If you order before May 31 2013, bulk orders of the Canadian, union-made comic “May Day: A Graphic History of Protest” will receive 40% off and free shipping!
Download information as a PDF here: GHP Callout Fall 2012
Illustrate! Educate! Organize!
Get involved with the Graphic History Project
Paul Buhle and the Graphic History Collective are calling for activists, artists, academics, and designers to participate in the Graphic History Project, a project about graphic activism. Our intention is to produce new politically relevant graphic histories to help inspire resistance and action.
To get a sense of what we are looking for and hoping to encourage on a mass scale please see the first flagship project: a graphic history of the 1936 Flint auto occupations by Ethan Heitner and edited by Paul Buhle. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=630. This “comic” masterfully mixes history, art, and radical politics with an eye to inspiring present day struggles informed by the past.
Graphic novels are fast becoming a popular and accessible tool of activism in the 21st century. From Persepolis (Paris 2000), Wobblies: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World (New York 2005), and A Dangerous Woman: A Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman (New York 2008) to A People’s History of American Empire (New York 2008), Pour en Finir Avec Novembre(Montréal 2011), The Anti-Capitalist Comic Book (Vancouver 2012), and May Day: A Graphic History of Protest (Toronto 2012), it is clear that graphic novels are bringing our radical past to life in new and exciting ways.
How can you get involved?
Our vision is to collect, on a volunteer basis, a number of short—10 pages max—graphic histories of resistance that illuminate the various ways peoples from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences have fought for economic and social justice around the world. From organizing unions and waging militant strikes to forming women’s and queer caucus and erecting barricades on indigenous reserves/reservations to block gas oil pipelines, we would like to highlight peoples important stories of struggle throughout history. Ideally, graphic histories will be made available together online for free in a series or, depending on final submission, collected, edited, and published with a progressive press. To get a sense of what is out there currently that we would want to build on and add a historical element to, is the Cartoon Movement’s comic section: http://www.cartoonmovement.com/comic.
What is the next step?
To get involved with what we are loosely calling the “Graphic History Project” please email graphichistorycollective@gmail.com indicating the skills you are willing to bring to the project and provide a sample of your work (if relevant), along with an overview of your ideas and how they fit into the project.
We are looking for pitches or ideas by 21 November 2012. Projects do not have to be completed until 2013.
There are multiple ways of participating:
Authors: If you are an author with an idea, please also make a formal proposal outlining your idea for a (roughly 10 page) political graphic history.
Illustrators: please indicate if you are an illustrator wanting to be paired up with an author.
Illustrating/writing teams: If you are part of an illustrating/writing team (or do both tasks on your own), we ask that you make a formal submission including a sample of your work and a short outline of your proposed 10 page graphic history, specifying its political message and relevance.
Communications: If you are a graphic designer or are offering up web and communications skills to help polish and promote our work please let us know.
We want to start our work quickly, so the deadline for submissions will be 21 November 2012 with an intended completion date for all pieces by 1 September 2013.
In love and solidarity!
More info:
For more about Paul Buhle see: http://brown.edu/Departments/AmCiv/people/facultypage.php?id=10137
To see some of Paul Bulhle’s graphic history projects see: http://www.amazon.com/A-Peoples-History-American-Empire/dp/0805087443
The Graphic History Collective did a written interview with Open Book Toronto about the May Day comic.
“Today the Collective takes on the Open Book Dirty Dozen, a free-form interview where authors and creators are asked to share 12 unexpected facts about themselves. Read on to hear from the Collective about bicycles, bookstores and secret recipes.”
Read the full interview here: http://www.openbooktoronto.com/news/dirty_dozen_with_graphic_history_collective
May Day! See you in the streets.
Preview of May Day: A Graphic History of Protest is featured on Open Door Toronto today.
Stay tuned for a longer interview published with them on May 10th.
This morning, your inbox (and the inboxes of 100,000 other people) might include news from LabourStart. We send sincere thanks for their promotion about another way to pick up May Day: A Graphic History of Protest. Purchasing it from this link, Union Communication Services means you’re buying from a unionized online bookseller, and helps LabourStart (which kicks some ass) with their campaigns – so it is a double win!
Buy online:
These people said nice things about us. We’d be too shy to talk to them at a party, so a big ‘thanks’ for us over here at the Graphic History Collective.
“May Day is a grand experiment in reviving the traditional holiday of working people, with lively comic art adding a new dimension to themes that need badly to be seen and understood by younger generations.”
—Paul Buhle, author of A People’s History of American Empire“May Day is history with a twist: entertaining, insightful, informative, and seen through a critical lens.”
—Florencia Berinstein, director, Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts“A lively, clenched-fist people’s history that leaps off the page with a feisty spirit and brilliant artwork.”
—Craig Heron and Steve Penfold, authors of The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada Continue reading
The Graphic History Collective is thrilled that May Day: a graphic history of protest is being published on May 1st 2012 by Between the Lines Press.
We are trying to spread the word through our networks and the labour movement. Bulk orders over 50 before May 30th receive 40% off. We have had many union locals purchasing
pre-orders of 200+ already.
Order online here: http://www.btlbooks.com/book/may-day
On Rabble.ca today:
“An announcement of spring, dancing around a pole, crowning a queen, fertility rituals, assorted festivities — joyful community celebrations of the month of May can be traced back through the ages.
May Day or International Workers’ Day — another way of observing the first day of May throughout the world — is not quite as old, and has been more contentious. As political economist Leo Panitch argues, for the last one hundred years, “May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe.” The day, with its own themes of renewal and change, represents a history of protest.”
Read the review here:
http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2012/04/may-day-graphic-novel-retells-old-stories-struggle
And ordering information is here: http://www.btlbooks.com/book/may-day
The first project of the Graphic History Collective is May Day: a graphic history of protest.
Written by Robin Folvik, Sean Carleton and illustrated by Sam Bradd and Trevor McKilligan.
Foundational support by Dr. Mark Leier and the Labour Studies Department of Simon Fraser University.
May Day: a graphic history of protest, 24 page comic
