A Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman by Sharon Rudahl

The best part of this book is Emma Goldman's life as a radical anarchist. If you don't know much about her, then this book is a fun starting point. Rudahl explores many of the key periods of her life, from her departure from Russia at a young age, to her organizing years in the U.S., to her eventual deportation. The novel spans her entire life, giving readers a concise overview of Goldman's compelling biography.

Unlike other accounts of her life, Rudahl enters into the intricacies of Goldman's everyday, giving us a glimpse into Goldman's many key relationships. We find out that she was as ethical and spirited in her personal relationship as she was in her public persona as one of the leading radicals in early 20th century America.

Despite the exciting narrative, one Rudahl puts together based on Goldman's auto-biography, I struggled through much of the novel. I found Rudahl's drawings almost distracting in their busyness. In addition, the structure of her panels left me regularly confused as to where to skip to next. The story itself remains strong, it'd be pretty difficult to take the life out of Goldman's story, but Rudahl's water-colouresque renderings left me wondering how much i would've enjoyed the story otherwise.

I'd say pick up the graphic novel at the nearest library, read about Emma Goldman's inspiring life, and thank Rudahl for sharing it in this format.

Blankets by Craig Thompson

I picked up this graphic novel in Charleston, South Carolina, at a great record shop/bookstore/social space up on King Street called 525 Records. They specialize in indie labels in a wide variety of musical genres, with a smattering of books, mags and zines.

Flipping through the book section, I came across Thompson's rather epic (coming in at nearly 600 pages, huge for a graphic novel) Blankets, his rather hopeful coming-of-age story. I devoured the book in 4-5 hours while on a road trip, couldn't quite put it down in fact, perhaps alienating my two driving mates. The risk was well-worth it though, as Thompson's tale reminded me of how sweet love can be. The middle section, Thompson's late teen years, may prove a bit tedious for those anti-romance folks out there, but there is enough backtracking to his childhood to keep the story rolling.

The most compelling aspect of this novel though are Thompson's phenomenal drawings. His use of whites and blacks is a marvel, as he sets the mood for any given scene with skill relatively unmatched in my recent forays into the genre. And I need to say this- his depictions of Raina are stunning. She stands out as the epitome of beauty, as captured by a lovestruck teen overcome with emotions. His honest portrayal of his own emotions stands in marked contrast to his inability to account for hers, another charming chapter that manifests itself in Thompson's skilled drawings.

The other noteworthy feature of this book are Thompson's abstract, dreamlike sequences. On several occasions he gets away from his more literal drawings and wanders into the world of strange happenings, especially when reflecting on his relationship with his younger brother. This reminded me a great deal of David B's Epilectic, which does so quite masterfully.

Blankets has been a welcomed addition to my book collection. Thompson won several awards for Blankets, including the 2004 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel and Best Artist/Writer.

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm

When I saw this book at the new Drawn & Quarterly store on Bernard Street in Montréal last week, I knew that I had to have it. I'm not a very big baseball fan, but the idea of a well-drawn graphic novel telling a political story through sports struck me as something I'd like to check out. And I wasn't disappointed.

I knew very little about Paige before this, and if for no other reason, knowing a bit more about this charismatic figure's life was worth the ticket price. I was aware of the Negro League's popularity during the Jim Crow years, but I had no idea how big Paige had become by the time he played in the majors for the first time at the age of 42. He went on to play several more years in th majors, even becoming an all-star. This novel primarily tells the story of his Negro League and barnstorming days, all through the eyes of one of his former opponents.

Most of the story occurs in the sweeping panels that Rich Tomasso draws since there is very little dialogue at all throughout, which is both a strength and a weakness. More of the former perhaps, but I couldn't help but feel like I wanted more, I could've read this for hours, but instead had to contend myself with 30 minutes of pleasure.

It's a fun story that highlights the injustice of the Jim Crow south without sparing much detail. For those of us who see sport as a crass commercial exercise today, it points to a past where sport, and in the case of Paige, extremely popular stars, actually have an eye on social justice. If you are anything like me, you might find yourself googling Paige or the Negro League and checking out some biographies soon after reading this book.

