All My Friends Are Superheroes is a slender sentimental quasi-allegorical tale by Andrew Kaufman. However, the real superhero of this book is Ian McInnis, whose cheeky whimsical cover has probably done more to sell this book than all the other marketing efforts combined. Pulled from the City of Toronto archives, the cover photo is a colourized image of a man in swimming trunks standing in front of the Princes’ Gates at Exhibition Place. After breezing through this hundred pager, I’m left with the question: can a cover design be too good? Can it create expectations that are impossible for the book to fulfill? In this instance, I would say yes. The cover has a kind of brawny in-your-faceness that the book can’t match.
All My Friends Are Superheroes tells the story of Tom, a normal person who is married to a superhero called the Perfectionist. Through the machinations of a mutual superhero friend called Hypno, the Perfectionist comes to believe that Tom is invisible. From there, it’s only a small step to the conclusion that Tom has left her, so she decides to fly to Vancouver to start her life over. The book follows Tom’s in-flight efforts to get the Perfectionist to notice him before the plane touches down and she disappears from his life forever.
That’s about all there is to it. It’s light. It’s sweet. It reminds me of Sean Stanley’s Etcetera and Otherwise: a Lurid Odyssey which in turn reminds me of C.S. Richardson’s The End of the Alphabet. It’s a chick book. If you’re a guy, give it to some girl you want to persuade that you’re sensitive and caring and shit like that. Give it to somebody if you want to get laid.