Slowpoke: One Nation, Oh My God!

The fourth collection of this liberal alt-weekly political strip takes on the Bush administration, fire-breathing right-wing pundits and the frankly sexual Drooly Julie. The four-panel strip, which has hints of Matt Groening, is drawn in a rounded, earnest style good for depicting Americans who are freaked-out, very right-wing or totally apathetic. The humor is a bit puerile, but in an engaging way. “We would never flush their silly little book down the toilet,” says a right-wing protester about the alleged abuse of the Koran at Guantánamo Bay; or sending the troops in Iraq empty tuna cans as armor, and the White House demanding all the NSA's phone records from the New York Times . Still, sarcasm is the protest of the weak, and the snark that's refreshing in small doses feels like overkill en masse (a problem with many collections of political cartoons). Text on each page, which Sorensen often uses to explain that many of her crazy facts are real, will be of use to future historians. But they intensify the feeling of being swamped. A good book to read a bit at a time, maybe have around on a coffee-table or in a coffee shop that keeps the Indigo Girls on repeat. (Apr.)