Author: Robert Greenberger

Wake Now in the Fire
By Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo
464 pages/Ten Speed Graphic/$38 (hardcover) $24.99 (softcover)

For several years, I taught Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis in my high school English classes, a chance to introduce readers to the graphic novel storytelling style while helping see what people their age endure in other countries. Last year, after a few parents complained about language and sex, I was asked to remove it from the curriculum (although I could keep it in my class library).

When I introduced the story, I referenced its international awards as well as the brief 2013 ban of the book from Chicago Public Schools. So, the parallels were not lost on me. But I never knew the full story.

Former teen librarian at the Evanston and Skokie public libraries, Dapier knows his audience, and the teenagers in this fictionalized account of the true event sound authentic. As the students at Curtis Technical College Preparatory High School arrived on Monday, March 11, 2013, we see how a memo from the district began the sequence of events.

First, an English teacher has to take the books out of the classroom, and then we discover the entire district has to comply, which involves collecting and disposing of them. She bravely preserved her class set.

As word spreads, we focus on several sets of students, including those working on the school newspaper, who begin researching the event. For whatever reason, the Chicago CEO of Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, refuses to respond to requests for comment. Satrapi, though, does, and mainstream media are directed to retrieve her quote from the student journalist.

Dapier does a nice job weaving the growing student discontent into their personal lives, making things complex and realistic. Apparently, the characteristics and life events were real, although characters were changed for dramatic reasons. I appreciate seeing the classroom discussions across the disciplines to make sure all voices and opinions are reflected.

As the 451 Banned Books Club plans a Persepolis read-in and others plan a walkout protest for that Friday. We watch each student wrestle with their choice of action and its consequences. This makes the book a rich reading experience as well as a breezy one.

Dungo’s artwork is relatively simple, mixing real and cartoon elements with thick ink lines, using a limited blue palette, with just red reserved for the banned book’s cover. I wish Dungo tightened the balloon shapes, which wasted a lot of space and, instead, provided more backgrounds, making much of the story seem simplistic/ I found the balloons (but not the captions, go figure) distracting throughout.

In the Note from the Author, we discover it was Dapier who used the Freedom of Information Act to retrieve the vital documents which proved Byrd-Bennett was behind the ban, despite lying about it, and this proved to be one of many instances of her misconduct, ultimately leading to her firing.

With books still under attack across the country, this book is a vital resource that shows students how to take action, have a voice, and hold adults accountable. It’s a compelling read, one I raced through and suspect you will, too.

A Brief History of a Long War: Ukraine’s Fight Against Russian Domination
By Mariam Naiem, Yulia Vus, and Ivan Kypibida
112 pages/Ten Speed Graphics/19.99

As the horrific Ukraine War continues, nearing its fourth anniversary, along comes this wonderful graphic novel.

A Brief History of a Long War: Ukraine’s Fight Against Russian Domination niftily blends a contemporary account of a young woman fleeing for shelter during yet another bomb attack from Russia. As she finds companionship among other victims of Russia’s aggression, they all share reflections of Ukraine’s contemporary situation, while flashing back to the 9^th century, when Ukraine can trace its history.

Yulia Vus & Ivan Kypibida provide detailed illustrations that show the evolution of the country and its inhabitants. With a simplified color scheme, it’s very easy to follow. They take the award-winning journalist’s words and bring them to vivid life.

While Vladimir Putin has wanted Ukraine since he wrote about it in 1997, Russia’s grip on the country dates back centuries, showing how the two are inexorably tied. Depending on your point of view, Ukraine was always a part of Russia and should remain so, while others contend its independence was undermined time and again, and the people should decide their fate.

They do not shy away from the various religious and ethnic controversies, such as the “linguicide” during the 1860s, which banned Ukrainian from being spoken by its natives or the Holodomor famine of the 1930s, which killed over 3.3 million people.

We have a frighteningly short attention span and memory, so let me remind readers that in 2004, Russia poisoned the independently-minded Viktor Yushchenko in the country’s presidential election. He recovered and won the office, only to see his rival, Viktor Yanukovych, replace him in the next election. He enriched himself while turning the country into an authoritarian state that leaned toward Putin, setting the stage for the 2014 seizure of Crimea and moving the pieces, resulting in the 2022 invasion.

