This was the four-part Eleseworlds tale that put James Robinson on the map and set the stage for his history-spanning Starman series. It furthermore is regarded as the best thing anyone ever did with the original DC heroes since the actual Golden Age.

It's also a lot of fun. Great character play, sharp historic details - with a couple of odd exceptions - and top-notch art by Smith make this a must-read for super-hero comics readers. In addition, it's fairly accessible for newer readers since most of the stars of this comic are not that well-known and thus made accessible for once.

Much has been said about "Marvels" and "Kingdom Come" as being the best comics of the 1990s. But I'd gladly pit this against those, and with its grounding in the real world, it holds its own very nicely.

The Golden Age is another "Elseworlds" examination of comics history. By using such rarely seen characters as Captain Triumph and Mr.America along with the "big guns" of the era (Green Lantern, The Atom,etc.)James Robinson visits a Post WWII America where superheroes are considered suspect, and only those who conform are to be trusted. Using superheroes to comment on McCarthyism may seem to be a stretch, but Robinson makes the story challenging with many twists. The "alternate history" concept gives the author the freedom to take chances, but also eliminates the element of "this can't be happening" suspense. Too many sub plots (Hourman's addiction, Starman's breakdown) get in the way of the more compelling central tale.

Paul Smith's art is a wonder throughout. Shifting from the well-lit scenes of Dyna-man to Paul Kirk's despair, Smith constantly creates visuals that hold your attention and never let you forget the true wonder of this medium; the ability for two dimensional, brightly colored figures to fascinate and entertain.

I'm a huge mark for Golden Age heroes. The major problem with the comic books of yesteryear is that the heroes were two dimensional, completely lacking in personality. They were all upstanding, usually rich, and basically boring, when not in costume. If it wasn't for the creative gimmicks and colorful costumes, the men and women behind the masks were interchangeable. James Robinson's updating of these classic Golden Agers is insightful and refreshing. He takes these legends and creates distinctive, and relatively believable, personal backgrounds for each of them. Yet he does this without diminishing the fun and nostalgia of those earlier tales. While congratulating Robinson, I feel inclined to point out the influence of Alan Moore's Watchmen. While Watchmen may have set the standard for alternate takes on the traditional DC/Marvel universes, Robinson and Smith's work here easily lives up to that lofty standard.

Paul Smith does a great job on the art, subtly employing updated pencilling techniques along with a very distinctive golden age era style. The colors in this book are also great, obviously far superior to the comic books of decades past. My only problem with the art lies with the lack of differentiation between some of the alter egos of these costumes heroes. Since most of these guys basically had the same blonde hair, chiseled features, erect postures, and well tailored suits back in the day, sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart, at least in the early chapters. As you read on, Robinson adds humanistic touches of doubts, addictions, regrets and redemption to enrich the characters well beyond their original incarnations.

This collection covers a complete story arc, which is great, but I must admit that I would love to read more tales of the Golden Age from James Robinson and Paul Smith. James Robinson is easily one of the top 5 to 10 comic book writers out there. Check out his popular, and critically acclaimed, Starman (another update of a Golden Ager) series if you don't believe me.

you can't complain when you're set in the world of the three laws of robotics with a beautiful young woman and a man without a memory--first rate pastiche by the two authors in the book. I loved it!

Many years ago, I read this series of books when they came out in paperback, while Asimov was still alive. I had forgotten how entertaining they were. All the classic elements, including continuity between different authors in the series exist. A must read for people who like a substantial, yet easy to read book. Definately not for those with a short attention span or someone who would rather see the movie then read the book.

The saga of Robot is continued in this novel, which can only be described as exellent, with a dose of brilliant, and a side of superlative. The story of Robot City is expressed through the further development of the characters Derec, a man who crash landed in the aptly named Robot City, a city run and inhabited entirely by robots. Having lost his memory in the crash landing, he takes the name of Derec, which is the manufacturer of his jump suit. Throughout his journey, he meets the mysterios Katherine. After a bout of being captured by extraterrestrials, and such other madcap antics, Derec and Katherine are deposited in Robot City together. It is here that the plot begins to thicken, and the character development becomes signifigant. This volume of the series is a perfect book for any science fiction fan, and perfectly expresses the three laws of Robotics and their applications in the real world.

