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Graphic Novels & Comics September 2014
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Greetings!My name is Patrick Holt, and I'm a librarian at Southwest Regional Library. I'm also a lifelong reader of comics and graphic novels. Check out the contents of this month's newsletter in the box to the left. I hope you find these recommendations worthwhile, and please email me at pdholt@dconc.gov if you have any thoughts or questions.
Thanks and enjoy!
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New Titles at the Library
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Goddamn This War!
by Jacques Tardi
A nearly identity-less French soldier recounts his experience trudging through the relentless hell of World War I, where death is arguably a more merciful fate than survival. Using the structure of episodic memories allows Tardi to make the best use of the text-with-illustration technique of comics, and both art and narrative shine as a result (to the extent that they can, with a topic like this). Goddamn This War! is a well-researched and sincere work of fiction, and it includes a chronology of events from these long and terrible years. Recommended, if you're up for the appropriately graphic violence and justifiably coarse language.
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Beautiful Darkness
by Fabien Vehlmann
Fairies and murder mix in this unsettling and fascinating work. From The Comics Journal: "Accentuating the “grim” in “Grimm” for both laughs and shudders, [but] with no Grimm Brother or Hans Christian Anderson at the helm of the fairy people’s fates, [Beautiful Darkness has] no larger morality to dole out appropriate punishments for those with transgressive behavior. Some meet their end through their own evil nature, others because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good pixies are victimized, as are bad pixies, and Vehlmann paints a seemingly magical universe with nothing at its core." A bizarre but indeed beautiful book, and not for the faint of heart.
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Seconds
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Bryan Lee O'Malley's long-awaited follow-up to Scott Pilgrim! From The Comics Alliance: "Katie Clay, the central character of Seconds, is a chef who runs a successful restaurant and is trying to open a second one. She’s prone to small, reckless decisions with unpleasant consequences, and one night one of them leads to something pretty awful happening. Then she discovers that her dresser contains a sort of Death Note-via-The Butterfly Effect plot device: a kit for undoing a bad choice. You write down your error in a little notebook, you eat a mysterious red-capped mushroom, you go to sleep, and when you wake up, your mistake never happened... But O’Malley’s also a dedicated subverter of clichés, and nothing in Seconds takes a totally obvious route."
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Spotlight on Civil Rights
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Want more? Join in the discussion at Main Library's monthly Graphic Book Club!
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King: A Comic Book Biography
by Ho Che Anderson
"Ho Che Anderson's 'interpretive comics biography' traces the life of Dr Martin Luther King, from his childhood in 1930s Atlanta and early years as a charismatic minister to the march on Washington in 1963 and his assassination in Memphis five years later. Multiple streams of narrative, each illuminating a key period of King's life, are intercut with interviews with his contemporaries and opinions of his legacy... Both striking and affecting, King depicts the vibrant politics of the period and an iconic figure whose moral ambitions not only challenged an entire society, but also the man himself." - David Thompson at The Guardian (UK)
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Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography
by Randy Duburke and Andrew Helfer
"Without that emotional resonance, the life of Malcolm X has little weight. He’s just another famous speaker who angered some powerful people. With it, Helfer gives story with the power it deserves, and the epic feel of a Greek tragedy: a great man with enormous talent, even true genius, destroyed by the corruption of his society and his own desperation for change. "Randy DuBurke paints the story of Malcolm X in stark, heavy black and white, with a style that floats smoothly between photographic rendering and editorial cartooning. The places and people of the history are drawn with such detail they can almost be heard to move, but DuBurke isn’t beyond adding some pointed sweat drops to a panicked man’s face, or fading the hero of a fable into thin lines... Helfer’s writing makes the biography intimate, but DuBurke’s art remembers the common urgency that surrounded Malcolm’s life. "The story of Malcolm X is not comforting, or reassuring. But he, and the world he helped change, are important. Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography serves not only to remember the man, but to remember why we should." - Sarah Meador at Curled Up With A Good Book
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Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History
by Harvey Pekar and Gary Dumm
"One of the best attributes of Students for a Democratic Society [is that it] doesn't glamorize the movement, overstate its accomplishments, or ignore the patronization shown on issues of race. The book underscores the pettiness of some of the ideological struggles as well as the second-class status of women within the movement. Still, it can't help but make exciting times look attractive. The story of a wedding held during the occupation of Columbia University and an innocently drawn section on the Children's Strike for Peace highlights the naive atmosphere. Principal illustrator Gary Dumm's drawings are straight-ahead, minimally stylized depictions that occasionally exaggerate the zeal of pot-bellied police wielding their batons... Other illustrators provide contrasting styles, most notably Wes Mode's cross-hatched, unfocused panels of the police riot against 10,000 demonstrators at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., in November of 1969. The jagged depictions genuinely convey the chaos of the event." - Bill Kholehaase at The O.C. Weekly
