Epicurus the sage

From Booklist\nThree long stories in color and a black-and-white short make up Epicurus the Sage. Each stars the Greek philosopher who said pleasure was the highest good but made moderation his watchword. For Kieth and Messner-Loebs' anachronistic purposes, his sidekicks are Plato, always trying to get an audience for his theory of ideal forms, and Alexander of Macedon, a blond tyke whose precocious predilection for fighting and rapine foreshadows the conquering greatness in his future. (Aristotle, Alex's teacher, is a regular but regularly sidelined by injuries--from Alex.) Together the three explore some of the great myths--Persephone in Hades, the various philanderings of Zeus, Phaeton driving the chariot of the Sun, the Trojan War--and the great and not-so-great ideas of classical Greece. Their mode of exploration is broad comedy: reductio ad absurdum verbally and slapstick physically. Remember the Bill and Ted movies about two teenage goons time-traveling to meet Socrates, Shakespeare, and other great minds? The adventures of Kieth and Messner-Loebs' perambulating trio are smarter and funnier in every way. Ray Olson
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