FORMAT: TRADE PAPERBACK (REVIEWED), DIGITAL | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Graphic Novels can be a very powerful communication tool. The combination of words and pictures can be a very effective way to get a message across. When used for essay or long serious stories based on real world events, they can be incredible readers. Take for example, Box Brown’s Tetris: The Games People Play, a brilliant examination into the story behind that world’s favourite puzzle game.
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History is a similar sort of thing, a graphic novelisation of a part of history many of us know next to nothing about. As the title suggests, it’s an examination of the how the American political group known as the Black Panther’s got started. It’s a name that almost everyone is familiar with but sadly one that many of us know the vague details of.
This book begins it’s lecture with Oakland, California, in 1966. We learn the events that caused the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to be formed and why they chose that particular name. The book is strongly sympathetic to the Black Panther’s and takes an unflinching approach to the facts, mixing the Panther’s triumphs along with their losses. For every victory, such as crossing guards and school meals, they are tragedies and missed chances. It’s a fascinating look at American history and quite compelling.
The art and information is well done and very interesting, though it’s presented in a rather charmless way. This feels more like a useful history textbook with lots of pictures instead of a documentary. It’s well indexed and well researched but in an effort to be comprehensive and accurate it loses the level of engagement that can be achieved with the format.
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History is a great resource for those looking to learn more about civil rights movements and American history, but it fails to as memorable as this part of history deserves to be.