Obviously, you can’t fully cover 13 centuries of complex history in 112 pages, nor can you cover all sides of the independence-versus-reabsorption issue that has confronted the Ukrainian people since the dissolution of the USSR. And yes, it isn’t very objective toward the people currently being victimized. It’s also challenging to tell this story when it lacks a definitive ending.

Still, this work provides greater context and vibrant images to help Westerners better grasp the issues at stake. As a result, this is a worthy addition to classroom libraries.

Megalopolis
By Francis Ford Coppola, Chris Ryall, & Jacob Phillips
160 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$25.99

While curious, I did not go to see Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. I had read about the trouble shoot, the confused critics, and the box office doldrums, and never got around to it on streaming. Thankfully, Abrams ComicArts has provided us with a graphic novel adaptation, which apparently isn’t slavish to the screenplay. Billed as an “alternate” version, it apparently is to be considered a sibling to the feature.

Coppola succumbs to the fascination with ancient Rome, which has become the cliché starting point for alternate futures such as The Hunger Games, Red Rising, and even Foundation. Somehow, the empire never fell, and futuristic wonders can be found in New Rome, which is our New York City.

It’s a story about family and competing visions of that future: one utopian in its aspirations, the other set in a regressive status quo.

That’s about all that makes sense. Chris Ryall, an accomplished writer and editor in his own right, fails to turn Coppola’s ideas into a coherent narrative with clearly defined characters. The worldbuilding raises more questions than it answers, and none of it is appealing. We root for none of the characters or, frankly, care about them long before the story ends. He’s billed as both writer and editor, and here, a seasoned editorial hand was required.

I gather the film’s narrative is its philosophical sweep, which isn’t evident here.

Similarly, cartoon Jacob Phillips is fine with the people, but New Rome needs to be a personality in its own right; we’re giving more of an impression of the city than something comprehensible.

I admire the experimentation evident in the project, but the execution does not deliver an enjoyable reading experience.

The Essential Peanuts
By Mark Evanier
336 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$75

I was growing up during Peanuts’ peak period, the 1960s-70s, and you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing images of the gang. Yes, I bought some of the Fawcett paperback collections from the Bookmobile and was thrilled that Apollo 10’s command capsule and lunar module were named Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

I was also overwhelmed by the ubiquitousness of Snoopy, who easily eclipsed the humans and was on t-shirts, a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, lunch boxes, and so, so much more. I didn’t fully grasp the genius of Charles M. Shulz’s work until much later. It wasn’t my favorite strip, yet I read it every day, and I still do in the Classic Peanuts strip.

As a result, I was delighted to see this 75^th anniversary overview of the strip and its global influence, along with the simplicity of Shulz’s linework. I learned about him from the recent Funny Things: A Comic Strip Biography of Charles M. Shulz and learned even more in this handsome collection.

The mammoth hardcover traces Peanuts in two ways: a 75 Essential strips, with commentary and supplemental strips; and a chronological exploration of the strip’s evolution, broken down by decade. As a result, you get some 700 daily and Sunday strips out of the 17,000+ he wrote and drew. One of the things that set Schulz apart from his peers was that he never, ever used assistants; he wrote, drew, and lettered each and every installment. That alone is worthy of celebration.

In Evanier’s clear-eyed prose, we see which new concepts or characters were introduced, which ones freshened, and which ones faded with time. Among the first casualties, for example, are Shermy and Patty, who were there on day one but were reduced to occasional background players within a year or two. We can see the rise of Snoopy’s sentience and then his playfulness as he turns his doghouse into a Sopwith Camel airplane, and how good ol’ Charlie Brown doesn’t quite know what to do with the newly arrived Peppermint Patty’s interest in him.

To me, the strip hit a crescendo in the late 1970s and then began a gradual decline, one that took the next 20 years to wind down. In the final years, health problems caused the steady line to wobble, the characters getting somewhat cruder, while the heart never left.

Accompanying Evanier are celebrity quotes drawn from Fantagraphics’ complete collection of the strip, as well as new sidebars written by translators and editors, who round out our understanding of the strip and its creator.

There is a second volume in this slipcase, filled with facsimiles of fun memorabilia that may bring back a memory, as it did for me, or just a smile. That’s all Shulz wanted from his readers, and he delivered daily for some 50 years, a totally remarkable accomplishment from the most unassuming of people.