Almost as good as Bleak House. Two shortcomings, though. One, the poetry of the language never reaches the same heights. Dickens just doesn't seem as inspired here, and there are moments when he even seems tired and to be suffering from the same disappointment his characters complain of. Two, the mystery theme is pushed to the background and is lame in comparison. Otherwise, the structure is excellent, weaving the themes of the Circumlocution Office and self-imprisonment relatively seamlessly through the story.

One reviewer here has commented that "Little Dorrit" is not without Dickens' trademark humor, and, with one qualification, I would agree. Mr F's Aunt, Mrs Plornish, and Edmund Sparkler in particular are all quite funny. Characters like William Dorrit and Flora Finching, however, who would have been funny in earlier books (eg, Wilkins Micawber and Dora Spenlow in "David Copperfield" it can be argued, are younger - and more romantic - versions of Dorrit and Flora) are only pathetic in this one. It is a sign of the change in Dickens that he can no longer see the lighter side of these characters.

BTW, there is another little joke for those versed in Victorian Lit. The comedic couple Edmond Sparkler and Fanny Dorrit are a play on an earlier couple, Edmond Bertram and Fanny Price in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park". The joke is that Dickens has taken the names and inverted the characters. Fanny Dorrit couldn't be more different than Fanny Price, and likewise Edmond Sparkler and Edmond Bertram. I'm sure this is not an accident. Dickens had a thing for the name Fanny, using it for two of his less appealing "temptresses", Fanny Squeers (in "Nicholas Nickleby") and of course Fanny Dorrit. Funny stuff.

And speaking of Fanny Dorrit, I have one last comment. It is often said of Dickens that he couldn't create good female characters. This puts me in mind of Chesterton who related a similar complaint made by Dickens' male contemporaries that he couldn't describe a gentleman. As Chesterton deftly pointed out, however, what these gentlemen really meant was that Dickens couldn't (or wouldn't) describe gentlemen as they wished themselves to be described. Rather, Dickens described gentlemen as they actually appeared. I might say the same thing about the women who complain about Dickens' female characters. It's not so much that Dickens couldn't (or wouldn't) describe good female characters. Rather, it's that the kinds of characters he did describe aren't the ones the complanaints wish to see. Women praise the Elizabeth Bennetts of the book-world not because the real world is full of Liz Bennetts (it's not), but because that's the way they themselves wish to be seen. Truth is, however, there are far more Fanny Dorrits and Flora Finchings and Dora Spenlows than there are Liz Bennetts. The women who complain of these characters, though, would rather ignore this unflattering little fact. Whatever. The truth will out, and there's far too much truth in Dickens characters to be so lightly dismissed.

4 1/2 stars

Dickens' last novels (with the exception of the unfinished EDWIN DROOD) really form a group all to themselves: exceptionally concerned with the excesses of social institutions and the cruelties of high society, they in some ways read more like Trollope and Thackeray than they do Dickens' own earlier works, although they retain Dickens's fine gift for character and bite. LITTLE DORRIT is proabbly my favorite of the later works: its multiple stories are extremely gripping, and his satire at its sharpest and most necessary. Many people say these later novels are not as funny as his earlier works, but DORRIT is to me an exception: there are few funnier (or more dear) characters in Dickens' repertoire than the breathless, kindhearted Flora Finching, and I find myself almost helpless with laughter whenever Flora's senile and hostile charge, Mr F's Aunt, makes her perfectly doled-out appearances in these pages. (Arguably the funniest scene Dickens ever wrote is the scene with this "most excellent woman" and Arthur Clennam and the crust of bread). This is a great Dickens novel even for people who tend not to like Dickens (and yes, there are some of them, as hard as that may be for the rest of us to believe).

Little Dorritt is not light reading. While it is in many ways a very entertaining work, it is not for those seeking pure entertainment. It is a very rich work, full of social commentary [church bells ringing, "They won't come."; the Circumlocution Office], humor [can anyone resist laughing out loud and Flora Finching?], several memorable characters, and a very powerful statement on personal salvation.

Yes, the novel does drag from halfway to the three quarters mark; but what 900 page Dickens novel doesn't? When you read Dickens, you should expect that. It is during that time that he typically starts to resolve many of the issues raised in the first half and also sets up his exciting finale. While the finale of Little Dorritt is not exciting in the Hollywood sense, it is very fulfilling.

