Category Archives: Activism, Protest, & Resistance

Anything to do with grassroots-level activism.

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Ad Astra Exclusives, Reviews

POWER BORN OF DREAMS is a graphic novel born behind bars

November 30, 2021 sethtobocman Leave a comment

A guest post by Seth Tobocman

Prison can crush the soul. There are people who survive a short sentence only to come out emotionally crippled for the rest of their lives. But there are others who transcend their circumstances, for whom confinement can be a period of spiritual growth. Some artists find great inspiration there.

I first became aware of Mohammad Saba’aneh when he was in an Israeli prison, convicted of drawing illustrations for a book, written and published by his brother, who happened to be a member of Hamas, a banned organization. Our magazine, World War 3 Illustrated, joined an international campaign to free Saba’aneh. I had no idea what a gem of an artist was buried behind those prison walls.

Being a political prisoner doesn’t make Mohammad a badass. It just makes him a Palestinian. It is estimated that 70% of Palestinian families have one member who has been incarcerated. Israeli law allows the state to hold Palestinians for an extended period of time without pressing charges. So Palestinian youth are locked up on the slightest pretext, jailed, tortured and interrogated. All in the hopes of finding information about the Palestinian resistance, and terrorist plots, real or perceived. The Israeli system was the model for the repressive measures enacted in the United States after 9-11.

So doing time doesn’t make Mohammad Saba’aneh special. What he did with that time, that’s special.

“I convinced myself to believe that I am a journalist who came to prison to work” says Mohammad. “My first task was to steal pen and paper from my interrogator. I was liberated on the blank page. It became my world. My pages became a way to journey out into the universe. I kept the pages hidden from the guards as I was dragged from cell to cell. And I felt a sense of liberation each time my pages survived.”

In the drawings which he started in prison and completed shortly after his release, Mohammad shows us the Palestinian political prisoners, the conditions they live in, the absurd legal system they endure, and their deep longing to be reunited with their families.

But prison did not just offer Mohammad new subject material, it presented him with challenges and opportunities that greatly improved the formal qualities of his art.

Like many artists of his generation, Mohammad started out making art in photoshop. In prison he had no access to computers and had to work with pencil and paper. He says that this improved his drawing skills a lot.

Mohammad says that the first artwork he was aware of were the drawings of Palestinian political cartoonist Naji Al-Ali. His mother showed him those pictures to teach him Palestinian history. Naji Al-Ali’s sparse, fine lined drawings were ideal for a third world press where ink itself might be in short supply. Naji could sum up complex conflicts in one small image, with just a couple of symbols or figures, expressing politics with passion and poetry. Naji was assassinated in the 1980s and is viewed by many as a martyr. So it’s not surprising that Mohammad began his career as a newspaper illustrator following in the footsteps of Naji Al-Ali.

In prison, working, not for a publisher’s deadline, but to fill his own time, Mohammad’s work broke out of the limitations of the editorial cartoon. His drawings became more complex and more subtle. When he came out of jail, he began to draw these long, mural-like scrolls, combining hundreds of figures and events arranged across a tortured Palestinian landscape, often presenting a timeline of history, the story of his nation, or of the world.

Mohammad was aware that artists from all over the world had petitioned for his release. A lesser man would let this go to his head. But in Saba’aneh’s case, it humbled him. He felt that he was now obligated to become a better artist. He studied the work of Picasso, Jacob Lawerence, Diego Rivera and many others, and began to expand his visual vocabulary. He also became aware of today’s graphic novels and took a great interest in the form.

He traveled. On his visits to New York, Mohammad and I often hit the museums. He seemed hungry to absorb everything he saw. He wanted to be influenced by the whole international history of art, and to take it in as fast as possible. As though world culture was a meal he had to swallow in one gulp before someone could take it away from him. This made me realize how privileged I was to live in a city full of art galleries instead of a city full of soldiers and check points.

Mohammad would guest lecture my classes at SVA, blowing my students’ minds with descriptions of the difficult conditions under which he produced his work. But Mohammad often seemed to be more of a student than my students. He was eager, attentive, curious, and open-minded, like a really good student. Although he is a grown man with a wife and two children, there is something youthful about him.