Making Nonfiction Comics
By Eleri JHarris & Shay Mirk
272 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$29.99

There are numerous books available on how to write comics (I co-wrote one and am editing another), as well as on how to draw, letter, and color comics. However, no one really focuses on content like this excellent volume, which concentrates entirely on the growing field of nonfiction graphic narratives.

Graphic nonfiction has been around almost as long as graphic novels, with the general public first exposed to it through Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and gained notice for works such as Joe Sacco’s Palestine or even Joe Kubert’s Fax from Sarajevo. My first exposure was in 1982 with Jack Jackson’s Los Tejanos graphic novel, published by Fantagraphics. Today, many publishers produce series of biographies or explore stories from history. I have used Abrams’Economix to help understand financial concepts.

The authors and artists are experienced from the Nib, a graphic journalism website, and they break down the process step by step. Along the way, they educate us on some interesting topics as a way of demonstrating the lesson. There are chapters on research, interviewing, graphic reportage, personal narratives, and data usage, which walk you through each process.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the book is the diverse range of people interviewed about their process. Several interviews are featured in each chapter, demonstrating the vast scope of graphic journalism. I knew of it from some newspapers, but here we have 42 different creators, each doing interesting work in the less obvious corners of the World Wide Web.

The authors also ensure that we understand basic terminology, along with chapters that focus on writing in this style, and the value of having a firm editorial hand to prevent creators from getting lost in the weeds with too much research or obscuring details.

The final two chapters are universal for creators, focusing on how to share and publish your work, as well as how to build a community. They then conclude by spelling out how they created the book, providing examples of a comics script, contract basics, and deep citations for further reading.

My Maryland Institute College of Art students have rarely explored nonfiction, but I intend to highlight this aspect, as many have fascinating personal stories worthy of sharing with the world.

Globetrotters: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s World Tour
By Julian Voloj & Julie Rocheleau
184 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$25.99

Elizabeth Jane Cochran liked to write under various names, beginning her journalism career as “Lonely Orphan Girl” for the Pittsburgh Dispatch before adopting the more familiar name Nellie Bly. As Bly, she checked into New York City’s Women’s Lunatic Asylum for 10 days in 1888 and documented her experiences for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. Her fame assured, she was no longer consigned to the “women’s pages” and could dictate her content.

A year later, she had planned to turn Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days from fiction to fact, beating the fictional record.

At the same time, another female journalist, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore, was asked to travel in the opposite direction and beat Bly for Cosmopolitan. History shows that Bly beat Bisland by four days, and interestingly, the two competitors never met one another; yet, they are both buried in the same cemetery.

The race between the women and the best-selling novel forms the core of the entertaining graphic novel, out this week. Writer Julian Voloj brought their detailed chronicles to amusing life as they battled train schedules, seasickness, storms, skeptical customs agents, and more. As they race, both lament their inability to truly enjoy their visits, even when they were stranded for several days, such as in Bly, China.

Julie Rocheleau’s limited color palette and cartoony expressiveness bring the pulse-pounding race to life, nicely capturing the look and feel of this bygone era.

For Bly, it was all about the adventure, relishing her travels unlike the more serious-minded Bisland, whose New York Times obituary never even mentioned this aspect of her career. She left journalism after this, bringing her breathless worldview to serial novels.

Both women are characterized through shorthand, and I wish Voloj spent a little more time on them as people. Similarly, the craze surrounding their reports could have been given greater play, as two women racing around the world was unusual in this male-dominated era. The World even ran a “Nellie Bly Guessing Match,” encouraging readers to estimate Bly’s arrival time to the second, with the grand prize initially consisting of a trip to Europe.

Most people today may know Bly for the mental health expose and not even know about this event. Even fewer may remember Bisland and her output. As a result, we owe the creators a debt for bringing this to light.

Spider-Man Panel by Panel
By Stan Lee, Chip Kidd, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby
384 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$60

After the success of Fantastic Four Panel by Panel, this book was inevitable. Thankfully, we get not only Amazing Fantasy #15, but all of Amazing Spider-Man #1. As with the first book, the first few hundred pages are composed of close-up photographs of selected panels and pages from these issues. Geoff Spears is back to do the honors, and there’s a chance to relive the early Silver Age with inferior four-color printing, with its limited color palette and registration issues. There’s something quaint and almost comforting in seeing the old 64-line screens (Ben Day dots to old-timers like me) that we only know now from exaggerated Roy Lichtenstein pieces. When the FF book arrived, I questioned the number of pages devoted to this and still do.

