The Adventures of Barry & Joe: Obama and Biden's Bromantic Battle for the Soul of America

by Adam Reid

Brothers from different mothers, bromancing history to save us from Trump. 

These are the continuing adventures of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, time traveling superheroes in search of a brighter future for America. 

Moments after the inauguration of our 45th President, best friends Barack Obama and Joe Biden were escorted to a secret lab run by the world’s greatest scientists. They were asked to take off all their clothes and hold very still in a fetal position until they felt a painful tingling sensation. Then they vanished. They would awake to find themselves apart, and inside their younger bodies—driven to find each other and change history for the better. Their faithful guide on this journey is Samuel L. Jackson, a brilliant actor from the present who appears in the form of an augmented reality that only they can see and hear. And thus, they find themselves leaping through time, striving to right injustice wherever they find it, looking for a world which they can proudly call home.

A visual feast that’s both graphic and novel, this book is a love letter to cheesy science fiction and the two men who can still be counted on to inspire us.  Featuring comics produced by Titmouse Inc (Big Mouth, The Venture Bros.), it’s 224 pages of adventure that will melt your snowflake brain and give you hope for humanity at the same time. 

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fiction, Humor, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics, Political Science, American

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2019

Reviews

[Cheryl Sumida · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this graphic novel on Audible and I am so glad I did! The "Bromance" theme song is HYSTERICAL! That's not half of what is so great about this book, however.

I popped this in when I had my high school kids (aged 15 and 17 and stark raving Democrats thanks to the influence of their father) trapped in the car with me on a 45 minute ride home from one of those common kid summer things--band camp, choir auditions, etc.

They rolled their eyes because I was playing YET ANOTHER AUDIOBOOK but as soon as the "Bromance" theme song played, they were hooked. "What is this?" they asked, trying to feign indifference. "Oh it's just a new Barry and Joe story I heard about and had to listen to," I said. "You know who Barry is, don't you?" Blank stares in answer to my question. "Barack!! Now shhhh and listen!"

And then they listened and laughed, right along with me.

We loved the far-fetched story and a favorite scene was Barry vs the giant Barack robot. I was amused by the science fiction terms--explained--in the last part of the book, but my kids actually did not know some of those so it turns out that the explanation was helpful for them.

We are looking forward to replaying this for their dad when we head up to Minnesota's boundary Waters. He will LOVE this.

Mr. Reid--you are a genius! I salute you and thank you for the family bonding experience. We want more adventures of these two characters please!!!!

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing, escapist sci-fi for troubled times.
If you miss the real Barry & Joe being in office...
If you enjoyed the Andrew Shaffer "Hope Never Dies" book...
If you liked Quantum Leap ... or Saturday morning superhero cartoons, then you'll likely enjoy this.

[☮Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I read this is I needed a graphic book for a challenge and this one sounded like fun. It was ... different.

[Marilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woah Nelly, Adam Reid has an incredible imagination. He wrote this a a way to keep his sanity after the 2016 election, and I picked this up solely out of curiosity after reading the title alone. It's basically a weird collection of stories of Obama and Biden (with appearances by Samuel L. Jackson) time traveling to save the world. I laughed out loud many times but I wasn't a fan of the language. Too many F-bombs for my taste.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought it for the illustrations alone. Fabulous art!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed out loud, got emotional, and overall enjoyed everything in this.

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite an exciting (and weird) ride. Definitely amusing.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absurd and funny... I laughed out loud and I don't do that!

[Karen Guenther · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Quantum Leap or U.S. 44, then this is the book for you.
Moments after the 2016 inauguration, best friends and brothers from other mothers Barack Obama are escorted to a secret lab run by the world's greatest scientists. In a blink of an eye, they step into the time-continuum machine and vanish. Aided by their faithful guide, Samuel L. Jackson, who appears in the form of an augmented reality that only they can see and hear, Barry and Joe are traveling through time to fight the forces of Trump and search for a brighter future for America. And so Barry must leap from life to life with Joe, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping that the next leap will be the leap to much needed vacation after eight years in the Oval Office.
The comic book is a combination of both graphic cartoons and a cheese science fiction novel of the two men who once and still continue to inspire much of the country. I do recommend that if you do read the book, it is much better if you follow along with the audio book. It adds to the hilarity and provides a funky soundtrack.

[Douglas Graney · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re into bromance novels you will love this. Bonus! It has time-travel and Samuel L. Jackson!

[Gracemary Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

well. that’s an hour of my life I will never get back.

art was cute, but this is a neoliberal hellscape of a comic, and although I knew that when I picked it up I was quite frankly flabbergasted at just how hero worshipy it managed to get.