Another exciting aspect of this graphic novel are the extras after the story. They were useful in describing some of the key terms and giving an historical overview that helped to place me in the story.

Check out the Center for Cartoon Studies' page with draft illustrations and commentary by Sturm and Tommaso.

Aya by Marguerite Abouet & Clément Oubrerie

This is the story of teenaged Aya and her cast of friends growing up in Yopougon, a working-class neighbourhood of Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast. Abouet's deft storytelling sensitively introduces readers to life in Abidjan in the late 70s, what art historian Alisia Grace Chase, writing in the preface, calls the Ivory Coast's "golden age".

Abouet crafts a clever story of skirt-chasing boys, late-night make-out spots, happening night clubs and deceiving spouses that is at-odds with almost all representations of Africa in the West. Oubrerie's stylish colour drawings complement the exciting storyline, adding flashes of life at the very moments the story risks becoming sombre. But instead, the narrative takes a refreshing twist, keeping readers guessing as to what will come next. Both the first panel, a delightful introduction to the Coast's television industry, and the final panel, a hilarious plot twist I didn't see coming, are wonderfully executed.

And for all you people who prefer watching TV series on DVD these days, there are half-a-dozen pages of terminology and tips, such as recipes, how to swing your hips and get noticed, and other fun stuff that serve as the 'extras' at the end of the book. Not to be missed.

Check out the Book Slut's interview with Abouet.

Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine's latest graphic novel "Shortcomings" is a work of subtle, yet deep intensity that takes readers through a range of emotions, using his notable wit and humour.

On the outside, it seems like the story of Ben Tanaka and Miko Hayashi, two thirty-somethings coming to the end of their long-term relationship. And in some ways, that's it. But through Tomine's evocative illustrations and his punchy dialogue we are taken into the often boring/at times riveting world of everyday human desire and interaction.

This is best exemplified through Ben's ongoing desire for white women, articulated in his porn addiction and hiring practices, both of which Miko regularly problematizes. As the rift in their relationship grows with Miko's evolving race politics, Ben delves further into himself to escape any reproach. The reader is left wondering why these two are in fact staying together, a point poignantly made by Miko near the end of the story, when she explains, rather self-evidently, that holding onto someone simply/mostly because you're afraid of change is never a good idea. Indeed. But just how many of us have done this, and continue to do this? When one is stuck- as Ben and Miko so painfully are- in a pattern of denial, then anything is possible.

In any case, the true strength of Tomine's narrative is in the minutia, for example, the conversations between Ben and Miko, or Ben and his best (and only) friend, Alice. The dialogue is raw and real, so much so that I couldn't help but continuously think back to arguments I've had with lovers, friends and some odd characters who have come and gone in my life. In that sense, reading this book is a little like finding yourself in a Leonard Cohen poem- sexy, surly, and a bit surreal (is this really happening to me?)

Did I mention the drawings? Those are some fiery hot lead characters. Tomine is quickly becoming a master.

Palestine by Joe Sacco

After starting it a couple of months ago, I finally got around to finishing Joe Sacco's brilliant graphic novel Palestine. Admittedly, I put it down at the time because I felt emotionally strained by its strong central narrative. But, after looking at it staring at me from various places in my life since the beginning of June, among them table tops, bookshelves, and the backseat of my car, I returned to Sacco's harrowing tale of injustice and resistance.

Any book that comes loaded with a 5 page foreword (entitled "Homage to Joe Sacco"!) by Edward Said, the late and great Palestinian-American public intellectual, is definitely a book I want to engage with intellectually. This is precisely the case with Sacco's oeuvre.

Don't make the mistake of seeing this book, essentially a compilation of Sacco's comic strip of the same name, as an easy read. It is not. Sacco, himself inspired by Said, set out to visit Palestine and Palestinians near the end of the first intifada, and to illustrate their lives under Israeli occupation. This is precisely what he does with stunning clarity.

