At Really Big Coloring Books, Profits Trump Political Ideology

Ted Cruz to the Future, a coloring book starring the Republican junior senator from Texas, is now in its seventh week as Amazon.com’s best-selling coloring book. The text-heavy item, intended for children of all ages, retails for $5.39 and covers topics ranging from Cruz’s “defense of the partial-birth abortion ban” to his thoughts on the “approaching Obama Care disaster.” Games include a maze to help Cruz get to the U.S. Capitol. “It’s a hot property,” says Wayne Bell, founder of the book’s publisher, Really Big Coloring Books. “In our office we don’t say merry Christmas anymore, we say ‘merry Cruzmas.’ ”

St. Louis-based RBCB has done its best to maximize profits by creating coloring books for customers on both sides of the partisan divide. Its catalog features titles such as The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids and We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom, in which children can color in, for example, an illustration of the smoking, soon-to-collapse Twin Towers. RBCB also offers America’s Leaders: Obama-Biden 2012; Occupy, a slim explanation of the movement; and Being Gay Is Okay, which includes cutout trading cards of famous gay people such as Elton John and Rachel Maddow. “You’ve gotta be flexible in the print business,” Bell says. “It’s about America. It’s not about us.”