Mohammad eventually did go back to school, receiving a grant to take graduate courses in England. There he produced his first graphic novel, Power Born Of Dreams (Street Noise Books, 2021).

Saba’aneh had seen the early 20th century wordless books printed from wood blocks by masters like Franz Masereel and Lynd Ward, and he was aware of how contemporary graphic novelists. like Art Spiegelman, Eric Drooker, Peter Kuper and myself, use scratchboard to get a woodcut look. He decided to produce his whole story in linoleum cut prints. But he could not always afford sheets of linoleum so sometimes he would carve into a tabletop or door to produce his prints.

The result is visually stunning. The dramatic dark areas remind me of the chiaroscuro of Eric Drooker’s Flood, the compositions remind me of Peter Kuper’s Franz Kafka adaptations. He seems to have looked at the whole field of graphic novels and incorporated the best of what we have produced, and we should all be honored by our participation in his project.

The plot line combines documentary and autobiography with fantasy and metaphor. A jailed Palestinian artist decides to survive his imprisonment by drawing. He makes a deal with a talking bird. The bird will fly out into the world and bring back stories from the rest of Palestine which the artist will illustrate. This, many stories within one story, structure, pays homage to great works of world literature, like One Thousand and One Nights and Boccaccio’s Decameron.

The stories the bird brings are pretty grim: children who can’t sleep because they hear warplanes over head, mothers who lose their sons, prisoners who long for their freedom, and the whole tragic history of Palestinian oppression. Where then is hope in this sad situation?

Hope can be found in the fact that an artist has represented this harsh reality with such a loving hand, creating beautiful compositions and careful renderings. Combining journalistic integrity with imagination and mythology. Endeavoring to uplift his people through craftsmanship. And hasn’t this been the function of art throughout history, to sublimate human suffering?

Listen up world! Today is a big day! Palestinian political prisoner and Arab editorial cartoonist, Mohammad Saba’aneh has become a graphic novelist, and we are all better off for it!

Seth Tobocman is an artist, educator and activist living in New York City. He is a founding member of the editorial collective of World War 3 Illustrated, the longest-running anthology of political comics available in English. His published works include the graphic memoir War in the Neighborhood, Disaster and Resistance, You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive, as well as, most recently, LEN, a Lawyer in History, and The Face of Struggle.

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Ad Astra Exclusives, Art Activism

THE BEST DAMN ARTICLE ABOUT ERIC DROOKER I’VE EVER READ

March 6, 2019 adastracomix Leave a comment

a guest post by Seth Tobocman

Tucked inside AK Thompson’s largely political anthology PREMONITIONS (Selected Essays On The Culture Of Revolt) are two chapters about art that ought to be a wake-up-call to those who write about the subject. Including one about my old comrade and fellow poster paster Eric Drooker. What stands out about Thompson’s articles is that he discusses works of art in terms of their actual political use. Their social function. Their relation to praxis.

eric drooker people walking — art by Eric Drooker

Much writing about art misses the importance of the social context in which, and for which, a work of art was originally produced.

For example, a few years ago my partner and I visited the city of Ravena Italy. There we were startled to walk into churches and see parishioners dutifully praying and lighting candles in front of paintings and mosaics that had decorated the pages of our art history books. It seemed like a glaring omission, to me, that I had been through two years of art history classes in college, had focused precisely on these works, with almost no discussion of their Christian religious content.

Likewise, if you look at cave paintings, you can certainly discuss the use of a simple outline on an irregular surface to create the illusion of volume and motion. But if you ignore the fact that these are the intimate observations of the lives of animals that only a hunter gatherer society can produce, then aren’t you missing the whole point?

Title: Premonitions: Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt
Author: A.K. Thompson
Published: 2018 by AK Press
250 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1849353380

In an essay with the academic sounding title The Resonance of Romanticism, Thompson explores the relationship between the early 21st century anti-globalization movement and the works of two artists, Eric Drooker and Banksy. He’s not making this up. Drooker’s art was regularly used on fliers of the period. Eric’s books were distributed in the Anarchist bookstores where plans for big actions were discussed. His imagery adorned squats and dorm rooms and was tattooed on the bodies of some of those arrested. And Eric was a regular at the demonstrations, usually carrying a drum. With Banksy it is a bit more of a reach. I don’t know that Banksy was directly involved in politics. But his work was popular with activists of the time.

eric drooker poster art — art by Eric Drooker

AK examines this work, not to determine its quality (he does seem to like it) but to understand what it tells us about the movement in which it was popular. His goal, in all the essays of this book, is to figure out why the anti-globalization movement, to which he has given the best years of his life, did not produce better results ( I’m biased, I kinda felt the same way about the squatters’ movement. ).