From squalid refugee camps to East Jerusalem, from tales of resistance to stories of horrific violence, Sacco walks us through the myriad complexities of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. This is a story of tremendous terror, the type that masks itself not primarily in bombs and guns - although it seems that every Palestinian who Sacco meets has been touched in some way or another by torture, gunfire, or beatings - but the terror of being perpetually imprisoned in the everyday. It is this permanent state of claustrophobic horror, where a disaster, in any number of forms, is always waiting right around the corner, that unsettled me to the core.

The techniques the various Israeli forces (whether the IDF or settler security organizations) use to humiliate, dis-empower and ultimately disarm Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation is nothing but overwhelming in its planned intensity. Demolishing decades-old olive groves, randomly bulldozing homes, vengefully controlling water levels and electricity, collectively punishing thousands and thousands of people with extreme financial deprivation - it's all stock-and-trade of the Israeli occupation.

Sacco masterfully captures this all in black-and-white scenes of conversations in Palestinian homes over steaming cups of tea. But his artwork is strongest in capturing the stifling and at times vibrant street life of Jabalia, a large refugee camp in Gaza, perhaps the most densely populated piece of land in the world (65,000 people in two square kilometres), or the bustling Arab markets of East Jerusalem. Through it all, Sacco gives a human touch to the Palestinian people, not through demonizing Jewish Israelis, or even idealizing Palestinians, but by asking us to question our own humanity in the face of such systematic deprivation.

There are two observations about this book that I must mention before closing. First, I began to read Palestine right after reading Art Spiegelman's amazing Maus: A Survivor's Tale. The reason I had to put Palestine down was because of the undeniable parallels in techniques of terror used by those in power. Whether the Nazis in Germany or the Israelis in Occupied Palestine, the consistently de-humanizing strategies described in both stories were extremely troubling to me, not only because of the intense irony of Jewish people and survivors of an almost incomprehensible Holocaust then engaging in many similar tactics, but mostly because of the planned intensity of such de-humanization. This was oftentimes paralyzingly mind-boggling. But I found a way out of this moral and intellectual quandary to read through the rest of Sacco's work.

Second, besides the many stories of violence, it was the inspiring stories of Palestinian resistance that most often struck the deepest chords with me. The best example is of the organization and resistance in the Ansar III prison, built specifically for the overflow of prisoners due to the intifada. Despite the unbelievable humiliation, violence and over-crowding of the place, prisoners organized themselves in units to welcome newcomers, equitably organize meals and even teach university courses - including such topics as the history of the Jewish peoples - and any number of inspiring examples of human creativity in the face of utter adversity.

All in all, I recommend Palestine to all readers wanting to learn more about Palestine and the Palestinian people. Importantly, it also stands out as a beacon of hope in a sea of excuses for the ongoing Israeli occupation. As Sacco put it in his foreword, written in 2001, "The Palestinian and Israeli people will continue to kill each other in low-level conflict or with shattering violence - with suicide bombers or helicopter gunships and jet bombers - until this central fact - Israeli occupation - is addressed as an issue of intellectual law and basic human rights."

While I might disagree with his reliance on a law framework to limit our discussion of violence, it nonetheless strikes me as a moral stance well-worth taking.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis is Satrapi's story of growing up under the Islamic Revolution in Iran, her escape to Vienna in her early teens, her return to Tehran after high school, and her eventual exile to France, where she currently resides. The strength of the book lies in her painstaking attention to detail surrounding the events leading up to the Revolution, and her subsequent commentary on the political and ideological tensions that arose in this environment.

Satrapi accomplishes this through a very smart and crisp black & white illustrative style that captures the harshness of the political climate. She also uses dialogue amongst her extended family members as an effective tool to introduce the reader to Persian history, an essential component of her rich narrative. She does so quite fluidly, since her family represents the very forces the Revolution eventually loathes. Her great-grandfather was the last emperor of Persia, overthrown by the original Shah in the 1950s. Her parents are committed Marxists with a sweeping knowledge of Persian history and world literatures, who continuously view the new Iranian regime with critical eyes. And her grandmother, perhaps the most striking character of all, continuously reminds Satrapi of her duty to her ancestors, one that includes a responsibility towards human justice and dignity.

