Social Justice Warriors have massively boosted the sales of a picture book with a hero modeled on Donald Trump after they accused the book’s part-Chinese, part-Filipino illustrator Timothy Lim and his co-authors of being “Neo-Nazis” and “white supremacists.”
Thump: the First Bundred Days tells the story of “an unassuming, unconventional and utterly unstoppable” bunny rabbit with distinctive blond, bouffant hair called Donald J Thump.
The book was already doing pretty well thanks to praise from Dilbert creator Scott Adams who said: “Everything about this book makes me laugh.”
But what really gave rocket boosters to its sales was when a feminist website called The Mary Sue attacked it in a round-up of what it considered to be despicable, evil, right-wing hate books.
Looking through their catalogue, it’s almost tempting to reverse my feelings on book burning. We’ve got Go the F**k to Jail: An Adult Coloring Book of the Clinton Scandals, The Social Justice Warrior Handbook with a cover pull-quote from Ann Coulter, and my personal favorite from the garbage heap: Thump: The First Bundred Days, about the “winningest of bunnies” fighting all those “traitors and crooks and old establishment guard / And rabid media watchdogs unchained from their yard!”
The roundup was titled “Go away Neo-Nazis, No One Wants to Read Your White-Supremacist Children’s Books.”
But someone does, clearly, because Thump: the First Bundred Days is now on its third print-run.
This prompted Lim to thank the Mary Sue “coven” for their generous help in promoting his book:
The book was produced under the creative direction of Brett Smith, a commercial artist in the comic book industry who was co-adaptor, editor, and creative director for Peter Schweizer’s and Chuck Dixon’s New York Times #1 bestseller Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel.
Smith says:
At first we thought ‘That’s libellous.’ But then we realized ‘This is great.’ So many people saw the attack and came to our defense. It’s what gave our sales their velocity.
You could say we learned our lesson from Donald Trump himself. He takes all that negativity and crap and spins it into gold.
Although the book works as harmless fun, Smith also sees it as part of his noble ongoing mission to red pill the youth and tutor them in the ways of conservative righteousness.
“We’re not in a culture war. We’re in a pop culture war. Pop culture is how you speak to the young – through movies, comics, graphic novels.”