won't find in the cartoons that were being done by the mainstream press' cartoonists back then, or even for decades after. They are much more biting than the kind of cartooning that was being done by daily newspaper cartoonists, too. So there is both a "secret history" aspect and a borderline underground newspaper cartoon feel to this section.
Part Two is "The Worst of Wagner"--favorite hate mail, censored cartoons before and after, cartoons nobody would publish, etc. These are interspersed with text that illustrate the cartoons and vice versa--in other words, you have to read the text, look at the cartoon or hate mail or poster announcing the upcoming debate with the editor of the Catholic Bulletin who called me "sophomoric, vicious, poisonous" and a long list of other adjectives, read more text, look at the next image... It is set up like a slideshow or PowerPoint presentation but very satiric or comedic in the interplay between the words and the pictures. Some very funny stories like my first encounter with Brother Jed (Smock) preaching against fornication at the Univ. of MN mall and me painting a certain 4-letter word on my forehead and giving him a friendly little hug in front of a large crowd of students one sunny May day, which got me suspended and led to a slew of interesting letters to the editor. Various guerrilla stunts I pulled in defense of my most controversial cartoons, for example when I showed up for the abovementioned debate in a burlap monk's robe and sandals with my feet painted purple like I'd been stomping grapes...various humorous artifacts and a fairly heavy message about corporatization of news media that was way ahead of its time. You have to remember, in the '70s, after Vietnam, NOBODY was doing this stuff. It was considered "passe'" to be an activist of any kind, much less a kooky guerrilla theater type. So my determination to continue the 1960s in the middle of the '70s had an element of surprise and doggedness that created some funny stories.
Part Three is the real "book" part of the book, the all-original text and images that are kind of like a children's book for adults. (Dr. Seuss' publicity agent stole that line from me! It didn't really fit his work, it did fit mine.) This is a statement about my generation and how we departed from the "Sixties Generation." At this point, people in my age group, born between 1955-1965, were being called "The Me Generation" instead of being lumped in with the Baby Boomers, who were more often thought of as those born between 1945-55. I protested this in the book and laid out my case using caricatures of "Our Heroes," (Angela Davis, Wm Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman, Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary, Jimi Hendrix, Gloria Steinem, etc. etc.) but mocking the many sellouts, burnouts and dropouts of the '60s who never really believed in the "Revolution" they pretended to be starting. One section is a takeoff on a series of "trading cards" published in the late '60s called "The Outlaws of Amerika," which I parodied as the "In-Laws of Amerika," and showed as real traitors to The Movement. The text on these is like something from the Onion. Part Three winds up with a call to action for the coming decade, the 1980s, with some examples of how I combined humor with political activism in the '70s--including "How We Terrorized the Nazis," true account of our run-ins with the National Socialist White People's Party's national "congress" in 1975. It is reminiscent of the scene in the Blues Brothers movie where they run the "Illinois Nazis" off the bridge into the water. Only ours wasn't fiction, it is all true, and the interactions with the real Nazis makes for some hilarious readings. It is done in the form of a play.
Abbie Hoffman really DID characterize it as above, and the Small Press Review called it "profoundly moral." Includes a visual excursion through the 1970s in author/artist/designer Pete Wagner's political cartoons. The meat of the book advocated "post-Sixties political activism" and a kind of surreptitious revolution using humor rather than violence. My friendship with Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman was an influence on both the title and the content. (My wife Dian came up with the title! Genius!!!)
"Outrageous, critical cartooning." --In These Times
"The enfant terrible of political cartooning." --Erwin Knoll, Progressive
"Raw political satire and daring social philosophy from America's heartland.... A master mythologizer." -- Alternative Media
"Blasphemous. Tough. Tasteless. Ironic. Compassionate. Fearless. Outrageous. Demystifying. Right on. Funny-as-hell. And moral. Yes, profoundly moral." --Small Press Review
"...a serious artist...Wagner is unfair, egotistical, often brutal. He is also quite talented, and deserving of an audience...Wagner the cartoonist shines." --"Taking the Offensive," Milwaukee Journal"
Pete Wagner is blunt, mean, irreverent, nasty, vicious--and downright funny." --Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times
"A terminal adolescent. A genius gone wrong...a creative, imaginative guy who lacks discipline...and a delight." --Robert T. Smith, columnist, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"An iconoclast...Wagner is serious about being funny. His editorial cartoons are thoughtful and hard-hitting executions in the best tradition of affecting opinion with drawings." --Twin Cities Reader, alternative weekly newspaper of Minneapolis
"Wicked wit...puckish irreverence...a talented, award-winning editorial cartoonist and caricaturist, Wagner's sense of the absurd has kept him from becoming a quiche eater with an establishment job and a townhouse..." --St. Paul Pioneer Press
Buy This Book was one of the first graphic novels, but, unlike Maus and most of the others that followed, while it is mostly narrative, telling its story by reading page after page, it is not a "comic book" format but text interplaying against diverse, novel types of hand-drawn graphics, mostly but not all cartoons, which change from page to page. It's innovative design is more reminiscent of Marshal McLuhan's "Medium is the Massage", perhaps crossed with a bit of MAD magazine.
