King

The conclusion of Anderson's three-volume comics biography of Martin Luther King Jr. begins with the JFK assassination, then moves to Chicago, where the civil rights leader's crusade begins to falter as his nonviolent approach is challenged by the burgeoning Black Power movement. Impending doom hangs over the account, for the fear of King's assassination is omnipresent. Finally, of course, assassination comes during his fatal sojourn in Memphis in support of a garbage-workers' strike. Anderson's stark, dramatically impressionistic illustrations well convey the undercurrent of violence that inevitably erupts, and the brief, contemporary coda on how far America remains, 35 years later, from fulfilling King's dream. Anderson seamlessly segues from the documentary mode in long verbatim passages from King's speeches to the interpretive mode in speculations on what happened in King and his circle's private moments. The concluding volume in this "graphic biography" attests to the capacity of the comics medium to do justice to the weightiest subjects--at least in the hands of as accomplished an author-illustrator as Anderson. --Gordon Flagg

Over 10 years in the making, Anderson's biographical graphic novel has the weight and depth of a lifetime of research. The book 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. But while the broad narrative of King's life may be familiar, this is hardly a Classic Comics approach to the man. In order to capture the complexity of King's life and times, Anderson employs a uniquely multifaceted and multilayered graphic and narrative technique that falls somewhere between cartooning, painting, collage and documentary photography. It is deeply effective. At times, King's life is a straightforward narrative, but then a Greek chorus of voices will interrupt to comment on the action and offer different versions of events. At other crucial moments, the pages erupt into color abstractions or expressionist renderings. Anchoring all this dazzling technique is Anderson's acute ear for dialogue and profound understanding of his subject. In the simplest scenes of King and his colleagues in discussion-in a car, a bar or a living room-Anderson brings readers into the space and makes history palpable. Through a varied graphic arsenal and subtle prose, Anderson's King comes alive. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Adult/High School-The conclusion to what the cartoonist evocatively calls a "doorway" through which readers can see "one man's riff on the life of another" opens with the nation's storied response to President Kennedy's 1963 assassination. As Anderson unpacks the next five years' complex political theories and maneuverings with concision and accuracy, his images roil to include stark black-ink-shadowed figures, blurred pastels, colored speech balloons, and even photos. King moves from the South to Chicago, where he explores the reasons for and outcomes of the burgeoning illegal drug trade, worries about the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam, and continues to depend on his wife's support even when he also looks elsewhere for pleasure. Eventually, of course, he returns south, to Memphis and his own assassination. This bloody red page does not close out Anderson's decade of work, however; a roughly drawn coda appears, a scene depicting more contemporary racial profiling, followed by a narrative afterword and a list of the black activists whose writings provided Anderson with the details he was able to spin into this handsome and original biography. Although libraries lacking the first two volumes should add them now, this one can stand alone on its narrative strength and aesthetic splendor.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.