Riverwurst Anthologies – Riverwurst #5

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Riverwurst #5

OK, there are two possible ways for me to review this book. One is to treat it as just another anthology, and on that front it’s not bad at all. Fairly typical, actually. A few great good stories, a couple of crappers, and a whole bunch somewhere in the middle. The other way I could review this, however, would be to see it as a piece of political protest, an informed piece of dissent, and on that front it pretty much sucks. Is there a single good political comic being done out there? I don’t mean the newspaper stuff, I mean a regular, independently published small press comic. There’s nothing new in here about George W. Bush, and most of criticisms are simple, easy jabs about him choking on a pretzel or being a small man with a huge ego. That’s great, but I’ve seen it done a hundred times, and most of the book has nothing to do with GW. So why the cover? Were they just trying to cash in on the flood of anti-GW books out there? If so, kudos to them, but you should at least make the entire book about the guy and his administration, and do some research! I know it might be a bit boring, but there’s plenty to nail the guy on that doesn’t involve just calling him names. Most of the usual suspects are here from the last two issues, which automatically means that a lot of talent was involved, and I have to repeat that this is far from a bad anthology. It’s just that one look at that cover gives you an entirely different impression of what you’re going to get on the inside, and it’s hard to consider that anything other than a disappointment. Contact info is up there, this is $3, check out #4 if you want to see what this crew is capable of when at their best, and I’m perfectly willing to accept the hypothesis that I didn’t like this book all that much because the artists didn’t tear GW apart nearly as much as I would have liked to have seen, especially after the election…