The real treat, and the real substance of the book, arrives partway through. We get the cover feature from Amazing Fantasy, and there are pristine black-and-white scans of Steve Ditko’s original art opposite the printed pages. We therefore get a chance to enjoy Ditko’s linework and the occasional border notes. The side-by-side comparisons are a real treasure, and I remain thankful to the anonymous donor who gave the entire story to the Library of Congress.

The last few dozen pages are where the substance arrives in the form of essays. First, Chip Kidd is waxing nostalgic about these embryonic tales and talking about the approach to this book. Then, Marvel’s Executive Editor, Tom Brevoort, steps up to the plate and delivers a detailed analysis of the stories included, beginning with the cover, which Ditko initially rejected, and the one by Jack Kirby and Ditko that was printed. He nicely reviews the threads that led to the character’s creation, giving just credit to Kirby and his then-partner Joe Simon. He then takes us through both comics, page by page, calling our attention to the marginalia and the intent behind them, such as the stories in Amazing Spider-Man #1 were intended for the following issues of Amazing Fantasy before that title was abruptly cancelled. He shows the evolution of the hyphen in the character’s name and has us study how Ditko handled the FF for the first time.

The book concludes with a contextual essay from historian Peter Sanderson and some words from Sara W. Duke, curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Art in the Prints and Photographs Division of the LOC.

For me, these text pieces make the book worth having. You would have to love Spidey to buy this expensive book, gorgeous as it is with thick paper stock and excellent reproduction.

Dick Giordano was a major Robert B. Parker fan, which is how I first learned of him and his creation, Spenser. In fact, I once spent a lengthy lunch hour in line at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble to get the latest release autographed for Dick. From there, I began reading the books and fell in love with them, reading his oeuvre until Parker’s passing.

As a result, I missed the ABC adaptation Spenser for Hire, which aired from September 20, 1985, to May 7, 1988, and only knew it as the show where fans first discovered a pre-Star Trek: DS9 Avery Brooks, who played Hawk.

Thankfully, Warner Home Entertainment has now released the three-season, 66-episode series in a DVD box set, basically collecting the previous DVD releases with no new extras and not even a Blu-ray upgrade.

Robert Urich played the eponymous lead, backed by Brooks, Richard Jaeckel, and Barbara Stock (whose Susan Silverman was only in the first and third seasons). The ever-growing rich supporting cast of the novels was still developing at this stage, so they are absent, although a few of the existing ones (i.e., Henry Cimoli or the other cops) could have been used to enrich the show.

John J. O’Connor noted at the time in The New York Times, “Not surprisingly, many of the plots are merely serviceable, dotted with the perfunctory shoot-outs and car chases. Nevertheless, the series has managed to establish a distinctive personality. The key characters are well conceived, as are such regulars as the police lieutenant (Richard Jaeckel) and the police sergeant (Ron McLarty). Furthermore and not least, a good deal of the location shooting is actually done in Boston, lending the shows a precise and well-defined sense of place, which is rare in American prime time.”

Apparently, the ratings were good despite ABC’s persistence for moving its air dates, and it was finally felled by the expensive location shooting in Boston, which is a shame since it is basically an entertaining private eye show.

While the cases are fine, the real fun is in the chemistry between Spenser and Hawk, two badasses who are complex figures in their own right. When Susan gets pregnant, she considers abortion, something the Catholic Spenser could not abide, and she departs. As a result, during the second season, ADA Rita Fiori (Carolyn McCormick) becomes a potential romantic interest. In both cases, the women were not written as strongly as the men.

None of the novels was used as source material, something that happened in subsequent adaptations, although none have captured the spare writing style that was uniquely Parker. (For the record, Ulrich and Brooks made four telefilms for A&E, none of which are included.)

Had the writers and showrunner John Wilder hewed closer to Spenser’s worldview and avoided case-of-the-week syndrome (still the standard in the 1980s), it could have developed a far more distinctive personality.