Persepolis is most compelling because Satrapi refuses to paint an easy picture of the violence in Iran, or of human relationships more generally. She weaves a story that points to the roles conservative forces within Iran and Western influences eager to appease these anti-democratic actors for easy access to oil, played in the build-up to battles that claimed the lives of nearly one million people over a fifteen year period. Through it all, I was left questioning the democratic ideals of the West, since even in the face of a war-ravaged Tehran, a young Marjane prefered to move back amidst the destruction, rather than live in Vienna where her very presence as an outsider evokes disdain and mistrust from even her friends and allies.

It’s difficult to read this story and not be reminded instantly of Art Spiegelman’s classic graphic novel “Maus.” Satrapi herself has remarked on reviewers’ constant jump to Spiegelman’s work. The only link I’d like to make is in the deep emotions that both stories evoked in me. As I was reading Persepolis earlier today, driving straight through the vast prairie fields, and dipping and diving through the spectacularly green Saskatchewan and Manitoba valleys, I cried. Not so much for those she knew intimately and who were killed, such as her once-exiled uncle who returns from Moscow only to be picked up by the security forces to be executed; her childhood friend and neighbour who dies in an Iraqi bombardment; her elderly uncle who dies of a heart attack after a grenade explodes next to his house. Yes, these stories were sadly disturbing. But what actually moved me to put the book down and stare out at the comforting passing landscape between tears, were the moments when someone dared articulate another way of imagining the world amidst such terror. It wasn’t what I would call hope, a terribly abstract concept that I think is over-used in politically progressive circles, since it comes to mean anything and everything, and I would argue, silences important critiques of social movements.

No, Marjane’s mother, father, grandmother, her many friends, and Marjane herself, refused to accept the vision of the world being expressed and put into practice, despite the overwhelming weight of this form. In this way, hers is not a story about religious fundamentalists and terrorists somewhere else, as it is now so often framed in the West. On the contrary, her complex narrative suggests that we are all connected quite intimately. It’s easy to forget that there was a moment in time when it looked like the Iranian Revolution could possibly serve as a model for progressive movements worldwide. But that moment was quickly replaced by a descent into fundamentalist violence, not unlike what we’ve seen in a number of other international settings.

What Satrapi reminds us is that even in the face of such utter disappoint, and the very real violence that accompanies it, we must still imagine differently. We must never accept fundamentalisms of any kind, whether religious, ideological, political, or social. To do so, imagine different worlds, is a life-long project, as her parents, and especially grandmother, attest to throughout her narrative. And it can take any shape, as long as it involves struggle.

Joe Sacco's "The Fixer"

Sitting down on a rainy Wolseley day, I decided to read Joe Sacco's graphic novel "The Fixer." Sacco, of "Palestine" fame, didn't disappoint, with his monochrome illustrations and edgy dialogue that capture the dark mood of the events surrounding the Siege of Sarajevo.

This is the story of Neven, a former paramilitary fighter battling to defend Sarajevo, turned "fixer," or someone who provides foreign journalists with access to war zones. The fact that Neven is himself Serb plays heavily in the story, and it's in his exploration of the mutil-ethnic disintegration of Sarajevo that Sacco provides his most trenchant political commentary.

Throughout "The Fixer," I was struck not so much by Sacco's writing, it is solid at parts, especially in the dialogue, but by his use of arresting images at key moments of suspense or intrigue. While a conventional novelist might capture the tragedy of bombed out buildings in prose, Sacco does so through stunning portrayals of streetscapes that movingly call us into the story. And his imagery changes with the mood, as we can see in his drawings of post-war Sarajevo: groups of people in clubs or on the streets, all with their eyes closed, as if to gesture towards their inability to look to the past, to revisit the trauma. This reliance on the image to communicate what would otherwise be written out for us in a novel points to the true strength of the medium.

