Action Philosophers!

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, 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:

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.

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

Issue summary

 * # 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.