Tag Archives: Israel

Paul Buhle on Comics: Street Noise: ‘Crash Course’ and ‘Power Born of Dreams’

CRASH COURSE by Woodrow Phoenix

POWER BORN OF DREAMS by Mohammad Sabaaneh

Crash Course: If You Want To Get Away With Murder Buy A Car. By Woodrow Phoenix. Street Noise Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2020. 208pp. $16.99.

Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine. By Mohammad Sabaaneh. Street Noise Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2021. 118pp, $15.99.

Street Noise Makes Noise (but in a good way)

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

This is a review about two outstanding comics. But it is first of all a review of a new comics publisher. A veteran of the book trade, founder and publisher Liz Frances, jumped into the fast-changing world of GNs a few years ago, after a considerable career in the publishing industry. She has explained to interviewers that she wants to create books that count, that have both passion and social value. Certainly so, but I see these two books rather differently. Not that I doubt her explanation for a minute. What I think I perceive is a glimpse at a new generation of comic artists and their art.

Neither of these books is particularly close to traditional comics styles, the kind that my older sisters lovingly employed, when I was six, to teach me how to read. I remember more or less precisely that moment in my life. Looking back from a distance of about seventy years, I can easily grasp the big change. Comics are now certain to be “read” in very different ways, sometimes on devices that do not look or act like printed books, although the books on review here are printed. The real change, however, reflects how artists themselves learn and come to see themselves. As Parsons comics teacher and comic artist Ben Katchor reflected in an interview book, a few years ago, the internal logic of the young artist is no longer the world of the drawing board nor any other fixed spot.

Crash Course author/artist Woodrow Phoenix, a British citizen, whose parents emigrated from Guyana, where the CIA overthrew a leftwing government in 1960 and perhaps arranged for the assassination of the rebellious Walter Rodney in 1980, is a very radical person in his own way. He delivers a powerful message to the heads of readers, certainly to mine, in pounding page after page.

Page from CRASH COURSE

How does he do it? Because he explores in words and expressionist-like drawings the things we know, but do not want to think very much about our cars and our driving. Despite being a key form of death and injury around the world, not even to speak of vast environmental damage, driving has dug itself into our brains. Even if we spend maximum time (as I do) either biking or walking, for most of us, the car is always there. It gets us to the grocery store or to a doctor’s appointment, or to “get out of the city” for a while to visit friends and relatives. Not to mention moving distances for major changes in our lives and work. All these could certainly be done without cars. Given contemporary arrangements, only with real difficulty.

But there’s far, far more to it, and at the psychological core, cars have been ingeniously devised and stylized to make up for the insecurities and shortcomings of our individual lives. “Individual” is key here, as he explains, because each driver lives within a second skin, competing with others in the same circumstances for safety, speed, and psychological reinforcement. Merely reciting the names of models recalls the vicarious excitement, exoticism, and terribly real speed, made all the more attractive because the depictions in every media never show anyone in the real, constant traffic jam. In every hour of an average commute, twenty minutes is spent locked in very boring lines, rousing the desire to get ahead of every competing car and to cut corners by going ten or twenty miles per hour over the law or passing in the breakdown line.

All this, as Phoenix makes so vivid, is dramatized by the sheer eeriness of a vast but empty parking lot. And just as vividly by the violent use of cars to run down political demonstrators, acts now apparently made non-punishable. Cars have created non-spaces across the world, at the same time that they have become weapons, in many ways the weapons of daily use.

From POWER BORN OF DREAMS

Power Born of Dreams begins in prison, an Israeli prison, and that is the most fundamental fact of this book. The second most fundamental is the artist’s technique: linocuts, recalling a past era when leftwing artists of the 1920s struggled to make a living outside of the magazine world. As the artist says, “I was unable to carve my name onto the walls of my prison cell.” So, he chooses a kind of carving, to carve the stories of imprisoned Palestinians, on paper.

The lines are spare, the background black. Interrogation goes with confinement, and each reinforce the other. Israeli companies have made themselves world-famous with “crowd control” techniques, tried out mainly in the West Bank against Palestinians protesting the loss of their homes and their land. The artist’s road out of mental confinement is his art. He can see a tree outside and become a tree, for a moment. Then come back to his own reality behind bars.

