Book picks similar to
Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63 by Marcelino Truong
graphic-novels
graphic-novel
history
non-fiction
The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song
Frank M. Young - 2012
Many of their hit songs, such as “Wildwood Flower” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” have influenced countless musicians and remain timeless country standards.The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song is not only a unique illustrated biography, but a moving account that reveals the family’s rise to success, their struggles along the way, and their impact on contemporary music. Illustrated with exacting detail and written in the Southern dialect of the time, its dynamic narrative is pure Americana. It is also a story of success and failure, of poverty and wealth, of racism and tolerance, of creativity and business, and of the power of music and love. Includes bonus CD with original Carter Family music. Praise for The Carter Family: "What a fine marriage of form and content! Humble and moving—straightforward with occasional breathtaking bravura passages—this book echoes the Carter Family's rough-hewn sounds. It tells of the lives, sorrows, and values of a lost America in short episodes like a giant stack of old 78s. Using the vocabulary of comic strips like Little Orphan Annie and Gasoline Alley, it's as obsessive in its dedication to vernacular craft and hard work as A.P. Carter himself. Frank Young and David Lasky have spun a work of visual music that will replay in your head and heart well after you've finished reading it."—Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/artist of Maus “Charming, faithful, and resonant . . . will charm the pants off you.” —The Comics Journal “Lasky’s gorgeous artwork animates the story and evokes a mood that mirrors the era and the music.” —NPR.org “Pure pleasure for anyone interested in music history.” —The Seattle Times “Cracking open The Carter Family feels like putting on a vintage 78: moody hearty Americana emanates hauntingly. Enlivening this graphic biography of the legendary country music family are both Frank M. Young’s dialogue, which replicates the vernacular to a T but oh so naturally, and David Lasky’s understated and elegant illustrations which resonate like the music they depict.” —HeebMagazine.com
Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band
Christian Staebler - 2019
They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.Created with the cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paolini with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone provides a voice to a people long neglected in American history.
Snowpiercer: The Escape
Jacques Lob - 1982
Originally published in French, this marks the first time that Snowpiercer will be available in English. In a harsh, uncompromisingly cold future where Earth has succumbed to treacherously low temperatures, the last remaining members of humanity travel on a train while the outside world remains encased in ice. The surviving community are not without a social hierarchy; those that travel at the front of the train live in relative luxury whilst those unfortunate enough to be at the rear remain clustered like cattle in claustrophobic darkness. Yet, things are about to change aboard the train as passengers become disgruntled... The movie Snowpiercer, due for release in 2014, is directed by Joon-ho Bong (The Host) and is already causing a stir with parallels to 1984 and Animal Farm.
Paracuellos, Volume 1
Carlos Giménez - 1975
Paracuellos is a work of great courage, created at a time when telling the truth about Spain's political past could get one killed. It is arguably the most important graphic memoir ever created in comics. Carlos Gimenez s autobiographical account of the plight of children in post-World War II Fascist Spain has won virtually every comics award in Europe, including Best Album at the 1981 Angouleme Festival, and the Heritage Award atAngouleme in 2010. In the late 1930s when Spanish fascists led by Franco, and aided by Hitler and Mussolini, overthrew the elected government, almost 200,000 men and women fell in battle, were executed, or died in prison. Their orphaned children and others ripped from the homes of the defeated were shuttled from Church-run home to home and fed a steady diet of torture and disinformation by a totalitarian state bent on making them productive citizens. Carlos Gimenez was one of those children. In 1975, after Franco s death, Carlos began to tell his story. Breaking the code of silence proved to be a milestone, both for the comics medium and for a country coming to terms with its past. An illustrated essay by Carmen Moreno-Nuno, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky, places the comics in historical perspective. The stories transcend just being about a historical moment in Spain. Their humanity will speak to everyone. The stories are heartbreakers, but Carlos never loses his sense of humor. William Stout"
Stuck Rubber Baby
Howard Cruse - 1995
Toland’s story is both deeply personal and epic in scope, as his search for identity plays out against the brutal fight over segregation, an unplanned pregnancy and small-town bigotry, aided by an unforgettable supporting cast.
Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me
Sarah Leavitt - 2010
What do you do when your outspoken, passionate, and quick-witted mother starts fading into a forgetful, fearful woman? In this powerful graphic memoir, Sarah Leavitt reveals how Alzheimer's disease transformed her mother Midge--and her family--forever.
Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir
Tyler Feder - 2020
She shares the important post-death firsts, such as celebrating holidays without her mom, the utter despair of cleaning out her mom's closet, ending old traditions and starting new ones, and the sting of having the "I've got to tell Mom about this" instinct and not being able to act on it. This memoir, bracingly candid and sweetly humorous, is for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.
The Property
Rutu Modan - 2013
As they get to know modern Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren’t a little different than what her grandmother led her to believe.
The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography
Tetsu Saiwai - 2008
Born in 1935 to a peasant family in a small village, Tenzin Gyatso was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. In 1950, His Holiness assumed full political power when China invaded Tibet-a tragedy that forever changed him and shaped his efforts on behalf of world peace, for which he was award the Nobel Peace Prize.
War of Streets and Houses
Sophie Yanow - 2013
The brutal police response and their violent tactics trigger an exploration of urban planning and its hidden connections to military strategies. Marshal Bugeaud’s urban warfare tactics in Algeria, Haussmann’s plan for Paris, planning and repression in the New World; theory and personal experience collide into an ambitious and poetic cartoon memoir.Sophie Yanow was born north of San Francisco in 1987. In 2011 she moved to Montreal, and with the Colosse collective published In Situ, her acclaimed autobiographical comics series. She was an invited artist- researcher for the Canadian Center for Architecture’s “C for Condo” workshop, and her work has been exhibited throughout the US and Canada. She lives in Montreal.
A Child's Life: Other Stories
Phoebe Gloeckner - 1998
This edition includes eight pages of new material.Long respected as one of the finest and most original of today's underground comics artists, Gloeckner shows both technical artistry and tremendous range—from her sly, lurid, and brilliantly colored posters for rock groups to her textbook-quality medical illustrations; from her sharp naturalistic juxtapositions for The Atrocity Exhibition (J.G. Ballard) to the signature comics for which she is best known.Pages include both black and white and color comics, some that were published before in obscure comic books, and some of her classics in addition to new stories. In detailed, nuanced panels, these strips depict the isolation, horror, and disappointment—but also the revolutionary, transformative power—of young women trapped in circumstances ringed with drugs and sexual abuse. Gloeckner continues as a major literary and visual artist.
Why I Killed Peter
Olivier Ka - 2006
He was cool. He was funny. He was no priest, just a regular guy. It’s like I had another uncle. A great one, who laughed, who sang, who tickled. Until he took us for summer camp. Until we were so close, temptation came in the picture.” Based on a true story that the writer experienced himself. A very moving, topical and important work, sensitively presented.
Dark Night: A True Batman Story
Paul Dini - 2016
The Caped Crusader has been the all-abiding icon of justice and authority for generations. But in this surprising original graphic novel, we see Batman in a new light—as the savior who helps a discouraged man recover from a brutal attack that left him unable to face the world. In the 1990s, legendary writer Paul Dini had a flourishing career writing the hugely popular Batman: The Animated Series and Tiny Toon Adventures. Walking home one evening, he was jumped and viciously beaten within an inch of his life. His recovery process was arduous, hampered by the imagined antics of the villains he was writing for television including the Joker, Harley Quinn and the Penguin. But despite how bleak his circumstances were, or perhaps because of it, Dini also always imagined the Batman at his side, chivvying him along during his darkest moments. A gripping graphic memoir of one writer’s traumatic experience and his deep connection with his creative material, DARK NIGHT: A TRUE BATMAN STORY is an original graphic novel that will resonate profoundly with fans. Art by the incredible and talented Eduardo Risso (100 BULLETS, TRANSMETROPOLITAN).
One Hundred Demons
Lynda Barry - 2002
Name that Demon!!! Freaky boyfriends! Shouting Moms! Innocence betrayed! These are some of the pickled demons you'll meet as Lynda Barry mixes the true and the un-true into something she calls "autobificitionalography." From her nattering and intolerant/loving Filipina grandmother to the ex-boyfriend from hell who had lice, Lynda Barry's demons jump out of these pages and double-dare you to speak their names. Called by Time magazine "a work of art as well as literature," One Hundred Demons has been hailed for its shimmering watercolor images and unforgettable stories about life's little monsters.
Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography
Andy Helfer - 2006
Malcolm X battled the horrifying legacy of African American slavery throughout his short life. Malcolm's passage from troubled boy to influential, outspoken man and finally to tragic hero is captured in the drawings of the award-winning graphic artist Randy DuBurke, and the heartrending history of the era is distilled to its essence by Andrew Helfer, editor of two Eisner Award-winning books. This is American history as you've never seen it before.