Review: Bill Prendergast's False Witness: The Michele Bachmann Story, issue 1

July 4, 7:04 PMMinneapolis Comic Books ExaminerTed Anderson

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Ken Avidor's fine cover (courtesy Bill Prendergast)

For several years now, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has been a favorite target of liberal political commentators and blogs, in particular Wonkette. Actually, “target” isn’t quite the right word—it implies that these people have actually had some success in affecting Bachmann’s wild-eyed rhetoric. In fact, the reverse is true: the more they write about how crazy she is, the crazier she gets. Maybe “sideshow attraction” would be a more accurate description.

For those of you who don’t follow politics, Bachmann is, in brief, a nutjob. She’s the political figure who’s been in the news—most recently, anyway—for saying that the government plans to create “re-education camps for young people” under the guise of volunteering, trying to introduce a bill into Congress to ensure that America cannot replace the dollar as its national currency (as she fears Obama and Tim Geithner are trying to do), or vowing not to complete the 2010 census because she apparently worries that the information could be used for nefarious purposes, like putting American citizens in internment camps.

She is also the subject of a new comic book biography, False Witness: The Michele Bachmann Story, by Bill Prendergast, issue one of which is currently available to purchase online. The comic is a fine example of preaching to the choir—chances are, if you’re interested in reading it, you’re already aware of at least the broad outlines of Bachmann’s public insanity. But Prendergast takes you deep into the madness, looking at how Bachmann made her start in politics, the sociopolitical and cultural circumstances that led to her election, and the possible consequences of her over-the-top rhetoric.

Though Bachmann and other politicians and pundits are quoted directly, Prendergast’s own narration is scathing; he has harsh words for the voters who elected Bachmann, the media that ignored her extremist statements, the other politicians who, like Bachmann, pander to an evangelical base in order to claim “grass-roots” support, and, in one especially funny sequence, even those uneducated readers of this very comic who wonder why there aren’t any superheroes in its pages.

Issue two of False Witness is finished and close to press, and Prendergast and his various inkers (all members of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy) are hard at work on issue three. If the quality remains this high, the whole series should be well worth your time and money. And from the look of things, Bachmann will probably be providing them with enough material for years to come.