An engaging introduction to a fascinating historical and cultural flashpoint.
The founder of Drawn & Quarterly offers presents the first of a two-part graphic chronicle of the ill-fated efforts of the Front de liberation du Québec, covering the period from 1962 to 1970.
In Oliveros’ telling, the separatist violence was triggered by the casual, public bigotry of an Anglophone, Montreal-based railway executive. The FLQ began in Georges Schoeters’ tiny apartment, where he and his confederates (many in their teens) drafted a manifesto and mixed Molotov cocktails. These initial scenes are often quite funny, Molotov cocktails arcing from one panel to the next in front of imposing gray armories to explode with BOOMs and speech balloons filled with Nos as the down-at-their-heels revolutionaries seek one among them with a car to take them to their targets. But the violence was real and claimed victims, so the mood darkens. Oliveros creates a device to carry the story: a fictional CBC documentary with the principals and prominent figures of the day narrating events. When Schoeters was imprisoned, the mantle passed to François Schirm, who tried to start a guerrilla army and was sentenced to life in prison; and then to Pierre Vallières, who returned to the FLQ’s early, incendiary strategies. It’s an absorbing treatment of a story mostly forgotten in the U.S. Oliveros works in mostly six-panel-per-page layouts, peopling them with unprepossessing-looking white characters (mostly men) whose expressions frequently enhance the overall feeling of their incompetence. Largely missing from the tale are French Canadians’ genuine grievances. Readers must pore over the copious backmatter to learn that Quebec’s Francophones—87% of the province’s population—labored as an underclass in an Anglophone-dominated economy. Confining the focus to the FLQ’s leadership and their bumbling attempts makes for an entertaining read, but it’s hardly a nuanced one. The bibliography includes both contemporary and retrospective accounts, many in English, and meticulous notes detail Oliveros’ research and artistic choices.
An engaging introduction to a fascinating historical and cultural flashpoint.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781770466616
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
An impassioned message of rage and hope.
The author of Persepolis returns with a collection about burgeoning activism in Iran.
In September 2022, the beating and death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian student arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly, incited a solidarity movement among women and men that spread around the world. To publicize and bear witness to this major uprising, Satrapi has gathered stories, cartoons, and essays from more than 20 artists, activists, journalists, and academics. The author has two aims: “to explain what’s going on in Iran, to decipher events in all their complexity and nuance for a non-Iranian readership, and to help you understand them as fully as possible”; and “to remind Iranians that they are not alone.” Setting the movement in context, Iranian American historian Abbas Milani offers an overview of the political upheavals and revolutions that have led to the current misogynist, repressive regime and the “resolute defiance” that has emerged in protest. As each contributor attests, life under a wrathful dictatorship is consistently frightening and dangerous: “The Islamic Republic ensures its own survival by murdering people. During the successive demonstrations” over Amini’s murder, “several hundred people were killed in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of protesters. Young people were forced to confess under torture.” Women are especially vulnerable. Since November 2022, young students in schools across Iran have been poisoned by toxic gas as part of an attempt to force girls’ schools to close. Protecting the regime falls to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization that answers directly to Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, and for the past four decades has carried out a reign of terror. This collection pays homage to victims and celebrates the dreams of Iran’s determined activists. Other contributors include Joanne Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Paco Roca, and Mana Neyestani.
An impassioned message of rage and hope.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781644214053
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
A sharp compendium of dreamy visions that could only have come from the iconic cartoonist’s sleeping mind.
The renowned cartoonist taps into Freud, Jung, and Kabbalah to discuss what happens when the head hits the pillow.
Chast, famed New Yorker cartoonist and winner of the inaugural Kirkus Prize for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? makes it clear that while your own dreams may be inherently interesting, listening to other’ dreams is markedly not. Thankfully, the author’s thumbnail depictions of dreams that span a cross section of her bedside dream journal bring just enough humor and wit for readers to be charmed instantly. “This book is dedicated to the Dream District of our brains,” writes the author, “that weird and uncolonized area where anything can happen, from the sublime to the mundane to the ridiculous to the off-the-charts bats.” Familiar classics—“alone at a party,” “teeth falling out”—sit alongside the bizarre and hilarious—e.g., “too many birds not enough cages.” Even actor Wallace Shawn, son of former New Yorker editor William Shawn, makes an appearance: “He and I were walking down Main Street in a town in Connecticut and I needed to point something out to him: ‘Look, It’s a Broccoli Patch!’ ” From “Recurring Dreams” to “Nightmares” to “Dream Fragments or Ones That Got Away,” Chast explores beyond the first blush of the strange and personal in dreams. She writes, “here’s what’s interesting: dreams come out of my brain…as I sleep, I am creating them…so why, as they unfold, am I always so surprised?!??” The author reaches for answers beyond Freud and Jung to a wider range of insights from Kabbalah, Aristotle, neuroscientists, molecular biologists, and more. Illustrations and visual storytelling weave together a broad range of content on dreams that offers insight while never feeling burdensome or overly analytical. Easy on the eyes and witty, this book will have readers reaching for their own dream journals.
A sharp compendium of dreamy visions that could only have come from the iconic cartoonist’s sleeping mind.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781620403228
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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