A True History of Violence (and Crimefighting, Politics, and Power) In the hands of gifted cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover's life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidentsfrom Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixonand everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI's headlinegrabbing tracking down of Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover's increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and circumvention of Supreme Court decisions,J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biographyprovides a special window into the life of an outsized American and a bird'seye view on the twentieth century. Rick Gearyis an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator. His most recent projects include Trotsky: A Graphic Biographyand his continuing graphic series,A Treasury of Victorian MurderandA Treasury of XXth Century Murder. He has worked for Marvel Entertainment Group, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, andHeavy Metal, and has contributed toNational LampoonandThe New York TimesBook Review. An Eisner Award Nominee In the hands of cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover's life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidentsfrom Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixonand everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI's headline-grabbing tracking down of John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover's increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and circumvention of Supreme Court decisions,J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biographyprovides a special window into the life of an outsized American and a bird's eye view on the twentieth century. "The life and times of America's top cop, by prolific author/artist Geary . . . Geary expertly marks the exacting effort with which Hoover set out during the Depression years to transform the oft-ignored, nearly powerless bureau into a well-publicized and widely idealized national crime-fighting, gangster-busting force . . . As solid, thrilling and informative a guide to the life of the America's most powerful authoritarian as one could ask for."Kirkus Reviews(starrred review)"The life and times of America's top cop, by prolific author/artist Geary. His work forNational LampoonandHeavy Metalillustrates his long-standing taste for the pulpier side of things, but Geary also does solid work in historical comics, albeit ones with a gruesome true-crime slant. He brings the same clean artwork and swift but steady pacing to his graphic biography of J. Edgar Hoover. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1895, Hoover came from a religious clan whose 'family business' was the federal bureaucracy. Obsessively hardworking from an early age, with few friends but a careful eye toward staying politically neutral in order to advance his career, Hoover swiftly moved up the ladder from a lowly Department of Justice post procured for him by a cousin in 1917 to head the Bureau of Investigation by 1924. Geary expertly marks the exacting effort with which Hoover set out during the Depression years to transform the oft-ignored, nearly powerless bureau into a well-publicized and widely idealized national crime-fighting, gangster-busting force. Hoover was obsessed almost equally by fighting what he saw as the immoral poison of liberalism and by consolidating his power with that of the FBIthe two often seen as the same thing to Hoover and, thanks to his intense media lobbying, to the nation itself. In the postwar years, he became the embodiment of an American reactionary. Gear