Action Philosophers!

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Action Philosophers! was a self-published comic book series by artist Ryan Dunlavey and writer Fred Van Lente, which was awarded a Xeric Grant in 2004,^[1] leading to Action Philosophers! # 1's publication in April 2005.

The series focused on a concise biography of some of the most notable philosophers and their ideas. To quote the book's homepage:^[2]

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS! is a comic book series detailing the lives and thoughts of history's A-list brain trust in a hip and humorous way that proves that philosophy is not just the province of boring tweed-enveloped college professors.

The series concluded with issue # 9, published in September 2007. The series was also collected into various self-published paperback collections. Dark Horse Comics published a deluxe hardcover collection of the series with new material in October, 2014.^[3]

Reception

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The American Library Association included Action Philosophers vol. 1 in its 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens booklist.^[4] The series was nominated for a 2007 Ignatz Outstanding Debut Award^[5] and received a positive review from Philosophy Now.^[6]

Issue summary

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# 1: - Nietzsche, Bodhidharma, & Plato: "Wrestling Superstar of Ancient Greece!", featuring one of the series' most famous lines, "PLATO SMASH!"
# 2: - The "All Sex Special", featuring Ayn Rand, Thomas Jefferson, & Saint Augustine.
# 3: - "Self Help for Stupid Ugly Losers" featuring Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, & Joseph Campbell.
# 4: - "World Domination Handbook" featuring Karl Marx, Niccolò Machiavelli, & The Kabbalah.
# 5: - "Hate the French" featuring René Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre, & Jacques Derrida.
# 6: - "The People's Choice" featuring Soren Kierkegaard, St. Thomas Aquinas, & Ludwig Wittgenstein.
# 7: - "It's all Greek to you" featuring The Pre-Socratics, Aristotle, & Epictetus.
# 8: - "Senseless Violence Special" featuring Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, & John Stuart Mill.
# 9: - "The Lightning Round", the final issue featuring Diogenes the Cynic, Lao Tzu, Michel Foucault, David Hume, Confucius, George Berkeley, Francis Bacon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz.

Collected editions

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Title	Material collected	ISBN
Action Philosophers! Giant-size Thing 1	Action Philosophers #1-3	ISBN 0-9778329-0-2
Action Philosophers! Giant-size Thing 2	Action Philosophers #4-6	ISBN 0-9778329-1-0
Action Philosophers! Giant-size Thing 3	Action Philosophers #7-9	ISBN 0-9778329-2-9
The More Than Complete Action Philosophers!	Action Philosophers" #1-9, plus new content	ISBN 978-0-9778329-3-4
Action Philosophers!	Published by Dark Horse Comics, reprints "More Than Complete…", with a new story and historical material, hardcover format	ISBN 978-1-61655-539-9