Bush Junta 25 Cartoonists on the Mayberry Machiavelli and the Abuse of Power by Gary Groth and Mack White 2005

            Reading the Bush Junta was definitely the most eye-opening graphic novel I have ever read. It provided well-researched insights into the various political escapades and affairs of the Bush family and associates through the second half of the 20^th century. It gave me a new perspective on my country and coming out of it, I begin to have a fuller understanding of how I fit in to it all. It was like zooming out to see the larger influences and personal agendas that ripple out to affect someone as uninvolved as me. At first glance one might assume this book is just one long political cartoon but there are actually a few distinct things that separate it from the genre. In political cartooning, opinions are stated using the dialogue between characters or captions or just the overall use of text. In the Bush Junta however, the text was reserved for fact only; all wording was remarkably unbiased. This created a pocket in which subtle commentary is made through use of caricature and the more strictly visual elements. Topics covered in the Bush Junta include the Bush family history, including its connections to the Nazi regime, The Nixon & Reagan administrations, Iran-contra, Donald Rumsfeld, Abu Gharib, Carl Rove, and much more. It was like cliff notes for the American Government on either side of Clinton, and I feel more prepared and inclined to vote in 2016.