Pictures of exile, election, and strife

''Sticks and Stones" (Three Rivers, unpaginated, $13.95)

Peter Kuper's ''picture story" is about an empire built of blocks. Crafted by the man who has created Mad magazine's ''Spy vs. Spy" since 1996, its pure imagery suggests that empires with bullies at their foundation are doomed. Kuper opens with a stylized landscape of dunes and mesas dominated by a volcano that belches out a blockhead, whom I call Big Guy. When Big Guy pulls himself together, he discovers a pile of rocks he assembles with the help of Lilliputian blockheads similarly eager for a home to call their own. A castle arises, but the doorway is too small for Big Guy, who ruins it trying to get in. His solution? Grow bigger, carry a big throne, and cow his subjects. Big Guy and a bitty deputy set their sights on mountains, where they discover a fortified, peaceful city. Unlike their black-and-white place, it's full color. War ensues, Big Guy takes over the city, and oppression becomes the rule. There are no words here, but Kuper is far from speechless. Like the best silent movies, this communicates in beautiful frames, and Kuper's spare use of color speaks volumes about contrast and freedom.

''Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return" (Pantheon, 187 pp., $17.95)