King a comics biography summary of thomas

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Anderson employs a uniquely multifaceted and multilayered graphic and narrative approach to capture the complexity of King's life and times. A major work of comics, depicting a major work of history.

King - A Comics Biography: The Special Edition

January 21, 2020
King, The Complete Edition: A Comic Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a biographical graphic novel written and illustrated by Ho Che Anderson.

The dialogue is unflinchingly naturalistic and accurately reflects the moral urgency and labyrinthine political and practical complexities that King was navigating, from his deeply felt, personal commitment to a public cause to the wider political eruptions the country was experiencing. It collects all three volumes of the series and is a surprisingly in-depth biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

As today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day (20 January), I thought it would be apropos to read this graphic novel.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

king a comics biography summary of thomas

Anderson's successful use of the graphic novel to tell a major work of nonfiction has drawn favorable comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, Joe Sacco's Palestine, and Osamu Tezuka's Adolph.

King not only recreates the major events in King's public life, but chronicles the daily, rough-and-tumble, behind-the-scenes political maneuverings and strategic compromises that were required to mobilize millions of people toward a common goal.

However, while the broad narrative of King's life may be familiar, this is hardly a comic approach to the man.

King, The Complete Edition: A Comic Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is written and constructed rather well. King probes the life story of one of America's greatest public figures with an unflinchingly critical eye, casting King as an ambitious, dichotomous figure deserving of his place in history but not above moral sacrifice to get there.

Anderson technique falls somewhere between cartooning, painting, collage and documentary photography and it is deeply effective.

All in all, King, The Complete Edition: A Comic Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a wonderful biography of one of the most influential activist in modern times – Martin Luther King Jr.


King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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This groundbreaking body of comics journalism collects for first time Anderson's entire biography of the renowned civil rights leader Rev.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Over a decade in the making, the saga has been praised for its vivid recreation of one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history and for its accuracy in depicting the personal and public lives of King, from his birth to his assassination. Anderson's achievement is not merely a political biography filled with names and dates, but a fully rounded portrait of a fallible human engaged in a superhuman effort his fears, his doubts, his relationship with his wife Coretta King, and his children are compassionately and truthfully rendered.

Anderson's visual approach includes the use of photographs, realistic portraiture, and expressionistic imagery alternating between stark black and white chiaroscuro and painterly full color.

King: A Comic Book Biography

This groundbreaking body of comics journalism collects Anderson's entire biography of the renowned civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Over a decade in the making, the saga has been praised for its vivid recreation of one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S.

history and for its accuracy in depicting the personal and public lives of King, from his birth to his assassination. His internal debates with Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson and his hardball negotiations with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson are dramatized. Anderson's expressionistic visual style is wrought with dramatic energy; panels evoke a painterly attention to detail but juxtapose with one another in such a way as to propel King's story with cinematic momentum.

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King probes the life story of one of America's greatest public figures with an unflinchingly critical eye, casting King as an ambitious, dichotomous figure deserving of his place in history but not above moral sacrifice to get there.

Anderson's expressionistic visual style is wrought with dramatic energy; panels evoke a painterly attention to detail but juxtapose with one another in such a way as to propel King's story with cinematic momentum. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

This graphic novel is a compelling and often moving narrative of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

Anderson follows King from boyhood through college and into the stormy Civil Rights movement. This is a respectful, unsparing, truthful biography of a man and his times that captures the moral and political gravitas of the cause as well as its human dimension.