Fight the Power! anthology charts the struggle against authority

By downthetubes Guests on October 9, 2013

Fight the Power! is a new comic anthology charting the story of struggle against authority over the last 200 years and in several English speaking countries.

Th book will be in the spotlight at the upcoming Lakes International Comic Art Festival and other events around the country.

In his famous history series A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill argued that history was about wars and made by great leaders. Fight the Power!, published by New Internationalist, begs to differ and instead presents A Visual History of Protest Amongst the English Speaking Peoples.

Today’s occupy movements are part of a long history of struggle. This book visualises key moments in history where ordinary people have risen up and fought governments, corporations, even empires. When the 99% have stood up to combatexploitation and abuse or in pursuit of freedom of action and a better life. In other words, to show times in history, just like today, when people have struggled forward to fight the power.

Written by Sean Michael Wilson and Benjamin Dickson, illustrated by Hunt Emerson, John Spelling and Adam Pasion, with a cover by Polyp and introduction by Tariq Ali, this book covers 14 cases of such struggle over the last 200 years and in several English speaking countries including not just the US and UK but Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, India and Jamaica.

The Luddites and Swing Riots (1811-1832)
The Battle of Peterloo (1819)
Colonial Rebellions (1837-1865)
Irish Rebellions (1791-1922)
The Suffragettes (1903-1918)
The Australian General Strike (1917)
The Boston Police Strike (1919)
The UK General Strike and the Battle of George Square (1918 & 1926)
The Battle of Toledo (1934)
Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott (1955-1956)
The Trial of Nelson Mandela (1964)
Fragging (1969-1971)
The Poll Tax Riots (1989-1991)
Occupy (2011-)

Fight the Power authors and artists will be at a number of events to promote the book, which started at Gnash Comics and Graphic Novels in Ashburton, Devon last month. Coming up are appearances by members of the creative team at the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival, Kendal (comicartfestival.com) on the weekend of 18th-20th October; at 22 Panels, Falmouth, Cornwall (falmouthcomicartshow.tumblr.com) on 26th October; and in November, at ComICA, the London International Comics festival (comicafestival.com). The London date is likely to be 9th November (but not confirmed), with with Hunt Emerson attending in the flesh and Sean via skype.

Sean Michael Wilson is a comic book writer from Scotland, who now lives in Japan. He has had more than a dozen books published with a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers. His book with War on Want, Iraq :Operation Corporate Takeover was widely reported on by a variety of mainstream agencies. He is also the editor of the critically acclaimed collection AX:alternative manga (one of Publishers Weekly’s Best ten books of 2010).

Benjamin Dickson is a writer whose previous works include the apocalyptic graphic novel Falling Sky (awarded “Best Indie Surprise 2006” and named one of the best graphic novels of the decade by Ain’tIt Cool News), and the science fiction thriller Slumdroid, currently being published by Scar Comics. He has had short stories published by Self Made Hero, Ctrl Alt Shift and Heavy Metal, and also worked on 1001 Graphic Novels to Read Before You Die.

Hunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. The Emerson graphic novels Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Casanova’s Last Standand other adaptations of classic novels and tales have been successfully sold in numerous countries, and translated into several different languages.

John Spelling grew up in Devon, England amidst undulating green hills and second-hand book shops. Quickly realising he loathed writing CVs and committing a fixed definition of himself to paper, and was therefore unlikely to get “a proper job”, he studied illustration. For years he has dabbled on the edges of the comics industry, viewing it as something well suited to an insomniac with limited social skills. He still hates writing about himself. Even in third person. He owns no cats.

Adam Pasion was born in San Jose, California and has been drawing comics since he could grip a pen. He graduated with a degree in history from Azusa Pacific University, and currently resides in Nagoya, Japan where he works as a cartoonist, illustrator and designer. His recent work has been published in The Japan Times, Hyper Hobby Magazine, Japanzine and several other publications. He is the founder of the Uzomuzo art collective in central Japan and has also published several comic books and graphic novels through his own independent imprint, Biguglyrobot.

Radical political cartoonist and activist Polyp has been working with campaigning organizations around the world for over 15 years, and is the author and illustrator of Big Bad World Cartoon Molotovs in the face of corporate rule and illustrator of Speechless: World History Without Words. He lives and works within a large Co-operative housing block in Manchester, UK.

• Buy the book at: http://newint.org/books/politics/fight-the-power