The biggest problem I can identify with "The Fixer" is Sacco's treatment of women in the story. His ultra-masculine world has little room for women except as objects for the fighters. I understand that Sacco is trying to stay true to Neven's narrative, but he could've introduced some counter-narratives to Neven's acerbic story. Where are all the women in Sarajevo?

Despite these misgivings, this is still a tight story about the politics of war. The truly telling parts of the story are Sacco's in-depth discussion of the paramilitary forces in Sarajevo and their dubious roles as defenders of the city, and of Neven's later role as a "fixer," which is how Sacco met Neven, and how their relationship evolved over the years. One can't help but wonder if Sacco is a bit enamoured by his macho informant, or if his steady desire to please his benefactor is purely professional. Either way, their relationship holds this complex story together.

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman

If you’re anything like me, the prospect of reading a comic book for its poignant and incisive political commentary is a foreign concept. But once you read Maus, you can’t help but find new respect for the medium.

Where does one start with Maus? I can identify at least four different and overlapping narratives, each one adding another layer to an already complex story. The central narrative is ostensibly that of Vladek Spiegelman, Art’s father, and his experiences as a Polish Jew leading up to the WWII, through his internment at Auschwitz, Dachau, and a number of other sites throughout Poland and Germany, until his miraculous survival. I refuse to write much about this experience, it speaks for itself. What adjectives, what words, does one use to describe such violence? I can say only that I lack confidence in my own ability to do so. And yet, if this was only a work discussing Vladek’s life pre-1945, then it would be moving, but instead, Spiegelman manages to weave other narratives that serve to demonstrate how everyone close to him has been and continues to be touched by the events of the Nazi-period.

The second narrative is the story of the relationship between Art and Vladek. This is told primarily through Art’s interviews with his father about his experiences post-1930 or so, but also comes out at a number of moments when Art and at times, his wife Francoise, come to care for Vladek. This is a brilliant exploration of the dynamics between father and son, and how their relationship has been impacted by Vladek’s traumatic history.

The next major narrative is the love story between Vladek and Anja, Art’s mother. Somehow, the two of them manage to stay alive through all the turmoil and destruction around them. They even find a way to see each other for a period in Auschwitz, no small feat under those horrible circumstances. It is their love that continues to propel Art forward in his quest to hear his father’s story, as it does for the reader. Perhaps it is the hopeless romantic in me, but the moment they are reunited after the war is exceptionally beautiful, and not because the story is organized to hedge on this drama, like most love stories- that can’t be the case, because we already know that they’ll be re-united, that’s where Art comes in after all. It is precisely the fact that it is not meant to be the story that gives it its unshakeable pull. There’s nothing special about the reunion, given the difficult circumstances of post-WWII Poland for Jews, but with their loving embrace, well, my heart beat faster. The narrative of their love is both redeeming and tragic because we already know that Anja killed herself in the U.S. twenty years later. One can’t tell what Vladek regrets the most in his later years, his wartime experiences, or Anja’s loss. Of course, they are in a sense, one and the same.

The last narrative, what I see as the meta-narrative, is the story about Art writing Maus. This comes out during his interviews for his book with Vladek, but is also made more explicit in his discussions with Francoise and his shrink, Pavel. In this storyline, Art’s insecurities about his writing ability, as well as his guilt over his parents’ experiences, is highlighted. Like the rest of Maus, the true strength of Spiegelman’s work is in the dialogue. Rarely have I seen such animated, and truly engaging representations of everyday life. Combined with his artful and inventive drawings- Jews are mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs, French are frogs, Americans are dogs, Roma are moths- the dialogue shines through, giving the story its true strength.

Because of this, the reader is not drawn into a story of good and evil, where those not involved in this violence contemporaneously can simply will it away as disembodied acts of evil done by other people. No, Spiegelman shows us the fine line between good and evil inhabits us all, while still trying to cope with the ways in which the WWII Holocaust continues to haunt those around him. In reading through Maus, we’re forced to think through our own complicity in violence, and how we each deal with guilt, regret, and most notably, love, in hard times.

It’s a treasure I’m glad to have found. I’ll never look at a graphic novel or comic book the same way again.