Broken Frontier

This coming weekend, April 13-14, Brown University opens “Comics and Culture,” an exhibition of comic art exploring the history of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  The exhibition is curated by Brown students under the auspices of the Public Humanities program, and is composed of pages and panels from the forthcoming Students for a
Democratic Society: A Graphic History (Hill and Wang), scripted by Harvey Pekar and edited by Paul Buhle, senior lecturer in American civilization and history at Brown.

In conjunction with the exhibition’s opening, a series of lectures and discussions on comic art will be held on Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14.  The keynote address will be given by Harvey Pekar on Friday at 4:00 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001.  All the events are free and open to the public. 

Professor Buhle offered these thoughts on the conference and exhibition, the forthcoming graphic history of the SDS, and the political promise of graphic histories.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Is this the first conference of its kind at Brown?

PAUL BUHLE: At Brown University, as at other schools, interest in comic art has increased greatly over the past few years and professors, so often slow to respond to student and community interest, have been responding. In the Spring of 2005, a centenary event for the Industrial Workers of the World featured the Traveling Wobbly Show, but discussions did not extend to the comic art of that show. In the Fall of 2005, my "Social Movements" class mounted a show of 20 blow-ups from the varied work of Ben Katchor, who spoke to the audience of locals as well as students (and the very occasional professor) at the John Nicholas Brown Center, the effective comic-art gallery on campus.

In February of this year, the same venue featured a Hernandez Bros show, with Jaime in attendance in a delightful, entertaining way, about his evolution as artist. This show was brought together by Prof. Ralph Rodriguez of the English and American Civilization Departments, probably the first Brown professor to teach a course in the Graphic Novel.

But it must be said that the upcoming "Comics and Culture" show with artists talking about their work, a notable scholar of comics (Kent Worcester), the scripter of most of the exhibited work (Harvey Pekar) and the exhibit, altogether marks a first.

BF: What is the focus of Saturday's "Comics and Culture" symposium and workshops?  Can you give us a peek into some of the ideas that will be discussed?

PB: Harvey Pekar will have spoken at length about his work as a comics scripter the day before, as keynoter. On Saturday 4/14, the real concern will be, first, to have four comics artists speak about their work; and second, to have two PowerPoint presentations of a historical character: Nick Thorkelson on radical comics since the 1910s, and Kent Worcester on the breakthroughs of the Underground years and the legacy of 1960s comics for today.

BF: Tell us a bit about Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History.  How did Pekar come to be the writer for it?

PB: This is a very interesting and complex question that I can only answer briefly. I began the project on my own, working with Gary Dumm as primary artist, and gathering stories of a mostly local and personal nature, postponing the major narrative til the end of the process. Harvey happened to call me up and mentioned his availability. I jumped at the opportunity!

And that's the story of this book as well as two following, with our collaboration. He scripts about 60-70 percent, the artists script some of their own drawings, I do a bit, and I run herd on the process. It works. I'm really lucky to have such creative people to work with. And to succeed in comic art without any notable talent of my own!

There is another answer to this question, however. SDS began again, 37 years after its collapse (I attended the final, fateful convention in Chicago in 1969), and as the founder of Radical America, the closest approximation of a journal that SDS had (also publisher of Radical America Komiks, the 3rd of the underground genre and the launch of Rip Off Press), I took a great interest and have thrown myself into it ever since.  The idea of making an SDS comic history doubtless comes from Wobblies: A Graphic History two years ago. It was a great process, and I was happy with its political uses but also with its stress upon culture and its development of artistic promise in comic art.

BF: Didn't the SDS, at the end of the Vietnam era, go out on kind of a bad note?  Is it really time for a return of the SDS?

PB: Every counterpart to the original SDS, across Europe and beyond, collapsed by the early 1970s after leading a glorious opposition to the existing regimes' policies. The youth movements could not find enough allies, and fell back upon themselves. But as one of the Brown SDSers, a first generation US citizen, Latina from New Jersey, observed, "Professor Buhle, you had your war to protest in the 1960s, now we have ours." So of
course it's time: the empire has overextended itself again, the slaughter continues, and young people are aroused in ever-increasing numbers. SDS now has about 3000 members and 250 chapters, and is growing daily.

       

BF: I've been very interested by the SDS website's use of comics.  What is the idea behind this?  What role do comics play in political dialogue and mobilization?  Do you think groups like www.moveon.org could do as much with comics?

PB: We don't know yet what role comics can play in political mobilization. The inclusion of comics in the SDS website (www.nextleftnotes.net) was my idea. Soon the entire traveling exhibit can be seen on this site. I expect that any progressive or radical website could do much better with comics, but I don't expect it to happen soon.

BF: You are currently serving as the editor of a number of nonfiction comic books, not only about the SDS, but about Emma Goldman, Che Guevara, etc.  What can graphic histories accomplish that the more common prose histories cannot?

PB: The Emma Goldman book has been announced for Sept. by New Press, the SDS book will be out in January, Verso has announced the Che biography for February, the long-delayed adaptation of Howard Zinn's People’s History is slated for Spring and the biography of Isadora Duncan for the Fall. An adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working lies behind, as does The Beats. The last two are collaborations with Harvey Pekar. Forgive me for not mentioning the artists, who are, of course, the most important factor. 

One obvious point for the future and ongoing work: young people learn more through visual images and prose. Anyone who teaches these days recognizes this development, but most waste time bemoaning it.  But of course, there's something else: the elevation of comic art to its deserved status.

BF: How can we change our world through comics?

PB: How to change the world through comics: to produce the best, most interesting comics we can, at whatever place we are. I don't want to speak for anyone else's work. But I do want to mention some of the comic artists who I am working with, and who earn my admiration all the time: Harvey Pekar and Trina Robbins (scripters and my heroes), Jeffrey Lewis, Jay Kinney, Mike Konopacki, Jerome Neukirch, Chris Cardinale, Nicole Schulman, Peter Kuper, Spain Rodriguez, Sharon Rudahl, Sabrina Jones, Seth Tobocman, Nick Thorkelson, Tom Keough, Lance Tooks, Summer McClinton, Ed Piskor, and I sure hope I didn't leave anybody out!

Further details and a complete conference schedule can be found here:

http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2006-07/06-126.html