Publication History
Obama made his first appearance as a comic book character in July 2007 in Licensable BearTM No. 4 by Nat Gertler, where he appeared as a U.S. Senator. The comic only had a print-run of 1,050 issues. A year later, in September 2008, Obama appeared in Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon No. 137. This issue featured a variant cover which showed Obama with the Savage Dragon, who proclaims that he is endorsing him for President. The issue sold out four print runs. A month later, the comic was followed up by Presidential Material: Barack Obama by Jeff Mariotte and in November 2008 with Obama: The Comic Book by Rod Espinosa.
In November 2008, two things led to an explosion in popularity of the Obama comic book character. One of Obama's advisers gave an interview to journalist Jon Swaine of The Daily Telegraph titled, “Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know.” In the interview, it emerged that Obama collects “Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian.” Then later that month, on November 4, 2008, Obama became the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.
When Marvel Comics discovered the president-elect was an avid collector of Spider-Man comics, they decided to have Obama the comic book character be put on the cover of their The Amazing Spider-Man No. 583 (January 2009), for the story "Spidey Meets the President!" written by Mark Waid. This particular release proved extremely popular and sold out in a matter of minutes. A day after the release, the edition was sold for $300 on eBay.
Since that time, Obama the comic book character has been put on the cover and pages of many other comics including Savage Dragon No. 145 (February 2008) by Erik Larsen and Youngblood No. 8 (February 2008) by Rob Liefeld. The Savage Dragon No. 145 had a special edition variant only offered at the WonderCon 2009 in San Francisco in March 2009 (only 1,500 were produced). On the cover, Barack Obama can be seen holding an American flag and punching Osama Bin Laden in the face.
Barack Obama is the subject of graphic novel "Barack Hussein Obama" by Steven Weissman. In this, President Obama and his cast of characters (Secretary Clinton, VP Joe Biden, his family) experience life in a parallel universe.
Barack Obama has also appeared in Archie Comics Veronica #199, and Archie #616 and #617.
Read more about this topic: Barack Obama In Comics
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