AK sees a nostalgic attraction to the imagery of 19th century romanticism in the art of Banksy and Drooker and wonders if this reflects a sentimentality in the character of the community that embraced this work. Unlike the current fad of “politically correct” criticism, Thompson does not use politics to critique art but uses art to critique politics.

In another chapter with an equally academic title, Matter’s Most Modern Configurations, AK Thompson investigates two major works of 20th century art which were censored by the powers that be. First he looks at Diego Rivera’s Man At The Crossroads, a mural commissioned for Rockefeller Center, which the billionaire later had sandblasted when he saw its overt socialist content. Thompson explores the painting in detail, showing how the artist co-opts both Pagan and Christian religious imagery to support an optimistic materialist message. AK examines and even graphs the compositional elements, only to lead us to the dramatic narrative of the mural’s destruction at the hands of a New York capitalist and it’s rebirth in Mexico City.

Recreated version of “Man at the Crossroads”, known as “Man, Controller of the Universe”

His second subject is Picasso’s Guernica. A tapestry reproduction of this great anti-war painting hangs at the United Nations building. But it was covered by a curtain when Colin Powell made his speech claiming that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, initiating one of America’s longest wars.

Both examples demonstrate the continuing relevance of art to politics while illuminating the complex relationship between modern art and capitalism, which both financed and suppressed the work of masters like Picasso and Rivera.

Picasso’s “Guernica”

AK Thompson is all about critique and I suppose I should critique AK a bit here. While the message of this writing is good, too much of the style bears the mark of the academy. He points out over and over again that his thought process owes a lot to the writings of John Berger (who I have read) and Walter Benjamin (who I haven’t read) and this gives me the (false) impression that I can’t understand what I’m reading without reading those other two authors. I understand the need to credit ones influences but this could be reserved for the footnotes and the whole book could be made accessible to a wider audience.

That said, AK Thompson is one of the more interesting voices that have emerged from the anti-globalization movement. He does not claim to have all the answers. Instead he asks important questions in a voice that is both humble and urgent.

Those of us who devote our lives to drawing alternative comics and political illustration are often amazed at the things people write about the field. Over and over again we see texts by people who just don’t get it. But AK Thompson is one of the guys who gets it.

I strongly recommended anything written by AK Thompson and I look forward to what he will produce in the future.

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Crowd-funding, Publishing, Uncategorized

“War in the Neighborhood” Pre-ordering is now LIVE on Indiegogo!

August 23, 2016 adastracomix 1 Comment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – PLEASE SHARE WIDELY

After more than a decade out of print, readers around the world are getting ready for “War in the Neighborhood”.

Visit the “War in the Neighborhood” Crowdfunder Now!

War in the Neighborhood is 320 pages of largely unheard history. First published in 1999, WITN is a story about smashing cinderblocks, filling in the cracks and finding our future in the rubble. It tells the story of New York City’s Lower East Side in the late 1980s, when it came under attack by wealthy developers, cynical politicians and that special kind of daring yuppie who thinks that gunshots in the night are a sure sign of a hip ‘hood. The panels may be black and white, but the moral questions raised in the comic are anything but.

It may be hard to imagine that a story set at the end of the Cold War is relevant to struggle today. The history of social struggle, however, repeats itself. The lessons contained in ‘War in the Neighborhood’ have echoes in Occupy, Black Lives Matter and other 21st century social movements.

‘War in the Neighborhood’ is the longest book we’ve ever published. Our printer tells us that it will cost about $11,000 to print 3,000 copies. In order to ensure that our publishing projects are sustainable, we make sure that pre-order campaigns like this one cover the full cost of printing. Our funding levels reflect the cost of laying out, printing and shipping these titles. That’s why we’re asking for 15 big ones in order to cover costs.

