Editor’s Note: Henry Chamberlain is a longtime cartoonist and comics journalist. In this feature, we bring to you a comics adaptation of Regime Change, a monumental book on the current political scene and beyond. And stay tuned for an upcoming collected book of Tad comics.
If you have not read Regime Change, published by Simon & Schuster, I encourage you to seek it out. I tend to think a good portion of my readership here at Comics Grinder at least has some familiarity with the book. I dare say that Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are this generation’s Woodward & Bernstein. Not a perfect comparison but not one easily dismissed either. For one thing, with Trump & Co., we aren’t looking for one specific “smoking gun” as we were with Nixon and his men. With Trump, it almost seems like there are too many smoking guns to keep track of. One thing that is clear, some people would like you to believe that smoking guns don’t even matter. JD Vance, in a particularly snide moment, concluded that Watergate wouldn’t be a big deal by today’s standards. Seriously? Quite a telling remark. I’m sure he wins big points with the Heritage Foundation and all the Project 2025 crowd. Well, what has Trump and his group done? He broke a lot of things -like the rule of law-and the U.S. at the forefront of the free world- and we will never quite return to how it was before, at least no time soon. All we can do, those of us who seek change for the better, is become better informed and organized. Prepare for a long road to some kind of recovery. One first step: We vote.
I have here my ongoing character, Tad, the contrarian librarian, run us through some of the highlights to Regime Change. We’ll start with this introductory comic strip. I will sprinkle more of these as I go here and on other platforms. A book will come out next year collecting some of the best Tad comics over the last year or so. Basically, no prior knowledge is required, not even a particular interest in politics, per se, is needed to appreciate the book or my comic strip. Regime Change is a very accessible book: it is meant to be absorbed; it is there to lay out as many facts as possible; it’s an excellent guide, fair and balanced. It’s meant to start a conversation; even rally a call to action. Woodward & Bernstein comes readily to mind because there was a time when everyone, and I mean everyone, was talking about, and actually reading, All The President’s Men. And when the major motion picture came out, audiences were riveted by what they viewed. We don’t have that same level of unified attention but, this fragmented landscape is becoming a mess, especially with the menace of A.I. bent on making us all a pile of cognitive mush if we’re not careful. We sure as hell need to wake up and we need to make some effort. Trump, despite himself, is a call to action against him all rolled into one. Or would you rather more of the same, have the White House remain a perpetual Tammany Hall run by a Boss Tweed? Trump is Boss Tweed in overdrive!