He is, in real life, a citizen without a country. No Palestinian who lived in East Jerusalem can be allowed Israeli citizenship, not even marriage with an Israeli can make that happen. Leaving East Jerusalem can easily preclude returning, ever. And even remaining in your home means awaiting the dreaded moment when you will be driven out by a would-be Israeli settler insisting that not even a long family history in this spot, this house, entitles you to remain there.

A large part of the narrative is the deeply personal, deeply disturbing story of the artist himself. During the Second Intifada, he set himself on the task of drawing portraits of the dead, drawing the victim in the mortuary, then giving the portrait to the family the next day, at the funeral. A young boy, the brother of one of the victims, asks, “Can you make my portrait?” The artist says no, he only draws the dead, and this boy surely has a long life ahead of him, but learns days later that the boy, too, has become a martyr, trying to avenge his killing of his brother.

“They tore down the tree and destroyed the nest?” is his dialogue among two birds. “Imagine living without a home.” This leads, as it must, to an apparently tragic conclusion: the settlers slice up an imagined Palestinian homeland, in the geographical territory agreed to at Camp David, into slices smaller and smaller, divided from each other so that travel and work, not to mention emergency medical care, become almost impossible.

Things could change, at least theoretically. But a humane outcome could not alter the power of Mohammad Sabaaneh’s artistic descriptions, their capacity, we hope, to open hearts of readers everywhere.

Paul Buhle

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Filed under Comics, Comics Reviews, Graphic Novel Reviews, Paul Buhle

Review: MIKE’S PLACE, published by First Second

Mikes-Place-First-Second

Jack is a journalist in search of a story. It’s 2003 and Iraq is grabbing all the headlines. However, a set of circumstances finds him considering a story set in the Middle East that does not involve conflict. Enter Mike’s Place, a haven for the young and young-at-heart to unwind and enjoy good spirits and great rhythm and blues right off the beach in Tel Aviv. It will be a decidedly odd twist of fate that places Jack in what proves a most compelling story of conflict, and unbridled optimism.

Building upon their work on the documentary, “Blues by the Beach,” Jack Baxter and Joshua Faudem have taken what they placed on the screen and reworked it for the comics medium. Along with the thoughtful and energetic art of Koren Shadmi, you have a narrative that naturally flows with a life of its own. Shadmi has carefully developed believable characters that the reader hooks into. This is a story, as the cover makes clear, about a bombing. But not only about a bombing.

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With countless acts of violence and terror in the world, it can all seem a blur. As the characters in this story often say, you have to create your own way of coping amid terror. Throughout, the regulars at Mike’s Place are being interviewed for a documentary exploring the real Israel. One standout is Dominique, a beautiful and lively waitress. Her story, on and off camera, is pivotal. When asked about how she copes with bombings, she says that you need short-term memory as an “immune system.” You deal with it at the time and then move on. She proudly states, “That’s the Israeli way.”

But, how then do you make sense of it all if you’re constantly moving on? Well, you don’t completely forget. It seems that a story like the one about Mike’s Place becomes more powerful with each revisit. It seems that Baxter and Faudem had to process what they experienced and recorded into two separate mediums, as a documentary and then as a graphic novel. You sift through the details and sharpen the focus. What happens, once you have a graphic novel of this caliber, is that you find a greater truth.

You have here a straightforward cadence as the story is presented in comics. The layout foundation on the page is two panels on three rows with variations as needed. This is classic comics storytelling and it works quite well. You don’t need much else in many cases. For this story, this framework sort of mimics the camera in a documentary and evokes reportage in general. In fact, you don’t really notice the panel structure as you are immersed into action. Again, Shadmi does a remarkable job with bringing to life these characters. And, as you’ll see yourself, this graphic novel does a remarkable job of clearing away the clutter and getting to the heart of the matter.

You see here Mike’s Place become the center of conflict. A happy-go-lucky gathering spot, seemingly existing out of time and place, comes crashing down. This is the story of such a place. And how people come together once the unthinkable has happened.

“Mikes’ Place” is a 192-page hardcover published by First Second Books. For more details, visit our friends at First Second right here. You can also find this book here, here, and here.

