The 'Holiday Books' edition of the influential New York Times Book Review includes an article on comics by Douglas Wolk as well a full-blown review (by Stephanie Zacharek) of The Completely Mad Don Martin.  The issue also contains a list of the '100 Notable Books of 2007,' which includes just one graphic novel, Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings (Drawn & Quarterly), which appears in the 'Fiction' category (David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography was the only comics-related book on the 'Non-Fiction' portion of the list).

Douglas Wolk, who has reviewed graphic novels for the Times in the past, received two full pages for his 'Holiday Books: Comics' article, which featured reviews of five graphic novels, two of the non-fiction persuasion and three of the fictional variety.  While Wolk finds that by using dialogue drawn from the public record, author Andrew Helfer 'crams a remarkable amount of information' into his graphic novel biography of Ronald Reagan (Hill and Wang, $16.95), he finds fault with the art by Joe Staton and Steve Buccellato, claiming that 'nearly every panel incorporates some kind of broad caricature or symbolic distortion usually at Reagan's expense.'

Wolk has no such problems with the other non-fiction graphic novel he includes, Sharon Rudahl's A Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman (New Press, $17.95), perhaps because he finds Rudahl's 'madly anarchic, hyper-dramatic visual approach' a great fit for portraying the life of the larger-than-life historical figure she so clearly adores.

The fictional graphic novels in Wolk's article are a diverse lot that includes Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan's complicated mixture of interpersonal conflicts and Middle Eastern politics, Exit Wounds (Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95); the Norwegian cartoonist Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler, a time-traveling cross-genre saga that Wolk compares to 'Grindhouse as rewritten by Harold Pinter;' and Andy Hartzell's debut effort, Fox Bunny Funny (Top Shelf $10), a superbly designed wordless political fable about a society where foxes ruthlessly exploit bunnies until that society 'evolves' into more equitable integrated fox/bunny ('Funny') society.

In addition to Wolk's article, the Book Review's holiday edition also includes Stephanie Zacharek's glowing review of the exhaustive, two-volume The Completely Mad Don Martin (Running Press $150), in which Ms. Zacharek enumerates the pleasures and delights available in this mammoth collection of 'joyously disreputable cartoons.'