Hitler Saved My Life : WARNING—This Book Makes Jokes About the Third Reich, the Reign of Terror, World War I, Cancer, Millard Fillmore, Chernobyl, and Features a Full-frontal Nude Photograph of an Unattractive Man.

When advertising legend Jim Riswold is stricken with leukemia and prostate cancer, he quits the business that made him famous to become a “fake artist,” creating a controversial body of work with a controversial cast of characters, from Hitler to Mao to Kim Jong-Il. It was a decision that would save his life. Advertising legend Jim Riswold is a Big F****** Deal. Ask him, he’ll tell you. But when Riswold is stricken with leukemia and prostate cancer (a two-fer!), the freewheeling adman quits making commercials, and starts making art. But not just any art—Hitler art. Mussolini art. Stalin-in-a-bathtub art. This is not a sad cancer story. This is a molotov cocktail of raunch and heart and 18-gauge biopsy guns. This is a taboo-busting laugh riot, a raspberry blown straight at dying-guy preciousness and monsters of all kinds—cancer and world-historical bad guys included. Be warned—contents of this book include: One profanity-spiked TEDx talk. Several very public, full-frontal dick picks. Two adorable children. Something called “Interferon Family Fun Night.” Jim Riswold leading a crowd of people in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” to his oncologist. Relentlessly funny, and scorchingly subversive, this is a bruised and bruising memoir—it is also tubed, scarred, stapled, and irradiated. But here’s the secret: Jim Riswold, enfant terrible, the man Charles Barkley once called “a role model for morons,” is kind of a sweetheart. The wise-guy posturing is just a cover for his pulpy heart. Another secret: This book isn’t about Hitler. It’s about the beautiful, stupid, gross, foolish, and fantastic things we’re willing to do for love and family and not-dying. It’s about a guy who, with due respect to Lou Gehrig, considers himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Really, Jim Riswold owes cancer a thank-you. Thanks to cancer, his tombstone will no longer read: Here Lies That Guy Who Did That “Bo Knows” Commercial. Now, it will say Here Lies the Guy Who Put Cancer in Its Place—and Mussolini on a Tricycle. "When advertising legend Jim Riswold is stricken with leukemia and prostate cancer, he quits the business that made him famous to become a fake artist, creating a controversial body of work with a controversial cast of characters, from Hitler to Mao to Kim Jong-Il. It was a decision that would save his life. The Bo Knows Nike campaign? That was Jim Riswold. Pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny? Jim Riswold's idea. Those I Am Tiger Woods ads? Riswold again. Jim Riswold is a rock star, a celebrity, a legend in the advertising world. And those outside that world might not know him by name, but they definitely have encountered his creative genius. Because Riswold has spent the last few decades making some of the most influential, quotable, and iconic advertising in American history--all while wondering if he would live to see another day. In his brilliantly funny visual memoir Hitler Saved My Life, Riswold chronicles his battle with leukemia and prostate cancer and details how a post-diagnosis career transformation into a fake artist helped stave off death. And that fake art--inhabited by tyrants like Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini--has provoked a great deal of controversy. But as one critic noted, Riswold's work teaches us how to deal with monsters, be it a Hitler or a deadly disease. His body has been ravaged by disease, but Riswold's mind is as sharp and brilliant as ever. From pitchman to philosopher artist: selling people things they don't need to making things that people don't want."--Provided by publisher When advertising legend Jim Riswold is stricken with leukemia and prostate cancer, he quits the business that made him famous to become a "fake artist," creating a controversial body of work with a controversial cast of characters, from Hitler to Mao to Kim Jong-Il. It was a decision that would save his life. The "Bo Knows" Nike campaign? That was Jim Riswold. Pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny? Jim Riswold's idea. Those "I Am Tiger Woods" ads? Riswold again. Jim Riswold is a rock star, a celebrity, a legend in the advertising world. And those outside that world might not know him by name, but they definitely have encountered his creative genius. Because Riswold has spent the last few decades making some of the most influential, quotable, and iconic advertising in American history—all while wondering if he would live to see another day. In Hitler Saved My Life , Riswold brilliantly combines incisive and funny essays with gorgeous...