Cuba: My Revolution

Cuba: My Revolution is not strictly factual, as the main character is a stand-in for the author named Sonya and some of the other characters are composites, but the events it portrays are based on Lockpez's experiences. Sonya is a budding artist who is swept up in the romantic, hopeful message spread by Fidel Castro in overthrowing the Batista regime in Cuba. Hoping to pitch in with the freedom fighters who had cast off American-backed oppression, she became a doctor. Over the course of time, she finds that not all of the utopian ideals and proposed reforms went as she hoped. Instead of a socialist paradise, a Soviet-style communist dictatorship ascends. She sees an atmosphere of continued conflict, paranoia, and want under Castro's rule, which makes her question her choices and allegiances.

The author Inverna Lockpez is an artist who has been showing sculptures and paintings internationally since the 1960s. She has been friends with cartoonist Dean Haspiel for years, telling him her stories. After he kept telling her she should share her experiences with others and she saw his work with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic, she agreed to co-create this graphic novel. This interview sheds light more on their collaboration. Haspiel has been making comics for years, and is well known for his work on The Quitter, the webcomix collective Act-I-vate, and the Emmy Award winning titles to the HBO series Bored to Death. This interview touches on his work on this book.

Reviewers have found the story very moving and well executed. Evelyn Finch wrote that it is "a passionate, profound and compelling piece of work that will stay with you long after you put" it down. David Pepose appreciated how Sonya evolved over time and concluded that it "has the potential to be an important" book. Jesse Schedeen opined that the story is personal, compelling, and affecting, though the ending did not feel very climactic. I found the story to be gruesome, powerful, and emotionally charged. Additionally, Haspiel's clear, strong lines contributed to impressive imagery that is highlighted by the limited color palette of black, white, and red.

Cuba: My Revolution was published by Vertigo. Previews are available from Techland and Big Shiny Robot.

The Quitter

If this were a superhero story, The Quitter might have been called the Secret Origin of Harvey Pekar. A life-long resident of Cleveland, Pekar was a ground-breaking creator who brought memoir, ordinary life, and autobiography to the comic book world. His stories typically followed his job as a file clerk for a VA hospital, the people he interacted with there, his relationship with his wife, his daily routines, or the jazz music he so loved and appreciated.

Pekar self-published his stories in American Splendor, a series of comics that have been coming out since 1976. The series featured art by underground comix legend Robert Crumb, who was an early supporter. It also attracted a great number of other artists who told Pekar's stories. He also wrote a few graphic novels, including Our Cancer Year, a chronicle of his battle with cancer that won the 1995 Harvey Award. His comic works were adapted into a movie that won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Fim Festival. Pekar died in July of this year, and his life is properly celebrated in this obituary.

The Quitter tells the story of Harvey's early years, from his days growing up in a Jewish/Italian neighborhood and learning to take up and fight for himself. He also detailed his coming up under very traditional, old-country Jewish parents, trying to fit in various neighborhoods, and his many undertakings. The reader follows Pekar from job to job and pursuit to pursuit with access to his private thoughts and feelings. This is a very honest and uncompromising look into the life of a young person struggling to find his place in the world, a person who messes up and who tends to quit when things get difficult. Although it portrays relatively mundane events the book is still compelling and evocative.

Pekar's contributor here is Dean Haspiel, a writer/artist who has numerous credits in comics, graphic novels, and movies, tending toward biographical works. Of late, he won an Emmy Award for his title designs for the HBO series Bored to Death.

Like Pekar's other works, this one has been typically well received. The reviewer at Grovel liked Haspiel's attempts to capture the young Harvey but felt that this work was more for established Pekar fans than new ones. Blogger charlieblizz differed on opinion here and found the book's conversational tone very inviting. Rick K wrote that even though it is a thin volume "The Quitter has the heft of a full novel, only it is admittedly a lot faster, more fun and easier to read."

A preview is available here from the book's publisher, Vertigo.

The Alcoholic

Jonathan A. has a problem. That much is apparent as soon as he wakes up in a station wagon where a particularly amorous dwarf woman lives. Things only get worse when the police arrive. This situation seems to be why the word tragicomedy was coined. It would be a funny situation, a punchline, if it did not happen to you, but it also shows the precipitous drop Jonathan has made. From this moment, the story shifts in and out of the past, showing the times he first started drinking, his escapades in high school and college, and various other indignities. At various times he experiences the joys of waking up in a garbage can, defecating in his pants, and having to hide out buried in the sand under a pier in Asbury Park to avoid arrest. Jonathan is clearly an alcoholic, but he is an addict in other ways, too. He indulges in crazy sex and different types of drugs as well.

The Alcoholic explores the effects his drinking has on his relationships as well. In particular it shows how much effort goes into hiding his alcoholism from his great aunt Sadie, his closest relation. It also shows how he fixates on a particular ex-girlfriend, whom he renames each time she moves to a different city. All of the pressures of hiding and pining away take their toll on Jonathan as he keeps finding different ways to lose jobs and alienate people. Along the way, he does find a creative outlet in writing, and at least these experiences are good fodder for his work.

By now, you may be asking how much of Jonathan A. is based on the writer of this graphic novel Jonathan Ames. He is not letting on, stating on the book jacket that there is only a "coincidental resemblance" and that Jonathan A. is "entirely fictional." Ames is a author who has published a number of novels and written a column for New York Press over the years. His work tends to focus on interesting sexual relationships, his love for boxing, and autobiography, especially his childhood experiences. Most recently his work became the basis for the HBO series Bored to Death. The art is by Dean Haspiel, a native New Yorker who is probably most famous for his collaborations with Harvey Pekar.

Most reviewers have liked The Alcoholic, commenting on its mix of humor, beauty, and sadness. Bryan Young called it a "very sad, sweet story of a writer finding himself." Andrew Wheeler said that "it’s a great depiction of the mind of an addict." Shathley Q comments on how well Ames and Haspiel complement each other, so that readers can see the story as a series of realistic yet distorted moments. Alissa Tallman writes a great essay on the interplay between addiction and autobiography in this graphic novel.

The Alcoholic was published by Vertigo. Here is a 6 page preview of the opening pages posted at the MTV blog.