June is a wrap!

 

 

We had a fabulous night talking with David F. Walker, author of The Life of Frederick Douglass. Despite a horrendous heatwave in Portland (and an eventual power outage!), Mr. Walker provided so much insight on the process it took to bring this graphic biography to fruition, along with how it has compared to other comics projects he's working on and his drive to bring a more inclusive history to a wider audience through his work.

As always we want to highlight some of the works referenced in the conversation for your further reading enjoyment:

• Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American by John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier.
• Bitter Root series. Story by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene; illustrated by Rico Renzi and Sanford Greene.
  
• Black Panther Party: A Graphic History. By David F. Walker; illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson.
  
• Slaughterhouse-Five. Story by Kurt Vonnegut; adapted by Ryan North; illustrated by Albert Monteys.
• To Kill a Mockingbird. Story by Harper Lee; adapted and illustrated by Fred Fordham.
• A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner.
• Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices by the Legendary Cartoonist by Will Eisner. 
• My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf.
• Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf.
• Paying the Land by Joe Sacco.
• Big Black: Stand at Attica. Story by Frank "Big Black" Smith and Jared Reinmuth; illustrated by Améziane.
• March trilogy. Story by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin; illustrated by Nate Powell.

Thank you all for making a great start to our 2021 Big Book Challenge! If you aren't already on our mailing list, email reference@ucitylibrary.org to join--that is where you'll find the Zoom invites for upcoming discussions. In July, we embark on The Good Lord Bird by James McBride and continue on in The Portable Frederick Douglass. 

• The Good Lord Bird--discussing Parts One and Two. Monday, July 26, 7 p.m.
• The Portable Frederick Douglass--discussing "Speeches" (pp. 195-413 in the print edition). Wednesday. July 28, 7 p.m.
  

Parable of the Sower Gets Graphic

Calling all graphic novel enthusiasts! Interested in getting a visual take on our reading this summer? Just this year, Damian Duffy and John Jennings published a graphic novel adaptation for Parable of the Sower. The pair created an adaptation of Octavia Butler's standalone novel, Kindred (originally published in 1979--the adaptation came out in 2017), AND they have plans for Parable of the Talents as well. Something to look forward to indeed!

John Jennings has an illustrious career in comics. He has worked to highlight representation and inclusiveness in a largely white industry with a focus on Black speculative art. It is fitting that he was tapped by the publisher Abrams to be the artist for Octavia Butler's work. You can learn more about his career in this feature from Publisher's Weekly.

For those interested in a peek into the team's creation process, Tanya Ballard Brown of NPR's Codeswitch, highlighted the publication of the Kindred graphic novel adaptation in 2017. 

You can find their work in both print and digital format at the library.