Action Philosophers! # 6: The People’s Choice
Writer: Fred Van Lente; Pencils and Inks: Ryan Dunlavey
This was a good issue as usual. If quality of work resulted in the best sales, these guys would knock the interminable Civil War and 52 off of the charts.
The People’s Choice covers St. Thomas Aquinas, Soren Keirkegaard, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I have no idea how Van Lente and Dunlavey were able to condense Aquinas down into a few pages, but they managed to do it and keep him interesting. The really interesting bits are in the Keirkegaard and Wittgenstein pieces, as we get a nice picture into how nutty the two really were. Brilliant, but nutty. And this humanizing of history’s geniuses is where AP succeeds every time.
There is some talk around the blogosphere that this issue didn’t measure up to the previous issues, mostly because these were not topics that the creators chose and they didn’t seem to like them as much. I’m not sure where other reviewers are getting this from. While I liked #2 the best, especially the snappy title, The People’s Choice was easily as good as all of the previous issues. Excellent condensing of complicated ideas, amusing drawings, and something completely different from anything else on the comic stores’ shelves.
The only thing mising was the usual connecting pieces between the issues, either by a theme for the book ( all French philosophers in Hate the French, all fairly randy philosophers in All Sex Special) or by a connection between the philosophers themselves (Freud to Jung to Campbell in Self Help for Stupid Ugly Losers). If there were any complaints to be made about the book, it would be the lack of smooth transitions between the philosophers. But that’s not a reasonable expectation given that these were picked by others for their popularity rather than a continuity of thought or ideas.
So, go buy and read this comic. Your life will be better for it. But still skeptical? Then go over to Action Philosophers and read the Thomas Aquinas piece for free!