MIT Economist Hopes Comics Will Explain Health Law

BOSTON (AP) - An MIT economist and adviser to President Barack Obama is turning to comic books to help make a pitch for the administration's embattled health care overhaul law.

Jonathan Gruber said he was hesitant at first when a book publisher approached him with the idea of translating the complex new law into a genre typically populated by superheroes in capes and tights.

But Gruber said his family, particularly his comics-obsessed 16-year-old son, convinced him that the graphic novel format would be an ideal way to help explain the law to ordinary readers.

The idea may not be as unusual as it sounds.

The graphic novel format has been used to illustrate everything from life on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s to the 9/11 Commission report.