The major theme that spans the entire work, something I haven't seen others discuss, is that of Old Testament vs. New Testament thinking. It is the Old Testament thinking of Arthur's mother that keeps her in her wheelchair. It is only when she gets a dose of New Testament thinking from Amy Dorritt that Arthur's mother walks. Dickens was a Unitarian who had a strong belief in the redemptive power of Christ. While he often ridiculed both the Church ("They won't come.") and religious hypocrites (Borriohoola-Gha in Bleak House), it is through Little Dorritt that he presents this redemptive power. Entertainment becomes a treatise on right living.

DON'T be misled by the title of the book. It is not 'merely' about how the spread of weapons of mass destruction into nearly a dozen Asian countries and the decline of the West and the United States are inexorably changing the strategic landscape of the vast landmass between Mediterranean on the west and the Pacific on the east. Paul Bracken, the author, has succeeded in analysing the fundamental changes in Asian military balance and their consequences in a broader historical context of half a millennium. For example, in discussing India's nuclear tests in May 1998, Bracken reminds his readers of what had happened that month five hundred years ago: Vasco da Gama reached India in May 1498. While da Gama's visit heralded India's subjugation by the European colonial powers, last year's nuclear tests proclaimed India's determination 'never' to lose its independence. But the same sentiment, legitimate though it is, is driving a dozen Asian countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological weapons) and ballistic missiles. With the ability of many countries to hit hitherto far away countries, the Asian geography has shrunk to such an extent where traditional grouping of countries into regions (South Asia, East Asia, etc) hardly makes sense. Thus, the 'death of distance' means that the traditional way of looking at peace and stability, too, is no longer valid. In order to be able to hit the continental US, the Soviet Union had to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba, which led to a crisis in 1962. What it failed to do in Cuba, the Soviet Union succeeded in doing through the development of long-range missiles. Overnight the two super powers became next door neighbours to each other. In 1998, by firing missiles across Japan, North Korea "turned the Japanese archipelago from a zone of sanctuary into a target zone..."

Moreover, "the ballistic missile has empowered pawns to check the dominant powers; countries that were once pawns now have the reach of knights and bishops". The new power and status of the Asian pawns are almost coinciding with the emergence of Asia-Pacific as the new power house of world economy. Hopefully, the present South East Asian financial crisis is just an aberration or an interlude. Bracken draws several pertinent analogies to explain how all the new developments in Asia fall into a historical pattern.

When Europe fought the Thirty Years War in the 17th century, rest of the world remained unaffected. But the Industrial Revolution made Europe rich, powerful militarily and to acquire colonies. Thus, its later wars became everybody's wars. His conclusion is that Asia, too, is "going through a comparable transformation". Throughout, the author proceeds with a bold assumption that the conditions that had led to Asia's decline and colonial subjugation have changed for the better.

There is something 'disruptive' about Asian resurgence. Bracken terms the weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles as disruptive technologies because "they nullify Western advantages in conventional weapons" in Asia. They are equilisers in that, military asymetry will not matter much: A country with crude disruptive technological capability can stand up to a leader in them. Moreover, a poor country can also acquire biological and chemical weapons, if not nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles to deliver them.

This development has introduced a fundamental change in the strategic environment of Asia. For a long time, the predominant military power in Asia has not been Asian. The US indeed is the big power in Asia even at the moment, but the disruptive technologies made its predominance irrelevant. And Washington can no longer 'manage' Asian affairs the way it likes.

Such a situation developed despite the US efforts to contain the spread ofthese technologies through the so-called non-proliferation strategy. Though it seemed to work for a while -- mostly in tarding the spread, not the spread 'per se' -- it ultimately failed. Bracken attributes this failure to the American attempt to "sustain permanently an asymetric advantage" favouring the US. The fundamental difference between the arms control efforts between the two super powers on the one hand and in Asia on the other, is that while in the former case maintaining stability was the focus, in the latter it was maintaining the status quo. It may be recalled that one of the early arms control efforts -- the Washington Naval Treaty -- was aimed at limiting the Japanese naval strength so that the US and Britain could maintain their lead. It ultimately failed then; a similar strategy will fail in future.

'Nationalism' makes the second nuclear age distinct from the first one. It provides the impetus in countries from Israel to North Korea -- the area what the author somewhat crudely calls 'the arc of terror'. The crux is this: Several countries possessing disruptive technologies and driven by 'nationalism' as well as 'national security' considerations will undoubtedly make Asia a more unstable world. Moreover, for the West which long ago enjoyed and suffered 'nationalism', the Asian penchant for a dead and gone sentiment looks incomprehensible. Therefore, for Asia and the West, the emerging order presents many challenges and the failure to effectively meet them will be catastrophic. The author lists out the merits of several strategies for the West including the 'World Government'. Mostly, he himself is not convinced of their efficacy. His conclusion? "An age of Western control is ending, and the challenge is not how to shape what is happening but how to adapt to it". Bracken has written a fascinating book. In just about 180 pages, he manages admirably an illuminating analysis of too complex a subject. A less competent author would have needed double the space, with lengthy citations and distracting footnotes to substantiate his assumptions. The two-page bibliography will disappoint those keen on carrying out further research--a trivial shortcoming compared to the merits of the book.