Part One is a collection of political cartoons by me that were published in the various alternative and college newspapers I was staff cartoonist for. These are cartoons on big historical topics and issues, including corporatism, which you won't find in the cartoons that were being done by the mainstream press' cartoonists back then, or even for decades after. They are much more biting than the kind of cartooning that was being done by daily newspaper cartoonists, too. So there is both a "secret history" aspect and a borderline underground newspaper cartoon feel to this section.
Part Two is "The Worst of Wagner"--favorite hate mail, censored cartoons before and after, cartoons nobody would publish, etc. These are interspersed with text that illustrate the cartoons and vice versa--in other words, you have to read the text, look at the cartoon or hate mail or poster announcing the upcoming debate with the editor of the Catholic Bulletin who called me "sophomoric, vicious, poisonous" and a long list of other adjectives, read more text, look at the next image... It is set up like a slideshow or PowerPoint presentation but very satiric or comedic in the interplay between the words and the pictures. Some very funny stories like my first encounter with Brother Jed (Smock) preaching against fornication at the Univ. of MN mall and me painting a certain 4-letter word on my forehead and giving him a friendly little hug in front of a large crowd of students one sunny May day, which got me suspended and led to a slew of interesting letters to the editor. Various guerrilla stunts I pulled in defense of my most controversial cartoons, for example when I showed up for the abovementioned debate in a burlap monk's robe and sandals with my feet painted purple like I'd been stomping grapes...various humorous artifacts and a fairly heavy message about corporatization of news media that was way ahead of its time. You have to remember, in the '70s, after Vietnam, NOBODY was doing this stuff. It was considered "passe'" to be an activist of any kind, much less a kooky guerrilla theater type. So my determination to continue the 1960s in the middle of the '70s had an element of surprise and doggedness that created some funny stories.
Part Three is the real "book" part of the book, the all-original text and images that are kind of like a children's book for adults. (Dr. Seuss' publicity agent stole that line from me! It didn't really fit his work, it did fit mine.) This is a statement about my generation and how we departed from the "Sixties Generation." At this point, people in my age group, born between 1955-1965, were being called "The Me Generation" instead of being lumped in with the Baby Boomers, who were more often thought of as those born between 1945-55. I protested this in the book and laid out my case using caricatures of "Our Heroes," (Angela Davis, Wm Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman, Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary, Jimi Hendrix, Gloria Steinem, etc. etc.) but mocking the many sellouts, burnouts and dropouts of the '60s who never really believed in the "Revolution" they pretended to be starting. One section is a takeoff on a series of "trading cards" published in the late '60s called "The Outlaws of Amerika," which I parodied as the "In-Laws of Amerika," and showed as real traitors to The Movement. The text on these is like something from the Onion. Part Three winds up with a call to action for the coming decade, the 1980s, with some examples of how I combined humor with political activism in the '70s--including "How We Terrorized the Nazis," true account of our run-ins with the National Socialist White People's Party's national "congress" in 1975. It is reminiscent of the scene in the Blues Brothers movie where they run the "Illinois Nazis" off the bridge into the water. Only ours wasn't fiction, it is all true, and the interactions with the real Nazis makes for some hilarious readings. It is done in the form of a play.
Abbie Hoffman really DID characterize it as above, and the Small Press Review called it "profoundly moral." Includes a visual excursion through the 1970s in author/artist/designer Pete Wagner's political cartoons. The meat of the book advocated "post-Sixties political activism" and a kind of surreptitious revolution using humor rather than violence. My friendship with Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman was an influence on both the title and the content. (My wife Dian came up with the title! Genius!!!)
"Outrageous, critical cartooning." --In These Times
"The enfant terrible of political cartooning." --Erwin Knoll, Progressive
"Raw political satire and daring social philosophy from America's heartland.... A master mythologizer." -- Alternative Media
"Blasphemous. Tough. Tasteless. Ironic. Compassionate. Fearless. Outrageous. Demystifying. Right on. Funny-as-hell. And moral. Yes, profoundly moral." --Small Press Review
"...a serious artist...Wagner is unfair, egotistical, often brutal. He is also quite talented, and deserving of an audience...Wagner the cartoonist shines." --"Taking the Offensive," Milwaukee Journal"
Pete Wagner is blunt, mean, irreverent, nasty, vicious--and downright funny." --Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times
"A terminal adolescent. A genius gone wrong...a creative, imaginative guy who lacks discipline...and a delight." --Robert T. Smith, columnist, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"An iconoclast...Wagner is serious about being funny. His editorial cartoons are thoughtful and hard-hitting executions in the best tradition of affecting opinion with drawings." --Twin Cities Reader, alternative weekly newspaper of Minneapolis
"Wicked wit...puckish irreverence...a talented, award-winning editorial cartoonist and caricaturist, Wagner's sense of the absurd has kept him from becoming a quiche eater with an establishment job and a townhouse..." --St. Paul Pioneer Press
Displaying 1 of 1 review