$25 Superpack: Comics Journalism

What are graphic novels for? Lots of different things, and one of the best is journalism—reporting on real-life stories that might otherwise go unread, in a format that helps humanize the participants and adds a new layer of complexity to the storytelling that can't be conveyed in words alone. Here are three very different examples of comix journalism to introduce you to the format. Six Days in Cincinnati contains Dan Méndez Moore's vivid reporting on the 2001 Cincinnati so-called riots—massive popular demonstrations in response to the shooting of an unarmed black teenager. On the Books is Greg Farrell's on-the-ground account of the struggle to unionize the Strand Bookstore in New York City. And Edible Secrets is a tour through a batch of recently-unclassified federal documents...that all relate to food, whether it's about a young Black Panther accused of holding up an ice cream truck, or attempts to assassinate Castro by poisoning his daily milkshake. Not strictly a graphic novel, but the evocative illustrations by Nate Powell (who more recently did the art for the March graphic novels by US Rep John Lewis) add so much information to each story that we're calling it one anyway.