D. Shyam Babu, Assistan Editor, The Observer of Busness & Politics newspaper, New Delhi, India

This book by Paul Bracken is a timely piece of scholarship that points to the changing face of international politics. The emergence of the "second nuclear age" points to the end of Western dominance in East Asia. The power configuration in international politics will require a greater understanding of the cultural differences and values of the Eastern nations if the world is to have a chance of escaping some future nuclear war. Paul Bracken does a fine job helping the reader to understand the fundamental differences in the experience of the West and the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons and the problems face by the emerging nuclear powers. This is a must read.

Paul Bracken the author and professor of management and political science at Yale University has written a quixotic book on Asia. He goes into the history, psyche and challenges of an Asia full of regional and world competition just starting to bud. It seems the author points out that Asian nations are no longer content in simply trading and developing markets. Apparently, they are following the folly of western nations by building up their military and nuclear power as if that will lead to unfeigned independence. This is happening exactly at the time when the world is growing ever more interdependent. Consequently, unless Asian powers change they are set on a course that can actually disrupt the glorious economic miracles they have been creating just as Europe did in 1914 and 1939 with two World Wars. It seems David Gruen, (better known as David Ben Gurion), Israel's first Prime Minster quote in 1965 has more significance today when he said, "Our Future Lies In Asia, Even If Our Way of Life Is Modeled On Europe...Israel Stands At The Gateway To Asia". What David Ben Gurion knew is what the world is finding out, Asia is coming onto the world scene and the world is going to change too! The author outlines these observation in his book with documentation from yesterday and today. I highly recommend this superb book by this distinguished visionary and author.

There's a great, seminal novel in here somewhere, but it's smothered by the self-consciously (and unconvincingly) naive narrative voice and the uninspired characterization and suspenseless structure of the book. Boys of Life is a teenager's fantasia on the far-off world of arty decadence personified by Warhol, Pasolini and Fassbinder and, as such, holds enormous interest. But it fails as a novel: when it tries to be debauched, it's gross; when it tries to be mystical, it's contrived. Boys of Life is a nice effort, and held my attention, but in the final analysis it's simply a painful and too-common thing: a trivial work that could have been great.

another sensational, provoking novel by Mr.Paul Russel. As usual, I have been enthralled by the beautiful style and the lyrical prose. I have cried while reading the book for the many resonances with my own life: the love denied, the emptiness of married life, the sadness of a gay man deeply in love living a one-sided relationship. What is redemption for Tony Blair? Getting married to a nice girl and go against his own homosexual nature. Isn't going against your nature a violence? His relationship with Carlos is a violent one, all the world surrounding Carlos is made of violence and Tony is trying to save himself, but what is he going to find once he is out of it all? An incredible tragical quest for identity and for love. A disturbing novel that tries to demonstrate with success that sex, unfortunately, is not always an act of love, but can sometimes be the quintessence of violence.

I have no qualms about saying that this is one of the most moving and convincing narratives I have ever read. I've read it about a dozen times in the past eight years, and every time I am further astonished at how believable the narrator's voice is. This novel is the story of an extraordinary life -- the narrator, a teenage boy, is seduced by an older man, and ends up leaving his sheltered existence in Kentucky to live in a bizarre combination of fame and squalor in New York City -- but the characters (outrageous and eccentric as most of them are)are portrayed with such love and humanity that it is next to impossible to believe that they are works of fiction. Not that it's exactly a happy book -- in fact it's pretty terrifying -- but I defy any reader to come away from it unmoved. I can't recommend it strongly enough!

Out of the three English dictionaries I have installed this is the one I never use. If I run it ocasionally it takes forever to start (on a fairly equipped 800 MHz machine) and it then usually asks for the CD to be inserted (every 60 days, they say). Thats the point where I normally give up ...

I have purchased several similar products on CD-ROM format. And none of them can be compared with the uniqueness of this dictionary.