But, there are some incredible perks in this crowdfunder: workshops, original poster art, super-rare political comics… even some special offers for retailers and distros! So check out the crowdfunder and spread the word!

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Activism, Protest, & Resistance, History, Labour Comics

Keeping the Faith – “Wobblies! A Graphic History” and 100 Years of Labour Martyrs

May 1, 2014 hughgoldring 3 Comments

Title: Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World
Contributors: Mike Alewitz, Seth Tobocman, Sue Coe, Sabrina Jones
Edited: Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman
Published: Verso Books, 2005
Length: 306 Pages

“Happy May Day, friends and fellow workers!”

It is hard to imagine these words would once have been enough to land the speaker in a cramped jail cell, crammed with dozens of fellow workers like so many salty, tinned fish. ‘Wobblies!’ chronicles the rise of the Industrial Workers of the World from a promising start in Chicago. We are taken through several major strikes and biographies of bohemians and revolutionaries by the comic’s several contributors. Curiously, what unites many of these tales is the suffering of their subjects.

frankhanged — A ghoulish portrait of organizer Frank Little’s murderers.

Perhaps there is nothing surprising in this. There is a peculiar allure to martyrdom. Saints, mystics and secular heroes of humanity the world over have been canonized by their suffering long before any state or patriarch could place the laurels on their bloodied brows. Hagiography, the genre of saints’ biographies, owes much of its enduring popularity to stories of the suffering of those early Christians. In a modern context, today is a commemoration of the deaths of the Haymarket Martyrs, Chicago anarchists who went to the gallows for a crime none had committed. “Wobblies” continues in this tradition.

benbranded — Famed “hobo doctor” Ben Reitman wasn’t even a wobbly, but that didn’t stop the San Diego thugs that did this to him.

In its entirety, the book is a collection of short narratives surrounding major events in the history of the IWW. It begins with a detailed recounting of their founding convention, rich in historical personages such as perennial Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs and Haymarket widow (and ass-kicking anarchist heroine) Lucy Parsons. From there, it outlines several major strikes, particularly those associated with the Western Federation of Miners, and the textile strikes in Lawrence and Paterson, a high watermark for union organizing under the IWW banner. This is followed by more strike accounts, then biographical sketches of the highly eclectic bunch of radicals who swelled the ranks of the IWW during its heyday and kept its memory alive through long decades of irrelevance. It ends with two modern episodes. The first details the life of environmentalist and Wobbly Judy Bari, while the second recounts a port strike in Jefferson, Indiana.

bleedout — Calling life in the mines “hard” would be a tragic understatement.

Nothing in this critique is meant to belittle the value of the struggles, or the bravery of participants. These are struggles that shaped the lives of generations of Americans by putting a pressure on state and capital alike. The fights found between these pages paved the way for the eight hour day, for wage increases and safety regulations. But they also fell short of the ultimate goal; a society in which the wealth of society is shared equally amongst those who produce it.

These vignettes are a mixture of victory, defeat and sentimental reminisce. Shot through all of them are scenes of agony, of sometimes lethal suffering. Martyrdom is an old and popular theme in heroic narrative, and echoes from Calvary to Tahrir. Looking at these graphic re-tellings, it is impossible not to be reminded of paintings of saints caged in cells, pierced by arrows. They are ennobled, it would seem, by their suffering.

Two graphic depictions of martyrdom: LEFT: Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of holy Christian death, among other things. RIGHT: martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution are depicted in the cartoon "The Massacre of Maspero" The text reads: 'I died as a martyr on October 6, in a tank.' (the war with Israel) / 'I died as a martyr on October 9, under a tank.' (Courtesy of CartoonMovement.org) — Two graphic depictions of martyrdom: LEFT: Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of holy Christian death, among other things. RIGHT: martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution are depicted in the cartoon “The Massacre of Maspero” The text reads: ‘I died as a martyr on October 6, in a tank.’ (the war with Israel) / ‘I died as a martyr on October 9, under a tank.’ (Courtesy of CartoonMovement.org)

The success of the Lawrence strikers came at a high cost.