[Wiseman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and surprisingly poignant at times. :-)

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is less of a novel and more of a series of vignettes with a narrative through stream. At times tedious, for the most part this is a fun and funny romp that lampoons time travel, classic science fiction, Zombies, the Apocalypse, and modern politics. Sound impossible? it isn't. This book is consistently funny and there are moments where you will laugh HARD. I am dinging the evaluation of the story itself because one section goes on WAY too long. (No spoilers. You'll know). Push on through that, because the book as a whole is well worth the journey. Prepare to laugh.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is written in a series of mini chapters, some no longer than a paragraph while others are 2 and a half pages long at the most. Every chapter feels disconnected from the other, like your supposed to guess how it all fits together. The only link that you have to go on is the novels premise- Obama and Joe Biden are hoping dimensions/ going back in time trying to save the world. Reading this book felt less like reading a novel and more like reading the authors footnotes. It was such a good idea until the author ruined it by not adding enough detail to make it worth reading. Instead he relied on name dropping to keep the reader interested. That may have been enough to get people to buy the book, but it wont be enough to keep them from realizing what a huge mistake that was. For those of you who are thinking of reading this because it is listed as a graphic novel, let me stop you there. There are only three comic sections in the whole book, the rest is just terrible paragraphs, doodles, and fake comic covers. At one point, there is even an entire chapter composed of short episode descriptions (101 of them) for a Barry and Joe TV show. It adds nothing to the book but takes away too much of your time. If the author had taken at least 2 of those ideas and fleshed them out, this would have been great. But instead the longer you read this book the more you realize you could have been reading something better.

[Mark Plaid · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the risk of being accused of being a right wing "hater" or something, I don't like this book. If you must know, my political views are much further left than Obama or Biden. However, I was willing to look past my criticisms of the duo because I find them likable and charming (Biden to a much lesser extent though). I'm an avid reader of comics as well and I thought this was a comic. It is only partially. However, the art and comics are the best portions, but the text-only material is lacking. In the beginning, Deepak Chopra being depicted as a great mind of the world really lost a lot of points with me. I'm a hardcore scientific skeptic and have zero tolerance for any credibility given to that charlatan. The author calls Chopra's views "woo" way back in the glossary, but too little to late. Spreading pseudoscience is harmful. Much of the rest of this book is incoherent nonsense of lists of ideas that read like first stage brainstorming more than something that should be published. The story vignettes scattered across the book read like corny fan fiction and makes very poor attempts at camp, satire, and irony. I hoped for some, but it fell flat in its corniness. If you want silly comics that are not corny, try XKCD by Randall Munroe or the Magic Whistle by Sam Henderson, not this.

[Caileigh]

I feel as though there was a very brief window between when this book was published and when the primaries began picking up in which reading this book could have been immensely enjoyable. I did not find this book in that window. The comic portions were great fun, however the prose portions (of which there were far more than I was expecting) left something seriously lacking in the way of style and delivery.

[Maria Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

So creative, bizarre and amusing. There are so many layers of references that I’m sure it would take me a few reads to get them all (or most). The illustrations were fantastic. I only wish there were more illustrations - going back and forth between the text only, and the comic style was a little awkward. So much creativity and thought put into this book though!

[Dawn Livingston · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish. The concept was so odd/funny/kooky I had to at least check it out but maybe I'm just not enough of a Biden or Obama fan for it to appeal to me, or maybe it was just too weird. Just not for me. If you're big on Biden or Obama or both, if you like graphic novels, if you are a Liberal, give it a try.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...interesting. At times it felt kind of disjointed and unconnected but there were many bits of enjoyable humor. Honestly I didn't enjoy it until a few chapters from the end during the post apocalyptic dimension. 2.5 stars.

[KelceyTheLibrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was funny at times and totally off the walls at others. It made me chuckle and I didn't take it seriously at any point. It filled the void left from the Obama/Biden memes quite well. Text alone was dry. Comics were lots of fun.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creative and funny

Creative plot/story line with funny segments. If only this was real and the heroes could go back and fix things before we end up with the mess we are in in the present.

[Melyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fun. A fantastic sci-fi hilarious "what-if" about President Obama and Vice President Biden trying to save the soul of America after the 2016 election. Great graphics, very clever. A nice escape from reality. :)

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the audio was really good, it was just too weird and all over the place for me. There were several references I did not get and I feel like only people very into politics would get all the jokes.

[Schrödinger's nap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great graphic novel with plenty of bromance between Barack and Joe consisting of funny short stories that are linked together in a bigger theme. Plenty of moments when I chuckled and laughed out loud. A definite recommendation.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

The comic parts were great. I enjoyed the beginning, but then it became super disjointed and didn't feel like all went together. Some of the different styles worked, but I think they overcomplicated it. Would have liked to see the plot where they prevented the assassinations play out.

[Alyssa Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most absurd book I’ve ever read. In a good way. My spouse sent me a picture of it while at the library; then brought it home.

It was a continual adventure of Barry & Joe and I could have never predicted what happened next.

[Betsie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. The idea was cool and funny, but it just didn't live up to my expectations.

[Suzann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could read this about five more times and still not uncover every intricately detailed nuance. The back-and-forth between text and graphic was jarring for me, though.

[Scott Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea!

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected from it. Not sure they actually knew what they wanted to do.