PINHEAD’S PROGRESS <i> by Bill Griffith (E.P. Dutton: $8.95) </i>

Bill Griffith’s better “Zippy the Pinhead” comic strips suggest “Candide” re-written by the staff of People Magazine. Griffith satirizes the triumph of packaging over content in contemporary America by celebrating it. The ultimate consumer of media hype, Zippy embraces every fad like a long-lost relative. His life is a banquet--catered by Hostess Bakeries in Leona Helmsley’s ballroom, with Tupperware dishes, music by K-Tell and Engelbert Humperdinck as emcee. Griffith’s work falters only when it becomes self-conscious: His heavy-handed caricatures of Ronald Reagan and George Bush lack the originality of his often withering spoofs of Tammy Faye Bakker, Naugahyde, Ernie Bushmiller’s “Nancy,” Sonny Bono and Dunkin’ Donuts.