So it is for the workers in the pages of “Wobblies!” They are shot, beaten, jailed, defamed, tortured, bombed, ridiculed and betrayed. The outcome of the struggle is secondary to these latter-day passion plays, showcasing the divine agony of the downtrodden. Anguish is often compounded by anguish, with strikers blamed for the deaths of other strikers.

abolishcapitalism — Big Bill Haywood addresses the founding convention of the IWW

There are courage and beauty both in the struggles of IWW organizers and members. Their suffering is a credit to their devotion. But it is their vision that matters most to the future, not their pain. They were not shot so our eyes could blear at the mention of their memory. Not for nothing are the words associated with Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn, organize!”

In other words, the image of Frank Little that captures our imagination is not his battered corpse hanging from a Montana Bridge, but of the cantankerous old bastard hobbling around America on two crutches. With one leg and one eye, Little walked farther and saw more in the name of industrial struggle than many activists could imagine today. As he is said to have remarked “All we’re gonna need from now on is guts!”

It is fitting, then, that the image of Judi Bari that concludes her story is not one of the car bomb that took her legs, but of Bari fiddling. It would be too easy to dwell on the pain of these Wobblies, to accept the tacit coupling of corporal agony and moral ecstasy. But on this May Day, and every day, we have to remember that this is not why blood was shed. This is not why bones were broken. Our antecedents suffered not so that we could romanticize them, but so that we could follow their lead. The general strike is our best hope, and it will take one big union to get there.

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, graphic History, History

The Times They Have A-Changed | Review of “SDS: A Graphic History”

March 14, 2014 adastracomix 2 Comments

By Hugh Goldring, Staff Editor

Written largely by alternative comics legend Harvey Pekar, “Students For a Democratic Society – A Graphic History” is a vexing text. Published in 2008, it breezes through a decade of radical organizing with moments of resistance narrated by witnesses to the history of the SDS. Along the way we learn the names, faces and stories of many of the most famous activists associated with the legendary student group, as well as some of their mentors. It is both a formal history and a collection of brief individual accounts, some spanning decades or a single afternoon, of former members of the SDS.
Continue reading The Times They Have A-Changed | Review of “SDS: A Graphic History” →

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, American Politics, Autobiographical, History

Review of “MARCH: Book One”

August 22, 2013 adastracomix 1 Comment

Title: MARCH: Book One
Creators: John Lewis, Andrew Aykin, and Nate Powell
Published: August 2013 by Top Shelf Press

March: Book One is the first part in a trilogy graphic memoir detailing the life and times of Civil Rights activist and Congressman John Lewis.

Growing up in the United States, you’re led to believe that you learn all there is to know about the Civil Rights Movement in school. You learn about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycotts; you learn about the most famous American speech of the 20th Century: “I Have a Dream”.

In a recent article shared through the Zinn Education Project, historian and black activist Bill Fletcher Jr. describes the method by which certain moments and people in the Civil Rights movement have been “mythologized” and “sanitized“. And boy, has our understanding of this history been manipulated! We would be led to believe that forces of the status quo in the 1950s and 1960s–from local police departments up to the President’s office–supported non-violent forms of protest; that racism and racists were isolated to the masses of simple folk in the South.

Of course, the result of this is that students are not understanding the context of these important pieces of history. That is why I’m hopeful of a book like March making its way into classrooms… students deserve a broader view of these issues than what will be allocated to them in 2 or 3 paragraphs of a standard-issue textbook.

As John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell so eloquently show us in March, this was not the case. The Civil Rights movement was a bloody, uphill battle. The struggle and its gains were not the results of a few actions by those now famous historical figures: the movement moved by way of thousands of committed activists, many of whom were students.

This is a truly beautiful comic book that paints a portrait not just of a man (John Lewis was one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and is now a Congressman; he is also the last living person to have given a speech alongside Martin Luther King on Aug 28, 1963). It paints a vivid portrait of a movement that you think you know, but maybe, possibly, probably don’t. Why was non-violent civil disobedience so radical at the time? Why were there rifts between the younger activists and the older black leadership–figures like Thurgood Marshall? How was the Civil Rights movement connected to religious groups? To the labor movement?

Nate Powell has a way of making every picture personable–crisp, yet dreamy, with solid black ink brush strokes complimented by dabbles of watercolor staining. And Andrew Aydin, who works on Congressman John Lewis’ staff, has obviously been instrumental in taking the vast treasure trove of information that is John Lewis’ life experience, and organizing it into an epic memoir. I particularly like the stories that attest to his core character, like growing up on an old sharecropper farm, wanting to be a preacher and practicing his talks on his chickens. These are wonderful stories that bring out the humanity behind the political battles.