The main selling points:
Pronunciations of headwords are really exceptional clear (British and American). Many of them are provided with ample examples to the point that second language learners know how & when to use new words from its contexts. With over 50,000 definitions and over 100,000 examples sentences, it should be adequate for day-to-day reading task. You may use different searching criteria to find specific word. But the search engine is intelligent enough to give you ample related words on its default setting. For example, when you input the word 'dictionary' you got 52 of related words from its outcome instantly. This is a revolution in lexicography over traditional method.

This is not a perfect dictionary and none in our world. I hope in the future edition, there will be much larger headword entry, more learner-oriented features and more pictures and illustrations in fancy cartoonish format.

The dictionary is perfect! It has pronunciation for British, American and Australian English. It has an extensive list of usage examples for each entry. It also has some sections with subject-correlated words; for example, shows all different cars and describe their names, shows the car parts and some expressions related to the issue.
It comes with a CD that was intended to be interesting, since it has a voice engine that pronounces the words for you. BUT the application takes power from the computer, takes forever to startup and is excessively slow.
In a brief, only the dictionary is worth it.

Most of those amazing Flash films share have the very same secret: mathematics, especially geometry. Many basic and advanced techniques in this area need to be taught. A review of some basic concepts would also be helpful. It's true that a lot is done by trial and error, but those who grasp the basics are the ones who know what can be done with what is available.
This book has beautiful, colorful pages and many contributors, some with great ideas - learned from some imagination and from some trial and error.
Yet this one book fails considerably. Great opportunity, great idea. But no math is really taught, no basic technique is really given. What can be found is only a mixed bag of ad-hoc math solutions to produce some nice effects and little meat.
What is wonderful about this book is its potential. What is tragic about this book is its end result.

I always knew somewhere in the back of my head that Math and physics could be creative. I remember getting through Calculus and Intro to Physic course back in college by trying to understand the concepts visually. Mind you, I failed Intro to physics once and got a D in Calculus3 by doing it that way. Fast-forward 4 years. I've been using flash on and off for about a year but started doing actionscripting, about 2 months ago. I picked up this book when I bought ActionScript: The Definitive Guide, I think this book is a great companion. I found that I was using this book as a springboard to learn creative visual Actionscripting techniques. Though I found the explanations hard at time, definitely not a book for beginners, its a great source to get your hands dirty. I've coded examples and found myself going off in my own creative direction afterwards. I think the most satisfying moment I had was relearning Trig but seeing it on a screen. It definitely gave me a deeper understanding to some math concepts and proving my thoughts way back, that math can be visually creative.

This is honestly one of the best books that I've picked up in a long time. There are so many books lately, that appear to be nothing more than a ploy at being the first book on the latest release of such and such software application. Flash Math Creativity avoids using interface clips from the Flash authoring environment, in order to concentrate on the content and not on something that has a much more limited shelf life. This book has so much to offer beyond getting acquainted with Flash 5 or MX or whatever. Becuase of the choice of displaying only raw code, it's probably not the best choice for a beginning Flash user. The examples, although excellent, aren't always well annotated, and often leaves you scratching your head -- but that's part of the fun.

I really appreciate the fluid examples, and the challenge of using the provided content for further investigation. These experiments should keep me busy for some time.

The graphics are quite beautiful and it would be hard to look at them and ignore the value of these creations on the basis that it doesn't have a practical application in the area of web design, as one reviewer stated. Plus, when did I start reading books and enjoying Flash only to do corporate stuff.

I bought this book because I expected it to be a true bible written about Frontpage 98. However, after reading this book I have found that it is more of a listing of the functions that frontpage contains. Most of the topics covered do not contain examples leaving the reader to sit down with frontpage and figure out what is really going on. Take for example the the chapter covering Style Sheets. This book explains the components of the style sheets but rarely has an expample of how the explanetion applies to creating style sheets or what, when, or why they would be used in a given situation. Explanations are usualy brief and the visual examples do not show the reader anything except how to access the dialog boxes to change values. I can get more specific help from the help file in frontpage then I can from this book. I would recommend this book to someone just starting out developing web pages in Frontpage, but I consider it very weak as a specific reference tool which is what the word "Bible" implies in the title of this book.

This book is perfect for a new comer who want to make a professional look web pages. For the advanced user, this book gives you a good techniques to communicate your html base web pages with a database and other third party plugin web tools to enhance your web pages presentation. If you want a one book reference for creating an effective and yet fast web design, this could be the one.

