As you may have noticed in the excitement attending the
inauguration of the first African American president, there was a special issue
of Amazing Spider-Man, No. 583 in
which the webslinger attends the ceremonies in Washington and sees two limousines crash
into each other, and two Obamas come out of the wreckage. One, obviously, is
the fake and probably up to no good. To determine which is which, Spider-Man
introduces a basketball, which the real Obama can handle better than the fake.
Spider-Man is thanked with a fist-bump from the new Prez. This special issue
sold out before comic book stores got them on the shelves, said Kate Springer
at kpth.com/Global. Marvel has ordered up repeated reprintings and is now well
beyond the fifth.
On the Internet, first printings are going for Big Bucks. Its
Obamamania in comics induced, at least partially, by President Obama’s reported
affection for the wall-crawler. If he still has time to read comic books after
saving the known world, Obama will find himself in several titles: as Newsarama
has reported, he’s slated to make an appearance in Youngblood No. 8; a reprinting of IDW Publishing's biographical Presidential Material: Barack Obama, due
in stores on February 4th; and the fourth printing of Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon
No. 137, due on February 25. He was also on the cover of Mad magazine (soon to be a quarterly rather than a monthly — more bad
joss). And he bears a remarkable resemblance to a certain United States
President who's currently appearing (and is the target of a super-human
assassination attempt) in Marvel's Thunderbolts.
And that’s
not all the comics appearances of the Obama persona. Something called the
Reliable Source tells us that caricatures of the Obamas have been added to the
wall mural of comic characters and political notables at the Palm restaurant in
downtown Washington — next
to the one of George WMD Bush, who never actually dined there, the first
president in the restaurant’s 37 years who did not. 
The Washington Palm is a
part of a chain of Palms that began with a speakeasy in New York. Located just around the corner
from King Features offices, the original Palm became a hangout for thirsty King cartoonists,
and other tooners, like moths to a flame, soon joined in the conviviality.
After a few drinks, goes the legend, some cartoonists felt moved to endorse the
place by anointing its walls with pictures of their characters. The original
Palm doesn’t have many caricatures of political personages: that comedy is
reserved for the Washington branch. There are other Palms in Dallas, Los Angeles, and San
Diego — to name those I’ve been able to visit.
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