These are the stories from the Civil Rights Movement that, I believe, reclaim the history and restore its heart and soul. You can’t learn about a protest movement from a government-sanctioned textbook.. they’ll make you think the whole thing was their idea. And although Congressman Lewis is now a part of that system, well… how he got there will be explained in the next two books of the trilogy.

I’m excited about what I’ve seen so far–this is an often raw, ugly–yet true history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. To get a glimpse of this, I’ve asked the kind folks at Top Shelf to show you the first five pages of March. I hope you see what I mean–and be sure to pick up a copy when you get the chance!

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, History, Politics in Canada, Workers Rights

Preview The Pages of 100 Year Rip-Off: One of Canada’s Very First Graphic Histories

Aside June 29, 2013 adastracomix Leave a comment

Available here for the first time is a collection of pages from Ad Astra Comix’s upcoming re-release of the 100 Year Rip-Off. Originally printed in 1971 for the B.C. Centennial, Ad Astra, in cooperation with the artist Bob Altwein, are making the work available for a new generation. Enjoy!

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Animal Rights

Liberator #1

June 29, 2013 adastracomix 1 Comment

The series opens with one of the main characters taking down a dog fighting ring. It’s a feel-good moment where a few horrible people are given their just desserts, and some dogs get the justice they deserve.

Title: Liberator
Issue: #1
Writing: Matt Miner
Art: Javier Sanchez Aranda
Published: in 2013 through Black Mask Studios and a successful Kickstarter campaign
More info: http://mattminer.net/

Liberator is a series that tells the story of two animal liberation activists who save dogs and other animals from abuse. While one has a long history of making a public presence in activism, the other chooses to work in the shadows, taking direct vigilante-style action against abusers, most of whom are themselves breaking the law with their activities. Each issue comes in at about a dozen pages of full-colour graphics, and is coupled with literature (located in the back) on animal rights work.

I do tend to approach my comic reviews in two ways. One is aesthetic: is the story good? Does the art kick ass? The other side of my reviews tends to focus on political/social relevance and its method of delivery. Like the Bechdel test, a comic that is most politically relevant doesn’t make it a good story—nor are the two mutually exclusive. They embody separate goals, hopefully ones that work together.

Aesthetically I think Liberator is pretty impressive. It is more or less self-published under the new label of Black Mask Studios, after a Kickstarter campaign that brought comic and animal lovers together quite successfully. Key points in the comic show some really nice artwork with great colour schemes. I don’t quite feel a connection to the narrative yet, but it is only Issue #1.. (I point this out because Matt Miner made me cry within about 6 pages of his story “Light” in the Occupy Comics Issue #2 that just came out– so my standards are high with him. Great comic, by the way. Read it. Read it now.)

In only a dozen pages, the comic nonetheless makes lots of commentary, and not just on animal rights. One is that a lot of people who literally devote their lives to helping others (humans or animals) work the crappiest of minimum wage jobs to get by. (Check). Another is that men who encounter other men’s disrespect of women should call that shit out. (Check). I think there is also more subtle commentary here, like when a black man refers to a dog he is abusing as “his property” (irony?) –or the never-ending activist debate with regards to making effective change by political protest vs. other more creative, even illegal forms of resistance.

(All of this is hypothetical in a comic book, of course. Which is what makes it so great.)

Liberator clearly has an agenda. Guess what? Everything does, including comic books. My opinion is if you’re pouring your life/money/job into creating something and you’re not using it to say something meaningful, you’re making a bad investment There is a self-awareness in political comics that the project’s completion will be able to further assist with a topic that generally lacks creative avenues of discussion–like animal abuse, or violence against women, or mistreatment of prisoners. For a long time the comics community and activists of varying causes have waved the other away–“No one will buy that.” “Sounds campy.” “What’s the difference between a comic with a political agenda and propaganda?”…..and vice versa, “A comic dumb’s down the topics we’re trying to discuss,” “Comics take time and money,” and again, “No one will buy it.”