This book is Phat with a P, I read it and I still use it to publish great websites and this is by far the best HTML Resource book I have ever read. It gives quick instructions on what info i may need and everything is easy to find and very informative. I recommend this book to anyone who is advanced or still a beginner with the HTML web publishing language.

If you enjoy keeping score when you go to a baseball game then you should read this book. The book follows the history of baseball scorecards from the 1800's through the present day by using photographs and reproductions of filled out scorecards from actual games including the longest minor league game in history, Don Larsen's perfect game in the World Series, and Babe Ruth's famous "called shot" game in the 1932 (?) World series. Along the way you will learn various techniques for filling out your own scorecards and hear some interesting anecdotes about score keeping (such as the Yankees Phil Rizzuttos "WW" notation for wasn't watching!). All in all, the book is too short (~100 pages, mostly pictures) but nicely crafted and packaged. As a die hard scoring fan, I enjoyed the book and the vintage photos and reproductions, but I was expecting more for my money.

... I bought this book when I became my son's youth leagueasst. coach/scorekeeper. The advice that scorekeeping can become individualized to suit the needs of the scorekeeper and team led me to incorporate several techniques and created what I think was more interesting and revealing portrait a game on the page. This book reveals the many ways of keeping score and the true reason for the existence, to recreate the game on paper. The author offers baseball history and many interesting and funny anecdotes (LL Bean devised a scorekeeping method). Well illustrated, a must for all baseball fans.

Don't expect this book to teach you how to score games. The book lacks a full-size sample scorecard to use, which I would have liked. It doesn't go into enough detail about scoring; being a beginner I was flummoxed attempting to score double-switches, bunts and teams batting around in an inning. It will get you going, but if you're like me and don't know how to score a game yet, you'll be looking for more. That aside, the anecdotes and illustrations make this a fun book to read. The subtitle "How Scoring the Game Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball" is an accurate description of the gist of the book. It's less of a how-to and more of a why-to.

Chomsky for beginners is great for anyone that has picked up one of his books then tilted their head sideways in a confused state of not understanding. It breaks Chomskys work into two parts: The Linguistic Era; and the Politics and Media Era. Both are equally fascinating and well written. Profound in its clarity, this is surely a book that will make you appreciate Chomsky's thought, whether you agree with him or not. Chomsky always believed in freedom of thought, and a disgareement is just as valid and important as someone who agrees. Both should be heard. A good springboard to reading his works and not overwhelming in comparison to Chomsky's own writings (who is one of the most prolific writers today). I highly reccommend this book who wants to learn in a nutshell what Noam Chomsky is about.

Noam Chomsky is renowned for his work in both linguistics and sociogeopolitics (for want of a better term). Although Chomsky's own writings often deal with profound and difficult to master ideas, 'Chomsky for Begginers' offers a superb introduction to this leading intellectual.

The book is light hearted and witty, but not patronizing, and the reader will at the very least come away with a critical view of world events and an admiration for Chomsky's breadth of knowledge.

One of Chomsky's ideas, that most international conflicts can be shown to have at their root a major corporation using government to effect a country's stability for their own ends, had a profound impact on how I now view current events. One might not agree with what Chomsky has to say about the nature of linguistics, society, the media or world events; but, at the very least this book forces one to think about things with a far more critical, if not quite synical, eye.

This is definitely an interesting bathroom book. Take Noam Chomsky, social irritant and world-renowned Linguistics expert, and tell his story in a documentary comic book. Add some background information about the science of Linguistics as well as plenty of info about the American Capitalist machine, and you got quite an interesting read that you can pick up and put down whenever you're up for a quick paragraph or two.
Noam Chomsky isn't that well known. And that's because the powers that be want it that way. Chomsky's goal in life is to open the eyes and ears of the American public so that they'll take a better look around once in a while and see what's really going on. He takes on capitalism and the American government all the time. And because the American media machine is owned by some big corporations, don't expect to be hearing anything soon from the man, unless you crawl out from under the big money umbrella and dig around a bit.
I think that most people will ignore him, not because they don't believe what he has to say, but because they are afraid of the truth. They like to go along making their money, spending it the same thinking that all is fine in the world and that good ol' USA will carry the burdens of freedom and Democracy as it's fights the evils of the world. But that's just not the way it is. The truth is a lot darker than that. Yes, America once stood for democracy and greatness. But it lost it's direction along the way when the dollar signs floated in front of it's eyes.