An interesting story told in an interesting way. How does an unknown, unemployed, inexperienced candidate win the Democratic nomination for US Senate in South Carolina? The story of Alvin Greene is told in "graphic novel" style at a fast pace. Well done, but one is left still wondering how such an event occurred. ( )

In the summer of 2010, unemployed and unknown candidate Alvin Greene surprisingly won the the Democratic nomination for United Stated States Senate in South Carolina. This graphic novel (Side note: Is graphic "novel" the correct term for a non-fiction work? That just seems wrong. Oh well.) presents the story of Greene's unexpected Senate run against Republican Jim DeMint, as well as providing personal background material on Greene. Particular attention is paid to the media's coverage of the race, including a depiction of Greene's incredibly awkward interview with Lawrence O'Donnell.

While not especially detailed, the book focuses on Greene's early life and parents' backgrounds, his short military career, and an incident which eventually led to sexual harassment charges, in addition to his campaign. The pace is pretty quick, without much lingering on any particular people or events, making this a good introduction to Greene's story and leaving the reader wanting to learn more. ( )

If you have followed politics in the United States in the last few years, you have probably heard at least something about the events in this book and Alvin Greene. I mainly remember watching political pundits scratching their heads and wondering how he won, especially in light of his very confusing television appearances. This book lays out a few more details about the story, especially about Greene himself, and makes for interesting, if somewhat cryptic, reading.

The major theme of the book could be described as, "Somethin' Ain't Right, But Nobody Cares Enough To Find Out What". The author shows several different people and groups demonstrating major concerns about the election, South Carolina politics in general, and specifically the extremely questionable voting machines there. The author does not go into extreme depth about these concerns, focusing more on Greene himself and the people immediately around him. Those other people are not always well-detailed, but in this medium it is not immensely important. This could serve as a good springboard for curious people who want to find out more about electoral shenanigans in South Carolina, American politics generally, or just the "weird news" type of story that this series of events falls into.

On the whole it is a quick read. The comic book medium does not bother me and it should not be problematic to other readers, provided that they understand that Corey Hutchins and David Axe are not trying to being Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore - the art is effective but not swimming in details, and the writing is punchy without excessive verbiage. ( )

"If I were in political office I would ..." How many times have we heard/said that? How many of us actually even attempt to become political office holders? Well, this is the story of one young man who, in 2010, decided to run for U.S. Senate against Tea Party candidate Jim Demint in North Carolina. The young man, Alvin Greene, was/is, evidently, a most unexpected candidate!

In graphic novel form, the book gives us the story of Alvin Greene as he grew up, spent time (albeit a short amount of time) in the U.S. Army, and the steps he took to run for the office of U.S. Senator. And it takes us through his loss. (Sad face emodicon here) A factual story, we are treated to interesting and witty statements given by individuals "in the know" during this time period; among the quoted individuals are: Tom Clements, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate; Matt Taibi, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine; and David Axelrod, White House Senior Advisor.

Clever, to the point, easy to follow and read, this is a great piece of U.S. History to know. Maybe he lost but at least he put his money where his mouth is and tried. After you read this you will better understand my next statement: Perhaps it would have been better if he had just kept his mouth shut - a little bit of money will take you a long way but a couple of dumb sentences coming out of your mouth will cause your movement to go a different direction than originally intended! ( )

This graphic novel does a serviceable job of relating the story of Alvin Greene’s bizarre ascendancy from nobody to punch line and back to nobody during his 2010 U.S. Senate run in South Carolina. While this could have worked as a more powerful indictment of our country’s broken voting system, it barely touches on the possible hows and whys of Greene’s Democratic primary win.

The writing flashes glimpses of what might have been an interesting point of view when it involves a pair of nameless reporters (the coauthors, I assume) covering Greene’s campaign, but those instances intrude only haphazardly in what is generally a just-the-facts narrative. The art veers from being clumsily inexpressive and lacking in detail in many parts to odd occurrences of finely detailed rendering showing inconsequential snippets of the story (such as a brief mention of the Boston Tea Party).

All in all, a somewhat flawed presentation of a scratch-your-head, how-the-hell-did-that-happen story that’s certainly worth telling. ( )