If you are in the Seattle area, be sure to stop by Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery this Saturday, June 13, and meet the book’s cartoonist, Koren Shadmi. This will be a fun event which includes the debut of a new book by local cartoonist, Greg Stump, “Disillusioned Illusions,” published by Fantagraphics. For more details, go right here.

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Filed under Comics, Documentaries, First Second, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Israel, Middle East

Review: THE REALIST by Asaf Hanuka

Hanuka-The-Realist

For the last four years, Asaf Hanuka has been doing auto-biographical webcomics about his life in Tel Aviv, Israel, entitled, “The Realist.” In many ways, this is a pretty straightforward narrative but, as in any life, things can gain, at any moment, a razor-sharp specificity and intensity. This is, after all, one of the most watched war-torn areas in the world.

So, when a morning can simply consist of a father goading his little boy to eat his toast, that already carries potentially more weight than a similar moment somewhere else. That said, Hanuka seems to carry himself like a man on a mission wherever he might live. The Realist has now been collected for the first time in English as a graphic novel, published by Archaia, an imprint of BOOM! Studios.

The-Realist-Hanuka

Comparable to the work of R. Crumb and Daniel Clowes, Hanuka has a keen sense for depictions of everyday life. What really matters is that he’s FUNNY!

I actually laughed out loud from reading his comics. He wears his version of the average Joe quite well. There’s one strip where we follow Hanuka throughout his day, as if following the daily routine of a computer from start up to sleep mode. At each point of the day, he has options to choose: engage or ignore the bus driver, the neighbor, the co-worker, his son, his wife. End. Repeat the next day. It strikes close to home, and it’s hilarious.

They say that if if you try to call attention to your merits, people will gladly ignore you. However, if you revel in self-deprecation, suddenly you have a following. Well, Hanuka definitely has a following. But it’s more than having readers relate to your problems. Hanuka has an engaging style with his artwork. It’s a crisp rendering of his life that you can’t help but want to know more about.

“The Realist” is an original 192-page hardcover graphic novel, priced at $24.99, arriving in comic shops from Archaia on April 22nd with a cover by creator Asaf Hanuka. For more details, visit our friends at Boom! Studios right here.

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Filed under Archaia Entertainment, Asaf Hanuka, Boom! Studios, Comics, Family, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Israel, Middle East, War, Webcomics

Graphic Novel Review: JERUSALEM by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi

Jerusalem-First-Second-2013

How ironic if “Jerusalem” were not to receive wide recognition given that it is helping to set the standard for the relatively young literary art form that we know as the graphic novel. The general public is still getting to know it, compare it, and see what it can do. Let them read “Jerusalem,” the new graphic novel by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi.

“Jerusalem” provides a rich and dense texture to a narrative that invites a thorough reading. You can jump around and check it out but you’ll soon see that this is a multi-layered tapestry. It follows the pace of a good novel without the pretension. It also brings to mind the beautifully melancholy films of François Truffaut. Yakin and Bertozzi bring the colossal subject of Jerusalem down to a basic human level that we all immediately recognize and relate with. The story begins and ends with Motti, a little boy who only seeks love and understanding in his life. You don’t have to worry at all about the history. What you need to know it presented for you in crisp and concise ways.

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This is a story of family. It is these characters, connected by blood ties, that we rely upon to provide us with some truth, something to hang on to, as we witness the chaos and bloodshed that ensues. Compared to its 5,000 year history, Jerusalem was occupied by the British Empire for only a blip of time. But it was what came from that blip that continues to haunt us all to this very day. It was after World War I that Great Britain took control of land from the Ottoman Empire that was to become Palestine. Our story begins with the British Mandate, on the wane in 1946, giving way to a UN Partition Plan in 1947 that gives way to civil war and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. The British occupation of a land and people it had no interest or understanding in was a powder keg just waiting to ignite.

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In Motti’s immediate family, he has three brothers who all respond to the times with fervor. There is Avraham, the war hero, who becomes a Communist. There is David, who works the system to help Jews enter Palestine. And the is Ezra who is compelled to resort to terrorism. Motti is but a boy lost in the shuffle. His father is extremely distant, as present as a ghost. His mother is so stern there is little evidence of tenderness. And he has a sister, Devorah, very quiet and afraid. If not for a cousin, Johnathan, there would be no real friend for Motti. And this is not an easy friendship to maintain since Motti’s father, Izak, is at odds with his brother, Yakov.

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Nick Bertozzi has a drawing style that is at once gritty and warm. But it’s more than that. Bertozzi has honed a style that looks effortless and conveys something of the human soul even in his most simple depictions. Whether it is buildings, or people, or specific characters, there is much to admire about his vigorous, expressive, yet well controlled, style.

Boaz Yakin’s script gives a human face to the conflict that arose as the State of Israel came into existence. We find characters compelled into action. There’s a very touching scene, for example, where the children gather to perform a wedding ceremony between two of them. They do this instinctively, from a need for love and order.

Motti, you will come to see, steals the show even though he appears to forever be pushed to the margins. He’s the little boy full of spirit and a willingness to fight. Just the sort of character you’d find in a film by François Truffaut, the creator of many wonderful films about misfits. There is magic in his films and there is magic in this graphic novel.

The graphic novel, of course, has made enormous strides over the years. We are moving past citing a select group of works as landmarks. The general public is working its way to looking forward to the next great graphic novel in the same manner as comics insiders do. “Jerusalem” has that special temperament about it, not self-conscious, not forced, just there to get the job done right. It is a quality that all readers will appreciate.

“Jerusalem” is published by First Second. Visit First Second here. “Jerusalem” is a 400-page hardcover, available as of April 16, 2013. You can get it here.

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Filed under Comics, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, History, Jewish History, Jews, Nick Bertozzi

DVD Review: THE FLAT

The-Flat-Arnon-Goldfinger-2013

In the big scheme of things, Nazi Germany is not exactly ancient history but, as this documentary makes resoundingly clear, people can be more than eager to turn a page and move on. “The Flat” demonstrates in so many ways how difficult it can be to find the truth to something once the dust has been allowed to settle. In the case of one Israeli filmmaker, Arnon Goldfinger, his life will never be the same once his grandmother has passed away and it is up to family members to sift through her belongings in her Tel Avi apartment. They find the usual clutter of old books, numerous handbags, shoes, and knick-knacks. It all appears rather quaint and humorous until old relics from the past emerge with a distinctive connection to Nazi Germany. What on earth, for instance, is someone to make of a series of old newspapers featuring “A Nazi Travels in Palestine”? It sounds like a sick joke but it’s far from it.

Documentaries sometimes take the rap for creating more drama than the subject would have generated on its own. Here you have an eager documentarian who, once confronted with bits of disturbing facts, keeps hunting for more facts, and then confirmation of facts, at an appropriate slow boil pace. The camerawork, the tone, the intention of this film feels like a close friend diligently attempting to figure out a problem rather than drama for drama’s sake. What Goldfinger discovers is that his grandparents were close friends with an SS officer and his wife. It was a friendship that lasted well after World War II. But why? Kurt Tuchler, the husband of Goldfinger’s grandmother, was a leader in the Zionist movement. And the SS officer was Leopold von Mildenstein, who promoted, so to speak, the Jewish establishment of a homeland in Palestine.

The story takes on an air of a good mystery as Goldfinger continues to push against polite resistance to reveal secrets. He has met his match with the two central players who seem to stand in his way. Goldfinger manages to strike up a friendship of sorts with none other than the daughter of Leopold von Mildenstein. Once Goldfinger has already made the viewer aware of enough evidence to indicate that Mildenstein was a high ranking Nazi official, his daughter maintains he was never a Nazi in the first place. This conflict is not something that Goldfinger will let stand and, in his own mild-mannered way, he will pursuit it. Then there is Goldfinger’s own mother who is more skeptical than supportive of her son. This conflict will not be left alone either as Goldfinger picks away to expose the truth. Goldfinger is self-aware and realizes what can be accomplished and what may not. At one point, he asks himself what he should do with what he’s discovered already. In the process, he reveals much about what people are willing to tolerate before they must ask themselves what to do with what they have discovered.

“The Flat” is currently available on DVD and you can find it here. Visit IFC Films here.

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Filed under Documentaries, Israel, Jewish History, Jews, Movie Reviews, Nazi Germany, Nazis, Palestine