‘Banana Republic’ book takes comic look at our tortured era

For two years of the Bush era beginning with Hurricane Katrina, the Star Tribune published a weekly comic strip on its opinion page that was unlike anything else in American newspapers, sending up current events in a serial format with heaping doses of dark humor and giddy gore. “Banana Republic” dispensed satire so bruising and brutal it made you want to die of shame — but also so funny and true it gave you reason to live. Now cartoonist Kirk Anderson’s new book compiles every episode of “Banana Republic,” letting readers re-live tortuous times and die of embarassment all over again.