Freedom Fries

For more than two decades, Steve Brodner has been the most savage editorial cartoonist/illustrator to work in the United States. (Internationally, his only rival for acid-tipped outrage is England's Ralph Steadman.) And, unlike the handful of his American colleagues who share his go-for-the-jugular approach, Brodner is also a virtuoso draftsman, whose every line and splash of color is an exquisite treat for the eyes. Brodner's pitiless illustrations, cartoons, comic strips, and illustrated reportages have appeared in Esquire , The New Yorker , Mother Jones , Rolling Stone , Time , Newsweek as well as most other major magazines and newspapers in North America. Freedom Fries is Brodner's absurdly nightmarish journey through the last 30 years of American politics. And what a cast of characters: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. And those are just the presidents Add in such pretenders to the throne as Newt Gingrich, both Doles, Gore, and Nader, craven cabinet officers and legislators and you have the most horrifyingly hilarious rogues' gallery of striking resemblances anywhere. Extensively annotated with Brodner's own pungent commentary and reminiscences, and including some images that were simply too provocative to print the first time around, Freedom Fries is a stunningly reproduced, exquisitely barbed walk through the last 30 years' political landscape part coffee table art book, part madcap manifesto. And while Brodner is a committed hunter of Bush meat he can hate Democrats with the best of them (and we do mean Clinton). In addition to the many single illustrations, Freedom Fries also features several superb pieces of illustrated reportage by Brodner, including coverage of eight national nominating conventions, the Colt Firearms strike, and the Bob Dole, Patrick Buchanan, Oliver North and George W. Bush campaigns. Released just as the 2004 election season gears up, Freedom Fries fits squarely into the tradition of provocative commentary by such firebrands as Michael Moore and Al Franken except this time, it's visual