- Title: USA: Obama and McCain make the comic pages
- Date: 13th October 2008
- Summary: (BN02) NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 8, 2008) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) EXTERIOR OF FORBIDDEN PLANET COMIC BOOKS STORE SIGN SHOWING CANDIDATE BOOKS CUSTOMERS LOOKING AT COMICS SIGN OF PRESIDENTIAL COMIC BOOK SIGNING WRITERS JEFF MARIOTTE (L) AND ANDY HELFER (R) (SOUNDBITE) (English) WRITER ANDY HELFER SAYING: "I'd like to do more non-fiction comics. I think comics are a great way to get people to understand fairly complex issues, fairly easily, and I think there's a real value to these kinds of books. I think that a person who doesn't know much about the campaign, and I assume there are some, can read these books and really come away with a much better understanding - if not 100 percent - certainly a fuller understanding. And I think part of the effect is couched in taking them seriously, so I try to take them seriously."
- Embargoed: 28th October 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVACEC57705V7VGIYSUERGOX5S1G
- Story Text: The lives of presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are now enshrined in the world of comics.
With less than a month before the election, the Presidential campaign moved in a new direction on Wednesday (October 8) as the biographies of John McCain and Barack Obama ventured into the world of comic books.
A day after the second presidential debate, IDW Publishing released the highly anticipated biographies, which have already become a collector's item among comic book aficionados.
Andy Helfer, who wrote the McCain comic, said comics were a great way of getting people to understand fairly complex issures more easily.
The comic biographies depict the lives of McCain and Obama from childhood to this year.
For Helfer, fitting the 72-years of John McCain's life into the standard format of a 28-page comic was not a simple task.
Jeff Mariotte, who wrote the script for the Obama comic, envied the material that Helfer had at his disposal, including McCain's military service.
Both authors poured over volumes of source material, from printed books, biographies and autobiographies of the candidates, to the voluminous media stories from the two-year-long presidential campaign.
Manager at Forbidden Planet Comics Books in New York, Jeff Ayers, said in a hundred years from now, the comic book of whoever wins the election will be preserved in the Smithsonian for history whereas the one for the loser will probably not. That's politics. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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