Today in Comics History, March 18: Happy birthday, Grover Cleveland!

Born on this very day right here in 1837: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, who is known today pretty much only for that: his non-consecutive Presidency — what we would call a "reboot" in modern parliance. Given a guess, most people on the street would know that and perhaps also suggest that Grover Cleveland was some sort of anthropomorphic animal, perhaps a giant groundhog.

But didja know Grover Cleveland was often sometimes well, okay infrequently featured in comic books? I suppose you have come to suspect that seeing as I'm devoting a post to him in my blog. Darn my highly predictable ways!

First off, Grover liked boats. The sailing Grover! Captain Grover! Commodore Grover, it is. (There: you now know twice as much about Grover Cleveland as the average American. That's a Real Fact.)


from "Gifts to the President" in Real Fact Comics #17 (DC, November 1948), credtors unknown



President Cleveland also was somehow involved in a pistol-shootin', rip-snortin', yee-hawin' Wild West adventure starring Arthur "Two-Gun Kid" Jackson (so named because he had a gun and was thinking of getting another one), Native American, African Americans, Japanese samurai, and a big-ass mountain filled up to the rim with crude oil. Also, Two-Gun Kid had a Bic lighter in this story. (I did not make this fact up.)


from Two-Gun Kid: Sunset Riders #1 (Marvel, November 1995), script by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Christian Gorney, inks by Michael Halblieb, colors by Marie Javins, letters by Richard Starkings
And of course we all remember the time a few years back when all the dead U.S. Presidents came back to life as flesh-eating zombies and fought Deadpool, right? The Daily Bugle tried to claim it was a publicity stunt, but we're still picking up pieces of Zachary Taylor.


from Deadpool (2013 series) #4 (Marvel, March 2013), script by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn, pencils and inks by Tony Moore, colors by Val Staples, letters by Joe Sabino
Just like every white man, Grover Cleveland elbowed his way into a Black man's story.


from "Booker T. Washington" in Classics Illustrated #169 [Negro Americans: The Early Years] (Gilberton, Spring 1969), pencils and inks by Norman Nodel
But for solid Grover facts, I guess we better pull out the single most useful resource for a comics blogger (little stuffed animal division): Dell's 100-page (no ads!) one-shot special The Big-Ass Book of Presidents, although they had a more formal title for it.


from Life Stories of American Presidents #1 one-shot (Dell, November 1957), pencils and inks by John Buscema, letters by Ben Oda
Big-Ass Presidents, as I like to call it, has at least one page for every President through Eisenhower (and a few footnotes for the temporary false Presidency of Dell Rusk following the post-war disappearance of the Red Skull). Washington, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson (!) and FDR each get 8 pages devoted to their life and history, while most other C-in-Cs get 1 or 2 pages. Even William Howard Taft, who looms on the comics page like a Gilded Age Kingpin, only gets a single page. Curiously, Grover Cleveland gets eight full pages, and we're gonna look at every single one of 'em. Man, if you thought you didn't know anything about Cleveland before now, just wait!

According to this comic, Grover Cleveland was a stalwart activist for right, justice, and the American (White Male) Way, and devoted more time to social justice than to his precious boats. He was hailed everywhere for his stunning social ideas and programs, except by comics fanboys, who complained he could do more good dressing up as some sort of predatory animal and punching out the mentally ill by night.



Oh, and here's a couple panels about Grover Cleveland's natural in-born non-consequective nature. I'm tellin' ya, folks, this set a very dangerous precent for our immediate future. Like I always say, democracy just don't work.


History likes to tell us that Grover Cleveland died after two non-consequective gun battles, but that simply isn't true. Cleveland died peacefully, of old age, in two non-consequective lawn chairs.


That last panel reminds me of the words of another couple of great Americans: