Comics Grinder

RUN

SAVE IT FOR LATER

Nate Powell is an American graphic novelist and musician. His 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won an Ignatz Award and Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. He illustrated the March trilogy, an autobiographical series written by U.S. Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, which received the 2016 National Book Award, making Powell the first cartoonist to receive the award. Powell’s latest book is Save it for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest, published by Abrams and out April 6, 2021.

Today is especially newsworthy in connection with a Nate Powell interview as it was officially announced that Run, a new trilogy and a continuation of March will be coming out this August. Thankfully, Powell and I get to talk about that towards the end of this interview. Here is the news release today by The Associated Press:

NEW YORK — The award-winning series of graphic novels about congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis will continue a year after his death.

Abrams announced Tuesday that “Run: Book One” will be published Aug. 3, just over a year after Lewis died at age 80. As with the “March” trilogy, which traced Lewis’ growing involvement with the civil rights movement in the 1960s, “Run” features longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell as they shape a narrative around Lewis’ reflections. Comic artist L. Fury will assist with illustrations.

“Run: Book One” begins after the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

“Lewis recounts the highs and lows of a movement fighting to harness their hard-won legal protections to become an electoral force as the Vietnam War consumes the American political landscape — all while the forces of white supremacy gather to mount a decades-long campaign to destroy the dream of the ‘Beloved Community’ that John Lewis, Dr. King, and so many others worked to build,” according to Abrams.

Lewis, Aydin and Powell shared a National Book Award in 2016 for the third volume of the “March” trilogy.

How do we get to where we want to be when it comes to social justice and related matters? Well, as Nate Powell points out in our interview, we need to arrive at a shared objective reality. That seems to be a tall order now in the disrupted and fragmented world we live in dominated by social media and tribalism. But if we don’t find a way back, we just add to our struggle. Powell brings up Nelson Mandela’s call for a return to truth in order to achieve reconciliation. And that’s at the heart of so much of the conflict and misunderstanding, intentional or not. This is an interview that focuses on Powell’s new book, a set of essays that explore the American landscape since the Trump era and beyond. Will we move on? In the big picture, we Americans have no choice. It all hangs in the balance, including democracy as we know it.

This interview is very special as I appreciate Nate Powell’s work as working at the highest level of what we expect in the best of comics and graphic novels. A select group of cartoonists can truly call themselves graphic novelists. A select group of cartoonists reach a point where they truly are the go-to folks we can rely upon for solid compelling storytelling. Nate Powell, without a doubt, is in that group.