Why wait until Banned Books Week starts next week to start celebrating the madness. This time we go to Murphy, Oregon where things got a little heated at the Three Rivers School Board meeting. At issue: Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi about her experiences growing up during the Iranian revolution. The 'problem': the book contains some questionable language and depicts scenes of torture and some parents want to be able to sign off and give their approval before their kids can enjoy it. Apparently, one school board member (a librarian) was a little zealous in defending the...
Visual Dissent: A Graphic Biography of a Woman Rebel
Who is Margaret Sanger you may wonder. Though not a household name Sanger is as pivotal a figure in the women's rights movement as there is. She is the mother of the birth control movement in the United States and in fact it was Sanger who coined the term birth control. It is Sanger who opened the first birth control clinic - think Planned Parenthood - and it is Sanger who worked tirelessly for the poor, teaching women about their options and their rights. Now thanks to the Harvey-award winning author of the alternative-comic series Hate, Peter Bagge, we get an...
Jews in the Funny Pages
In the first two books of this seminal series that deals with how comics reflect the culture they emanate from, Federick Stromberg dealt with the representation of Blacks and the Devil.For volume three he turns to the Semites. Spanning five centuries and featuring over 150 images the book becomes an instant essential reference. Chapters include Anti-Semitism, the Old Testament, the Holocaust, Israel, the Golem and the artists range from A-list types like Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman to the more obscure. Every image gets an essay and there is an extensive bibliography.Who knew Golem was a super-hero? Jewish Images in...
The Library of America Goes Wordless: The Novels of Lynd Ward
In what just might be one of the publishing surprises and hi-spots of 2010, The Library of America will release a 2 volume boxed set featuring the six woodcut novels of Lynd Ward.God's Man, Ward's first book published on the eve of the stock market collapse of 1929, was the first wordless book-length novel to be published in the United States. By the end of 1937 Ward would publish five more novels in woodcuts: Madman's Drum (1930) Wild Pilgrimage (1932) Prelude to a Million Years (1933) Song Without Words (1936)Vertigo (1937)If one is looking for the origins of the graphic novel in the United...
Lady Masereel: Marta Chudolinska’s Wordless Novel ‘Back + Forth’
Noted illustrator, wood engraver, printer and book designer George A.Walker encourages his students at the Ontario College of Art & Design to "embrace 19th century linocut printmaking techniques to create extended visual narratives."One of the fruits of his labor is this stunning book by Marta Chudolinska. Chudolinska, who immigrated to Canada from Poland in 1991, cites Frans Masereel, one of the titans of the wordless novel, as her inspiration for the book. "Masereel's style is vivacious, focused more on expression and energy than on completely accurate representation" says Chudolinska. His "characters are still alive on the page a hundred years...