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Panel 1: Obama quote from NPR
Panel 8: Kessler appears in this video of the recent AIPAC 2010 Student summit at 3:56:
Above is a sample from my current project on human trafficking, called Borderland. The name comes from the translation of “Ukraine“. The comic, which will be around 32-36pages long, is made up of several different real-life stories recorded during interviews with victims at NGOs around the Ukraine over the past year. The finished pages will be B/W with a single spot colour over the top: search for “Roma” or “Trafficking” in the Apture search bar at the top of the page and you’ll find a complete page from a different story to see what I mean.
We’ll (my colleague and Fulbright Fellow Olga Trusova and I) then bundle those together with information and anti-trafficking resources (helplines, websites, NGO contact details), translate them into Ukrainian and Russian and disseminate them around Eastern Europe. I’ll be creating a dedicated page called ‘Trafficking” over the next few weeks that will feature more information on the project, as well as a gallery of pages, so be sure to come back and check it out.
For more info on the Conference of Presidents, click here. To read the whole AIPAC comic, visit the Religion Dispatches website.
Big thanks to Manos Symeonakis for completing the Greek translation of the Honduran Coup: A graphic history. I’ll be adding the full greek translation to the Honduras page soon, but for the time being, you’ll have to head over to his blog to read it. The comic will also be serialised in the Greek paper Epohi Weekly – I’ll post a link when it’s up.
That brings the total number of languages the comic is now available in to 5 (Danish, English, Greek, Japanese, Spanish), with French (and possibly Italian and Portuguese en route).
Friday, May 8th 1970 marked the 40th anniversary of the Hardhat Riots, the subject of my upcoming graphic novel. Read all about it on the Hardhats page, together with some new photo evidence from the day that recently surfaced. Also, I’ve created an official press release for the Honduran Coup comic on the Honduras page – the link is so please RT it and share it around!
Here’s my page from the Stanford Graphic Novel Project’s latest book, based on the amazing true story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, one of the few survivors of both of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan in the final days of WW2. Yamaguchi was actually at ground zero (within 3km of the blast’s epicentre) for both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations, and his testimony as to the after-effects and devasatation wrought by the blasts is truly unique. The above page is thanks to Topher, one of head thumbnailers and project managers, who gave me the Chris Ware-esque thumbnailed blueprint. Although I baulked at first, it was actually a lot of fun to pencil and I think the multiple actions contrasted with the near-silence of the page works especially well. More on the class’s amazing journey from conceiving of the graphic novel to getting it off to the printers (fingers crossed) within 6 months to follow next week. Once it’s done, that is. Here’s my original post about the project.
A bit more information on Monday’s big news about my Knight Fellowship: it’s essentially a year-long stint at Stanford university during which fellows are expected to develop a project thesis on a specific area of innovation within their journalistic field. Not to mention having full access to the gold mine of Stanford’s classes and resources, fellow Knights and students/faculty. My pitch, as you’ll see from the impressive line-up of project summaries, will involve the creation of a rich content digital comic, taking full advantage of the flexibility of the web’s infinite canvas along with its capacity to stream video, animation and include interactive elements. Once the fellowship begins in September I’ll start chronicling the development of the project as I tie its disparate elements together.
Speaking of innovation, one project that’s been slowly percolating over the last several months has been my work with Fulbright fellow Olga Trusova on raising awareness about human trafficking through digital/interactive comics, in conjunction with the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Olga’s been in the field since the end of last year, visiting NGOs in her native Ukraine and interviewing staff and victims who have dealt with the reality of trafficking first-hand. She then sends me her detailed notes which I translate into comics. We recently premiered the first comic at an NGO meeting in Kiev and are currently revising the artwork to incorporate the feedback, so I’ll post some finish panels sometime next week.
Karla Lara performing at Sunrise Cafe, SFO
Last week I made it down to the Sunrise Cafe in the mission to hear Honduran artist, performer and activist Karla Lara sing and report back on the situation in Honduras. It was a great chance to meet members of the resistance (local to SFO and Tegucigalpa), as well as promote the comic, which went down really well. I’ll be attending the Sunday May 16th meeting at the Berekely Fellowship of Unitarians to sell more comics and talk to delegates fresh from Honduras, so save the date if you’re in the bay area – more details to come. If this is the first you’ve heard of the Honduran comic, then click here to find out more.
The rest of the piece will be published next week by Religion Dispatches. As ever, see below for sources:
Panel 4: Rosen’s quote from this 2005 New Yorker article. The comment about Rosen’s past as an espionage defendant concerns his August 4, 2005 Indictment on suspicion of passing US govt information to Israel. Read more here.
Panel 5: quote from p2 of Kenen’s book, Israel’s Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington, available to read online here.
Big news: I am delighted, proud and excited to say that I have been awarded a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford 2010-11. For more, here’s the official press release. More on this when I come back down to earth.
Here’s the opening to my latest 3-page piece on the pro-Israel lobby in Washington – all of it should be up at Religion Dispatches in the next few days.
Sources: Panel 2: Attendance info from AIPAC’s website here, Clinton’s quote from the State Dept. website.
News, as ever, is below.
Recientemente he visto más visitas desde algunos países hispanohablantes, en lo que imagino tiene que ver con mi cómic sobre el golpe de estado hondureño. Si este es el caso, quiere ir aquí
para la versión española. Y no se olvida ir a mi pagina de facebook, en donde puedes registrar como seguidor de Archcomix para poder ponerse al día con todo mis cómics nuevos.
For the rest of you, see above for the latest hardhats panels. Sneak preview of the now almost finished AIPAC comic coming up tomorrow.
