Will the Real John Callahan Please Stand Up?: A Quasi Memoir

An automobile accident when he was 21 left John Callahan confined to a wheelchair, but his humor--and his spirit--have apparently known no bounds. This definitive autobiography of the cartoonist ranges wide and weird, revealing him to be at once adorable, sentimental, and depraved. The accompanying cartoons--many never-before-published--touch on such subjects as penises, death, Madonna, disability, and feminism National media publicity.

The title of this book is just the kind of gag that made John Callahan famous: he can't stand up because he's paralyzed from the neck down. This "quasi memoir" is a collection of essays, gag panels, and comic strips that reveal the weird tragedies and amusing moments that come with being America's most offensive quadriplegic cartoonist. He includes cartoons that were deemed too tasteless to be printed in the alternative weekly papers that make most of their money from advertisements for strip clubs and phone-sex numbers that appear alongside the "anything goes" personal ads. There is also a collection of irate letters from readers who didn't "get" Callahan's jokes about disabled people, and letters of praise from disabled people who did understand his humor. Will the Real John Callahan Please Stand Up? is a must-have for Callahan fans as well as for anyone with a taste for excess and amusement.