64 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
Review_FICTION
sometimes loses sight of larger societal
forces and counter arguments (did urban
sprawl outpace mass transit expansion,
for example). This is a resolute protest
against vehicular deaths as a silent epi-
demic, though its impact is ironically
buckled-in by static visuals. Agent: Louise
Pritchard, Louise Pritchard Assoc. (May)Bronx Heroes in Trumpland
Ray Felix, Tom Sciacca, and Tom Ahearn.
Arsenal Pulp, $11.95 trade paper (112p)
ISBN 978-1-55152-805-2
Felix and Sciacca’s slapstick satire
follows two superheroes fighting to take
down a superpowered Donald Trump,
ultimately falling flat from over-the-
top delivery. Time-traveling superhero
Astron Star Soldier vows on “Twatter” to
stop the hatred growing after the 2016
election, jumping forward to the year
2026 and finding America in ruins
under facist rule. He then travels back
to 1974 to enlist fellow superhero Black
Power, but the two must first deal with
Trump’s hypnotic wife Malaria; Mike
“Captain MAGA” Pence, Trump’s sen-
tient, evil toupee with beady eyes; and a
hoard of buglike deplorables. Eventually
the heroes launch Trump into deep space
and prepare to
celebrate, but
they also realize
a similarly
grotesquely
caricatured
Hillary Clinton
and her Blue
Wave squad
might not have
the best of
intentions for
America. The creators clearly cracked
themselves up collaborating on this
parody, which heavily takes inspiration
from and is an attempted homage to
Jack Kirby’s art and style. But the
inconsistently rhyming script and low-
brow joking (“Let my golden powers
shower you with love” declares a bikini-
top-clad Malaria) and generally inco-
herent story line make it hard to not
groan. Even readers who have entirely
like-minded political views are likely to
dismiss the juvenile humor in this mish-
mashed parody. (Apr.)born of an acid
trip that freed
him briefly—
“find the sec-
onds that feel
okay and live
in them.” But
eventually he
realizes that
to stretch out
seconds into
livable days, he has to accept the profes-
sional help he’s long resisted, and face
his anxieties head-on. The moment he’s
finally able to sit on a public toilet seat,
he feels like a superhero. Katzenstein’s
drawings range from broad caricature to
genuinely creepy replays of darker fears.
This refreshing and accessible debut,
with crossover potential for older teens,
will be a welcome addition to the growing
canon of graphic medicine. Agent: Dan
Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc.
(June)★ Wendy, Master of Art
Walter Scott. Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 trade
paper (276p) ISBN 978-1-77046-399-8
Scott (Wendy’s Revenge) continues the
saga of his round-eyed, loose-limbed
heroine with this delightful volume,
the best of the bunch, which parodies
the worlds of fine art and art education.
Wendy is stuck in the tiny town of Hell,
Ontario, working toward her MFA.
There she meets a motley crew of fellow
millennials, among them Yunji, who is
obsessed with using string in her art;
Maya, an overachieving, globe-trotting
wunderkind;
and Eric, a
hypernervous
type eager to
prove his
“woke” creden-
tials. Wendy
navigates
fraught rela-
tionships with
each of them,
as well as a romance with an attractive
young man who is also involved with
another woman, while she battles
alcohol dependence and creative
blocks—and desperately attempts to
create meaningful art. Scott’s drawing
style is loopy and cartoony, to consis-tently funny effect. He’s also a skillfully
economic storyteller with a sharp wit,
especially sending up academic art-
speak. (Eric introduces himself to the
class: “My work seeks to propagate sys-
temic qualities of erasure in non-human
logic (inhale) IN speculative environ-
ments, HOWEVER.”) But Scott never
loses sight of his characters’ humanity,
conveying a genuine sweetness under
the snark. The flaws and foibles of
Wendy and crew prove hilarious, relat-
able, and highly entertaining. (June)Crash Course: If You Want to Get
Away with Murder Buy a Car
Woodrow Phoenix. Street Noise, $16.99 trade
paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-951491-01-7
This urgent treatise by Phoenix
(Rumble Strip) decries the mortal threat
posed by errant drivers and a dysfunc-
tional automobile-centric society. The
graphic essay is composed of declarations
(“The causal link between action and
consequence is
unhooked in a
way that would
be considered
psychotic in
any other area
of our lives”)
spooled over
empty street
scenes and
repetitive
sequences of
white roadway arrows painted on high-
ways. Phoenix rails against the arrogance
of consumers, carmakers, and govern-
ment leaders who protect drivers over
pedestrians; the dangers of self-driving
cars; and the inequity in risk to drivers
themselves, exposed in the deadly police
shootings of African-Americans during
traffic stops. Accusations are punctuated
by alarming statistics, such as a rise in
bike fatalities in New York City, despite
recent changes in urban planning to make
the city more foot and bike friendly. The
reliance on blacktop visuals is sometimes
as monotonous as a long drive, though
rarer spreads—such as of a pedestrian
fatality depicted with stick figures or a
sobering rendering of a makeshift memo-
rial on a curbside where a cyclist was
killed—lend emotional impact. The
psychoanalysis of narcissistic drivers