Coloring book by white guys mad at White House white guys

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The joke is on these two white guys.

They came up with a book with a catchy title that might sound like they’re lambasting themselves.

It’s called “I am So Sick of White Guys” — and it’s written by white guys Jim Corbett and Tim Jones.

What’s up with that?

It’s their take on the white White House.

“It has gotten to the point where even white guys are sick of white guys now,” said Corbett, 66.

“We’re talking about men in power and positions who are taking advantage of their status,” added Jones, 62.

The glossy book cover has a cartoon that includes Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Steve Bannon, Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner, all under the puppet strings of Vladimir Putin.

Well, you get the picture, and you can color it. The subhead is: “The Coloring Book Experience.”

The new book, sold on Amazon for $10, is sure to amuse some people and most certainly anger others.

“For every person who might love this book there is someone else out there who would hate this book,” Jones said. “Trump supporters would find nothing funny about this book at all.”

Chances are the Make America Great Again crowd won’t chortle at the centerfold of a naked Trump on a bear rug holding a hand mirror with a long tie covering his groin.

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Inspiration came from irritation.

Corbett got the idea for the book about six months ago.

“I was shouting at my TV one day,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I am so sick of these white guys, people like Sessions and Trump.’ I called Tim up and said, ‘I want to write a book with you called ‘I am So Sick of White Guys.’ He jumped right in.”

It evolved from there.

“Instead of doing the book as written text, we decided it would be more fun to do it as an adult coloring book,” Corbett said.

In their search for an artist, they found and liked the art done by Hartley, who is black.

“We weren’t sure how receptive he would be,” Jones said.

Hartley said he has “dabbled in a little bit of everything” in his 36 years as an illustrator.

“It was a strange proposal to begin with, but I felt challenged by it,” said Hartley, 55, of Lake Stevens. “I don’t agree with everything in the book. The climate is so volatile right now. I’m sick of wimpy Dems and I’m tired of angry Republicans. I think both sides are pretty crummy a lot of times. I don’t give either side the win. I’m just a guy who draws stuff.”

Corbett and Jones did the captions and admittedly snarky comments that accompany each image.

“This is political satire,” Corbett said. “Where we are coming from is humor.”

They stress it is not to promote intolerance.

“There is such an epidemic of white male privilege that even white males have said, ‘Enough is enough,’” Jones said.

Wait, haven’t these two guys benefited from being white guys?

Both agree they have.

Corbett lives in Edmonds and is an executive for an online legal research company. Jones writes a humor blog called The View From the Bleachers from his Camano Island home.

“I live in Camano Island, one of the whitest islands in the Pacific Northwest,” Jones said. “There are a lot of white guys like me, everywhere I look.”

The authors are donating 10 percent of the profits to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which devotes its efforts to opposing hate groups.

The book has 27 images, including cartoons of Rush Limbaugh and Roy Moore, many of them political cartoons against racism, sexism and religious bias.

“It makes a point that there is a lot of inequality between whites and blacks, men and women, people in power and people out of power,” Corbett said.

The book ends with Trump and Kim Jong Un strapped to a missile aimed at outer space.

The white guys aren’t done.

“We already have ideas for a Volume 2,” Corbett said.

More at sickofwhiteguys.com.

Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.