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Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling
by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer
This "graphic retelling" of Marc Mauer's prose book of the same name "distills the influential 1999 text and subsequent update into a version that would have more emotional resonance... As illustrated by Jones (Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography, 2008), the simplified condensation hits all the high points: the racial disparities faced by those in the judicial system (particularly in regard to drug cases), the growth of the prison industry, the price paid for the 'War on Drugs,' 'Law and Order' and 'Three Strikes and You’re Out' campaigns, and the tension and conflict between deterrence (and punishment) and rehabilitation." - Kirkus Review
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Incognegro
by Mat Johnson
"The early 20th Century: an era when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South. To most of the press, this epidemic of racial murder wan't even news. But a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were light-skinned African-American men who could 'pass' for white. They called this dangerous assignment 'going incognegro.' Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, barely escapes with his life after his latest 'incognegro' story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, he's sent on a new story-- the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi" -- from dust jacket
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Saturday, September 6, 2 p.m. Main Library - 300 N. Roxboro St. Questions? Call John Davis at 919-560-0125 Join our MeetUp group at meetup.com/graphic-book-club
Enjoy comic books or graphic novels? Join us for the monthly meeting of Main Library's Graphic Book Club. This month we're reading MARCH: BOOK ONE, this year's Durham Reads Together selection. Here are some springboard questions to get you thinking:- Where does understanding March require that you make inferences? What are those inferences, and how does the comics medium both rely on inference-making and provide the necessary visual clues?
- What predictions can you make—and confirm—while reading? How do the book’s flashbacks and flashforwards affect your predictions?
- Why might this trilogy be entitled “March”? How many marches can you find depicted or mentioned in March: Book One? Think about the multiple meanings, and connotations, of the word march with respect to the “how far we’ve come” theme that runs throughout the frame story.
- How does nonviolent resistance as espoused by Gandhi, King, and Lawson work to bring about social change, and how does it compare to other methods? Contrast the violence which opens the book with the emphasis on the “peaceful transition to power” in the 2009 television’s broadcast (p. 14) and the similarly peaceful, largely silent pages (pp. 10-12) that precede it. What is the historical message implied by this contrast?
- In what ways do Lewis’s religious background and values influence his approach to the struggle for civil rights as well as the movement as a whole? Do you feel that love of one’s attacker is a requirement for effective nonviolent resistance, and are there any signs of it in the book.
- To practice a crucial skill when reading the memoir form, identify and analyze the “turning points” in John Lewis’s life. Some of these the text’s language highlights for us, as in “home never felt the same” (p. 66), Jim Lawson’s words signaling a “way out” (p. 78) and “my first arrest” (p. 103). What would you add to such a group? How do the authors use the visual layout of their pages to emphasize important moments and emotions (for example, by giving a large amount of space to a single image, up to a full page or “splash page”)?
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Durham Comics Fest - October 2014
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Durham Comics Fest 2014 is coming soon! This year's event will feature appearances by George O'Connor, Jared Axelrod, Jeremy Whitley, and Brian Shearer, with activities and prizes for all ages. For full schedule and more information, visit durhamcomicsfest.org!
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Durham Reads Together - October 2014
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Durham Reads Together strengthens the community through a biennial celebration of reading. Reading the same book, and attending programs around its theme inspires the Durham community to discuss important issues, including race, family, identity, faith, education, culture, music and visual art. The selection for Durham Reads Together 2014 is March: Book One, Representative John Lewis's graphic autobiography, written with Andrew Aydin with art by Durham Comics Fest alum Nate Powell. (More about the book below.) Durham Reads Together will feature a month of programs and activities designed to start conversations about March and its themes, medium and subject throughout the community. For the complete schedule, visit durhamreadstogether.org!
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March: Book One
by John Lewis
A vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation, March is a graphic novel that is rooted in Lewis’ personal story, but also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. The first installation of a trilogy, Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall. Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.” Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations. March: Book Two will be released in January, 2015 and continues Lewis’ story through Freedom Rides and the legendary 1963 March on Washington.
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Ultimate Ladies Alliance discuss Avengers: The Enemy Within at Ultimate Comics |
The first Thursday of each month the Ultimate Ladies Alliance meets to discuss a different comic or graphic novel. Join the Ultimate Ladies’ Alliance on Facebook for more info and to vote on your top picks for the next month’s meeting, plus suggest books for future discussion and share your favorites. This month: Sue's DeDonnick's Avengers: The Enemy Within.
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919-560-0100, 300 N. Roxoboro Street, Durham, NC 27702
librarywebmaster@durhamcountync.gov
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