King

King #3

by Ho Che Anderson

The third and final volume in Ho Che Anderson's award-winning comics biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Praised for its vivid recreation of this tumultuous period in US history and for its accuracy in depicting King's personal and public lives, this volume picks up where 2002's second volume left LBJ signs the Civil Rights bill into law and Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference begin their northern campaign by moving into the Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale, Illinois. After a largely unsuccessful effort to reduce racial tensions and organize Black resistance into a democratic political force, King is persuaded to go to Memphis to lead a march in support of the city's sanitation workers. The march turns violent, but in order to maintain his credibility, King decides to go back and try to lead a second, peaceful march. His return trip to Memphis will be the last trip King makes. Anderson's writing and art illuminates King's deeply felt, personal commitment to a public cause as well as the wider political eruptions the country was experiencing through a rare and skillful combination of realistic and expressionistic imagery and naturalistic dialogue. This is a respectful, unsparing, truthful biography of a man and his times that captures the moral and political gravitas of the cause as well as its human dimension. Anderson's successful use of comics to tell a major work of history has drawn favorable comparisons to Art Spiegelman's A Survivor's Tale and Joe Sacco's Palestine . 68 pages b/w and 8 pages color.

Genres: Biography, Graphic Novels

Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

Ho Che Anderson was born London, UK, but moved to Canada with his family when he was five years old. He was named after the Vietnamese and Cuban revolutionaries Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. He has become one of the most prominent artists of black American comix, and is affiliated with Fantagraphics Books. Ho Che Anderson authored the impressive comix biography 'King on Martin Luther King', and the erotic 'I Want to be your Dog' in 1996. He co-produced the grungy subculture series 'Pop Life' (1998) in collaboration with fellow artist Wilfred Santiago.

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graphic Biography

[Tripmastermonkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

all of a sudden, this last installment is partly in color, which was distracting, and the text was virtually unreadable because of it in some places, which made getting into the last book very hard. ultimately, a satisfying read, exploring the tension between the nonviolence and black power movements.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful visual storytelling, including some great speeches from King himself. The author apologizes for being visually all over the map, but says it was his way of telling the story. I can respect that, but it did make the book extremely hard to follow. Well worth the investment to try, though.