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— PHOTO: AFP

Republican presidential candidate John McCain and (below) Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

KANSAS CITY (Missouri): The U.S. presidential race is coming to the world of comic books soon.

A month before voters cast ballots, comic book biographies of John McCain and Barack Obama would hit book stores and be available for reading on cellphones. But don’t expect Captain America-versus-Superman hijinks or super-villains threatening the electoral process. The books purport to tell Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama’s true life stories, independently researched and illustrated by a team of veteran writers and artists.

IDW Publishing in San Diego, better known for stories of robots — The Transformers — and vampires — 30 Days of Night — commissioned the books with no input from either campaign. “We’re not doing anything that is sensational here,” said IDW special projects editor Scott Dunbier. “We’re sticking to the facts.”

Comic book biographies have been written before — Marvel Comics had a bestseller in 1982 with a biography of Pope John Paul II. And books intended to be read on cellphones have been gaining popularity worldwide this year and last.

Mr. Dunbier said the company is breaking new ground getting out fully researched comics on two candidates before election day. And the non-traditional storytelling and visuals of comics may reach some voters more effectively than other types of media can. “We’re not in the business of doing textbooks, but I think comic books really do have the great potential to inform and teach,” he said.

IDW would sell the books through cellphones with the help of Kansas City-based uClick, the digital arm of newspaper feature distributor Universal Press Syndicate. uClick already sells a service allowing customers to view comics over their phones but the presidential comics would be part of a push to begin allowing customers to order whole books over their phones, said Jeff Webber, vice-president of product development.

Customers can pre-order printed versions of the books. The McCain book, with art by Stephen Thompson, is being written by Andy Helfer, who helped develop the books that later became the movies Road to Perdition and A History of Violence. He also wrote comic-book biographies of Ronald Reagan and Malcolm X.

Mr. Obama’s biography is being written by novelist Jeff Mariotte, who has done comics on Superman, Spider-Man and Star Trek, and artist Tom Morgan. — AP

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