Review - Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump (@topshelfcomix)

"Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III."

@realdonaldtrump
Aug 31, 2012 5:46 AM

Donald Trump is the President of the United States. Believe it or not, like it or not, it's the reality. Yet Trump is still just a man when you strip away all the titles and nothing reflects the man better than his tweets. Those tweets are handily compiled in Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump from Top Shelf Comix. The collection is written and illustrated by Shannon Wheeler.

Acclaimed cartoonist Shannon Wheeler transforms Donald Trump's most revealing tweets into razor-sharp cartoons, offering a subversive and illuminating insight into the mind of the most divisive political figure of our time. Whether you love him or hate him, this take on Trump will help you come to grips with the man and his ideas thanks to Wheeler's signature mix of slapstick and sophistication.

Because Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is comprised of tweets there really isn't much of a story to tell. Still, Wheeler manages to allow a narrative to shine through that defines Donald Trump. Wheeler pored through upwards of 10,000 tweets and presented them all as they were exactly tweeted and it's interesting to see some of the themes that begin to prevail. That theme depicts a man grossly insecure and overwhelmingly terrified of the public finding him out as a contradictory fraud. The tweets cover a wide gamut of topics and really hew to Trump's seemingly consistent ability to meander aimlessly from one stray thought to the next; his stream of conscious is truly terrifying.

Accompanying most of the tweets is Wheeler's visual interpretations of the words. Wheeler's rendering of Trump is one of a petulant child upset that his parents took away his favorite toy as punishment for something he did wrong. And it's those illustrations that really underscore what kind of person Trump really is at his core: a man who proclaims himself as self-made when everything has been handed to him. The stark black and white illustrations allow the tweets themselves to be the focal point as Wheeler seeks to just reinforce what's already been written.

Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is a collection that would be a lot more entertaining if the title inserted "would-be" before "President," but that's not the case. Instead, reading the rantings and ravings of a bloviating misogynist is made even more terrifying by the fact that the speaker is the President of the United States. It's almost impossible to read these tweets and not see the true man that Donald Trump is. And Wheeler's illustrations are probably the most elegant and succinct visualization of his words. Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is a truly terrible story that reminds readers of the real threat to the still nascent American democracy.

Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is available now.