To fit a lot of potential discussion into such a small space is indicative of the medium’s ability. So even if I’m not totally compelled by the narrative just yet, my hat goes off to the Liberator team, and I look forward to picking up the next copy.

Additional Notes:

I have funny, petty criticisms of Liberator (like, No one wearing a Conflict shirt would wear blue cargo pants) that boil down to me thinking/writing out loud. But I also felt it was honing in (maybe too much?) on a small minority of psychotic animal killers and abusers. I mean, how many of those can there be out there?

The day after I read Liberator, my husband wouldn’t stop talking about Mike Vick’s dogfighting bust, and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind that this was a man who obviously didn’t live in the shadows, and he has a thing for training dogs to kill other dogs, and motivating them through methods like pressing a hot iron against their faces. He was a superstar football player with thousands of people following him on social media, laughing at his jokes, and ready to buy whatever he endorsed. And he killed animals for fun.

Is the animal-abusing psychopath …common? Or perhaps regardless of its frequency of occurrence, does that make it any less real or disturbing where and when it happens? Maybe there are issues that effect a larger swath of our population, like the number of homeless pets out there, but comic books focusing on extreme crimes and abuses is nothing new.

…as a side note, the special edition cover of Issue #1 absolutely wins my heart over. I will be following this comic closely, and I encourage others to do the same.

Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Political Comics

Preview: Liberator #1

June 16, 2013 adastracomix Leave a comment

Some of you will remember when I blogged about Liberator during its Kickstarter campaign. Looks like that money went to some good use – holy smokes, that artwork in this is amazing. Congratulations to writer Matt Miner and the Liberator team.

Graphic Policy

Liberator #1

Writer: Matt Miner
Pencils/Inks: Javier Sanchez Aranda
Colors: Joaquin Pereyra
Edits/Letters: Vito Delsante
Publisher: Black Mask Studios

Standard Cover: Tim Seeley, with Rod Reis colors

A hard-edged vigilante series about two young heroes who avenge the torture of animals, created by writer and real-life dog rescuer Matt Miner (Occupy Comics).

All of Miner’s personal share of profit goes to dog rescue work.

There’s a release-day signing event at JHU Comic Books in NYC, June 19th at 6PM, https://www.facebook.com/events/133499776849210/

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Activism, Protest, & Resistance, Comics Journalism

Whistle-Blowers and War Resisters: Phase 1

May 31, 2013 adastracomix 1 Comment

Destination this weekend: Ft. Meade, Maryland, where hundreds/thousands are gathering to protest the continued imprisonment of whistle-blower Bradley Manning. June 1st marks the beginning of his 4th year in prison- over a year of which has been in solitary confinement–and his trial has only just begun.

Private FirstClass Bradley Manning pictured left, alongside a video clip of the now-notorious military footage that he released to the world -"Collateral Murder" - which shows U.S. soldiers firing on civilians, including journalists, in Iraq. — Private FirstClass Bradley Manning pictured left, alongside a video clip of the now-notorious military footage that he released to the world -“Collateral Murder” – which shows U.S. soldiers firing on civilians, including journalists, in Iraq.

My plan: to cover the rally and the case of whistle-blowers and war resisters from a comics journalism perspective. Who are whistle blowers and war resisters within the current framework of the Global War On Terror? What are the historical precedents? What compels them to face jail time, potentially life sentences for standing up / speaking out / leaking classified information?

Obviously, I will be biased in my investigation. My husband is a former U.S. 82nd Airborne Paratrooper who served a 15 month tour of duty in Afghanistan–and would be arrested the minute he stepped back into the United States on grounds of desertion, as his contract was being extended to include a second tour. As his partner and someone who has heard intimately on his time in the military, I feel confident in saying that the injustices he witnessed were first-hand; stuff not of a “necessary evil” or “duality of man” that resigns one to complacence. I believe he and Bradley Manning share a story–a story shared, in one way or another, by all whistle-blowers, war resisters, and veterans who have decided to make a stand, and I’d like to share that story with all of you.

I bring with me the 5 P’s:

Pencils
Pens
Paper
Paints
Phone (Voice recording / camera / Internet)

Wish me luck.

For more information on the Ft. Meade rally and the case of Bradley Manning, check out http://www.bradleymanning.org

the panel is political.