Twilight of the Assholes

Tim Kreider’s first cartoon collection, The Pain—When Will It End? was oneof the few bastions of sanity throughout the awful aberration in American historyknown as the Bush Administration. The end of his second volume of politicalcartoons, Why Do They Kill Me?, saw its author in despair over the 2004election. In this new volume, Twilight of the Assholes, as reality gets ever bleaker,Kreider’s humor becomes increasingly apocalyptic, deranged, and hilarious.He juxtaposes the Biblical Christ with His blonde, flag-draped, machine-gun-totingAmerican incarnation in “Jesus vs. Jeezus,” proposes a third politicalparty that represents Americans’ real values in “The Sex Party,” draws the deadSaddam Hussein as a mischievous invisible imp still causing trouble, and envisionsthe officials of the Bush administration getting their comeuppance in the grisly fashion of Dick Tracy villains. Andhe finds two cartoons’ worth of “Reasons to Look Forward to the Next Terrorist Attack.” Also included is his infamousentry into Iran’s Holocaust cartoon contest, “Silver Linings of the Holocaust.”

Kreider mocks not only the evil and hapless Bush but the fecklessness of progressives, the imbecile bigotry of radicalIslam, and, most of all, the dumb bovine complacency of the American voter. His art has become even more dense withgags and his writing (most recently featured in the New York Times) has never been more astute and devastating. Twilightof the Assholes is an hysterical chronicle of the end of the Era of Darkness, and, believe it or not, a heartening documentof one man’s loss and tentative restoration of faith in democracy.