Product Description

PLATO: Wrestling Superstar of Ancient Greece! NIETZSCHE: The Original Ubermensch! BOHIDHARMA: Grandmaster of Kung Fu! TheyÕre not just great thinkers... They also make great comics! ACTION PHILOSOPHERS details the lives and thoughts of history's A-list brain trust, told in a hip and humorous comic book fashion. Reprints #1-3 of the award-winning AP comic book series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84785 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Not so much in the spirit of Classic Comics, but more in the spirit of extremely intelligent kids set on making fun of everything, this collection of Action Philosophers! issues 1–3 is a zany sendup of philosophers, with the occasional mystic thrown in. Van Lente has clearly done his research, and Dunlavey draws it in a blocky, 1950s meets punk-rock style. Starting with Plato, they illuminate the theories, problems and implications of 12 thinkers. Ayn Rand fails as a screen writer in Hollywood, creates objectivism then flits between reason and temper tantrums (did you know Alan Greenspan was a follower?). Freud and Jung duke it out while a Freudian "passive mother" presents her penis-envying daughter with a dildo. Thomas Jefferson sleeps with Sally Hemings in the "All-Sex Special" section, which also features Saint Augustine. (Auggie ogles a hot Roman babe and declares, "Give me chastity and continence... just not now!") The twist is that, while demonstrating that the lives of philosophers make great tabloid fodder, the comics get the theories right. Totally irreverent and manically imaginative, it's perfect for any bright college kid who likes being a pain in the neck. (June)
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Review
Action Philosophers provides a hip, easily digestible summary of weighty material. -- Philosophy Now

Clever comments fly fast and furious… The art is friendly and fun… -- Comics Buyer's Guide

Customer Reviews

Everything you ever wanted to know about philosophy but were too lazy to learn!
This is probably the best piece of infotainment I've ever read. Van Lente and Dunlavey have managed to create a comic that's light, breezy, and educational. They give you all of the basic information on historical figures from Freud to Joseph Campbell while presenting it in an engaging way (Plato wears a luchadore mask and speaks like the Hulk, Nietsche kicks the crap out of Hitler and Leopold and Loeb over missinterpreting him). They make the stuff of dry, dreary lectures in to compulsively readable comics. I defy you to not plow through this thing in a day. Highly reccomended to anyone who feels bad about barely remembering anything from Psych 101 or who likes to learn something from their comics beyond what's in all of the pouches in Batman's utility belt.

BRING IT ON!!! I CANNOT NOT BE!!!: The perfect marriage of accuracy and humor
This is without a doubt one of the funniest things I've ever read. And, shockingly (at least to me) it is also one of the most accurate I've ever read too. I have a B.A. in Philosophy and have just recently earned a M.A. in another discipline. With the exception of Derrida and Aquinas I have had exposure in an academic setting to all of the philosophers covered in here. I picked up this comic on a whim and didn't expect much (but heck, it's only eight bucks, what have I got to lose). I was laughing out loud at some of the stuff in there (I'll never forget the image of Aquinas' delusional bunny facing down the big rig truck screaming, "BRING IT ON!!! I CANNOT NOT BE!!!"). But, none (I repeat NONE) of the substantive material of any of the philosophers is sacrificed and equally impressive none (I repeat NONE) of the humor is diluted by the philosophical material. For example, Wittgenstein is covered with an accuracy I have seen in few introductory philosophy texts. Overall, this is the perfect marriage of accuracy, humor, and freakin' awesome comic genius. If you are a beginning philosophy student (e.g., no formal training but are interested in the field), an intermediate student (some philosophy classes in a university setting), or an advanced student (a degree from a university or actively pursuing post-baccalaureate studies in philosophy) you will find something of value in this. Beginners will have to read it more than once to get all the substantive ideas if you've had no exposure to them and then need to go to source material with good secondary sources to help guide you. Intermediate or advanced students will have to read it more than once because you'll be laughing so hard you won't be able to get all the jokes the first time through.

Further Recs (Beginners): Anthony Appiah's "Thinking It Through" (BEST intro to contemporary philosophy I've ever encountered. There actually IS a reason to read Descartes, Hobbes, Plato, and all those other dead white dudes that relate to topics philosophers are talking about TODAY.)
Further Recs (Intermediate): Bryan Magee's "Confessions of a Philosopher" (You can justify squeezing in a book that's not for class because technically it IS a philosophy book)
Further Recs (Advanced): Scott Soames 2 Vol "Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century" (If your academic training was anything similar to mine, you were trained in some sort of analytic philosophy. This gives a good bird's eye view of all the faults AND virtues in our mother tongue.)

Fabulosity--ideal and real
While the Action Philosophers series is better used as a gateway drug to some hard core philosophy than a substitute for actual study of the source materials, it has amazingly lucid graphic explainations of both Plato's Allegory of the Cave (vol. 1) and Descarte's Cogito, Ergo Sum (vol. 2).
I give it my heartiest reccomendation. In fact, so long as it's part of Amazon's 4 for 3 deal, I'm stocking up. I plan to give a set to each of my MA professors who teach literary theory, to gift one to my younger brother, and to keep one in my bookbag for work--tutoring high schoolers. AP is quick, portable, and nutritious.