Tales from the Trail

In a bruising campaign, John McCain’s unfaithfulness during his marriage to his first wife, Carol, and Barack Obama’s drug use as a young man have occasionally come up.
    
So when IDW Publishing set out to create biographical comics about McCain and Obama, it included those scandals.
    
In one panel from Obama’s youth, he is shown playing basketball and driving to the basket. A narration box says that “He was experimenting with tobacco, alcohol, pot and cocaine.” The comic helpfully explains that Obama was trying “to figure out where he belonged” at the time.
    
McCain’s former hard-partying lifestyle is also put on display in the comics. In one panel, he is seen dancing on a table with a woman in a skirt, from his days in the Navy. In another panel from the same time period, McCain is seen in a red convertible with a woman. The narration box reads that “He began seeing other women. Rumors flew around the base. Before long Carol knew, but kept silent.”
    
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has sought this week to paint Obama as a man who was “palling around” with terrorists by in the past associating with William Ayers, a former member of the radical group the Weather Underground. That connection doesn’t merit a mention in the Obama comic book. There is, however, a panel on Obama arriving at the Democratic National Convention in 2000 and not being able to get a floor pass.
    
The comics hit stands and bookstores on Wednesday. 

Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Blake.