Adult Graphic Nonfiction

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author's own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others. A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: eGraphic

Across the Tracks by Alverne Ball (author) and Stacey Robinson (illustrator) One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Across the Tracks is a celebration and memorial of Greenwood, Oklahoma In Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre, author Alverne Ball and illustrator Stacey Robinson have crafted a love letter to Greenwood, Oklahoma. Also known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood was a community whose importance is often overshadowed by the atrocious massacre that took place there in 1921. Across the Tracks introduces the reader to the businesses and townsfolk who flourished in this unprecedented time of prosperity for Black Americans. We learn about Greenwood and why it is essential to remember the great achievements of the community as well as the tragedy which nearly erased it. However, Ball is careful to recount the eventual recovery of Greenwood. With additional supplementary materials including a detailed preface, timeline, and historical essay, Across the Tracks offers a thorough examination of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Black Wall Street. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction
• Digital copy from Hoopla Digital: eGraphic

Let's Make Dumplings! by Hugh Amano (author) and Sarah Becan (illustrator) Chef Hugh Amano and comics artist Sarah Becan invite you to explore the big little world of Asian dumplings! Ideal for both newbies and seasoned cooks, this comic book cookbook takes a fun approach to a classic treat that is imbued with history across countless regions. From wontons to potstickers, buuz to momos, Amano’s expert guidance paired with Becan’s colorful and detailed artwork prove that intricate folding styles and flavorful fillings are achievable in the home kitchen. Let’s Make Dumplings! includes dumpling lore; a master folding guide that familiarizes readers with popular styles, like the pleated crescent of a potsticker or the 4-pointed star of a crab rangoon; and a series of cooking directions to choose from, such as steaming or pan-frying. The recipes range from savory Gyoza to sweet Cambodian Num Kom; from classic Baozi to riffs such as Sesame Chicken Dumplings. Whether it is the family-style eating experience of stacked steamer baskets filled with succulent shumai and plump xiaolongbao or the interactive process of working together to fold hundreds of jiaozi for a celebration, Let’s Make Dumplings! captures the deep level of connection that dumplings bring to any gathering and shows you how to re-create it in your own home. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction

COVID Chronicles: a comics anthology Edited by Kendra Boileau and Rich Johnson In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. When we weren’t sheltering in place, we were advised to wear masks, wash our hands, and practice social distancing. We watched in horror as medical personnel worked around the clock to care for the sick and dying. Businesses were shuttered, travel stopped, workers were furloughed, and markets dropped. And people continued to die. Amid all this uncertainty, writers and artists from around the world continued to create comics, commenting directly on how individuals, societies, governments, and markets reacted to the worldwide crisis. COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology collects more than sixty such short comics from a diverse set of creators, including indie powerhouses, mainstream artists, Ignatz and Eisner Award winners, and media cartoonists. In narrative styles ranging from realistic to fantastic, they tell stories about adjusting to working from home, homeschooling their kids, missing birthdays and weddings, and being afraid just to leave the house. They probe the failures of government leaders and the social safety net. They dig into the racial bias and systemic inequities that this pandemic helped bring to light. We see what it’s like to get the virus and live to tell about it, or to stand by helplessly as a loved one passes. At times heartbreaking and at others hopeful and humorous, these comics express the anger, anxiety, fear, and bewilderment we feel in the era of COVID-19. Above all, they highlight the power of art and community to help us make sense of a world in crisis, reminding us that we are truly all in this together. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction

Save It For Later by Nate Powell In this anthology of seven comics essays, author and graphic novelist Nate Powell addresses living in an era of what he calls "necessary protest." Save It for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest is Powell's reflection on witnessing the collapse of discourse in real time while drawing the award-winning trilogy March, written by Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, this generation's preeminent historical account of nonviolent revolution in the civil rights movement. Powell highlights both the danger of normalized paramilitary presence symbols in consumer pop culture, and the roles we play individually as we interact with our communities, families, and society at large. Each essay tracks Powell's journey from the night of the election-promising his four-year-old daughter that Trump will never win, to the reality of the Republican presidency, protesting the administration's policies, and navigating the complications of teaching his children how to raise their own voices in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous and more and more polarized. While six of the seven essays are new, unpublished work, Powell has also included "About Face," a comics essay first published by Popula Online that swiftly went viral and inspired him to expand his work on Save It for Later. The seventh and final essay will contextualize the myriad events of 2020 with the previous four years-from the COVID-19 pandemic to global protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder to the 2020 presidential election itself-highlighting both the consistencies and inversions of widely shared experiences and observations amidst a massive social upheaval. As Powell moves between subjective and objective experiences raising his children-depicted in their childhood innocence as imaginary anthropomorphic animals-he reveals the electrifying sense of trust and connection with neighbors and strangers in protest. He also explores how to equip young people with tools to best make their own noise as they grow up and help shape the direction and future of this country. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction
• Digital copy from Hoopla Digital: eGraphic

Seek You: A Journey Though American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke In Seek You, Kristen Radtke's wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing, and shares what feels impossible to share. Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to the rise of Instagram, the bootstrap-pulling cowboy to the brutal experiments of Harry Harlow, Radtke investigates why we engage with each other, and what we risk when we turn away. With her distinctive, emotionally-charged drawings and deeply empathetic prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully shines a light on some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments, and asks how we might keep the spaces between us from splitting entirely. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction

Factory Summers by Guy DeLisle For three summers beginning when he was 16, cartoonist Guy Delisle worked at a pulp and paper factory in Quebec City. Factory Summers chronicles the daily rhythms of life in the mill, and the twelve hour shifts he spent in a hot, noisy building filled with arcane machinery. Delisle takes his noted outsider perspective and applies it domestically, this time as a boy amongst men through the universal rite of passage of the summer job. Even as a teenager, Delisle’s keen eye for hypocrisy highlights the tensions of class and the rampant sexism an all-male workplace permits. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden by Mannie Murphy This work of graphic nonfiction, told in the style of an illustrated diary, begins as an affectionate reminiscence of the author’s 1990s teenage infatuation with the late actor River Phoenix but morphs into a remarkable, sprawling account of the city of Portland and state of Oregon's dark history of white nationalism. Murphy details the relationship between white supremacist Tom Metzger (former KKK Grand Wizard and founder of the White Aryan Resistance) and the "Rose City" street kids like Ken Death that infiltrated Van Sant's films — a relationship that culminates in an infamous episode of Geraldo. Murphy brilliantly weaves 1990s alternative culture, from Kurt Cobain and William Burroughs to Keanu Reeves and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with two centuries of the Pacific Northwest's shameful history as a hotbed for white nationalism: from the Whitman massacre in 1847 and the Ku Klux Klan's role in Portland's city planning in the early 1900s to the brutal treatment of Black people displaced in the 1948 Vanport flood and through the 2014 armed standoff with Cliven Bundy's cattle ranch. In Murphy's personal reflections and heart-racing descriptions of scenes like infamous campfire kiss in My Own Private Idaho, the artist's story becomes a moral anchor to a deeply amoral regional history and marks the incredible debut of a talented new voice to the graphic medium. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: graphic nonfiction