Michael Schwartz Library
Michael Schwartz Library
216.687.2478
Kent State by
2021 Eisner Award Winner A 2021 ALA/YALSA Alex Award Winner for Teen Readers and Adult Books NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * FORBES * NPR * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * LIBRARY JOURNAL From Derf Backderf, the bestselling author of My Friend Dahmer, comes the tragic and unforgettable story of the Kent State shootings​ On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children--a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent--as relevant today as it was in 1970.
The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes by
The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, is a large-format treasury of the cartoons from Yukon Ho! and Weirdos from Another Planet! (including full-color Sunday cartoons) plus a full-color original story unique to this collection. Millions of readers have enjoyed the tremendous talent of Bill Watterson. His skill as both artist and writer brings to life a boy, his tiger, and the imagination and memories of his ardent readers. The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes picks up where The Essential Calvin and Hobbes left off. Bill Watterson"s Calvin and Hobbes remains the authority on humor.
Cleveland by
A lifelong Cleveland resident, Harvey Pekar (1939-2010) pioneered autobiographical comics, mining the mundane for magic since 1976 in his ongoing American Splendor series. Harvey Pekar''s Cleveland is sadly one of his last, but happily one of his most definitive graphic novels. It combines classic American Splendor-ous autobiographical anecdotes with key moments and characters in the city''s history as relayed to us by Our Man and meticulously researched and rendered by artist Joseph Remnant. With an introduction by Alan Moore to boot! Published by ZIP Comics and Top Shelf Productions.
The New American Splendor Anthology by
American Splendor is the series that sparked a revolution in comics and brought graphic novels to the attention of post-adolescent readers everywhere. Here is the best of American Splendor and other comics by Harvey Pekar, including never-before-seen material.
Our Cancer Year by
It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it -- kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fearsreal and imagined -- who survives.
Magic Flute by
Long out of print, the many adaptations that Russell has done of famous operas are finally collected again in three volumes, in the wake of his highly successful adaptation of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung. This first volume presents Mozart's most famous work, a farcical tale of love mixed with fantasy. Starring such unforgettable characters as the Queen of the Night, Prince Tamino, Princess Pamina, the evil Sarastro, the bird-catcher Papageno and his one true love Pagagena. In full-colour.
The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R Crumb by
Nominated for three 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: From Creation to the death of Joseph, here are all 50 chapters of the Book of Genesis, revealingly illustrated as never before. Envisioning the first book of the bible like no one before him, R. Crumb, the legendary illustrator, reveals here the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way. Originally thinking that we would do a take off of Adam and Eve, Crumb became so fascinated by the Bible's language, "a text so great and so strange that it lends itself readily to graphic depictions," that he decided instead to do a literal interpretation using the text word for word in a version primarily assembled from the translations of Robert Alter and the King James bible. Now, readers of every persuasion--Crumb fans, comic book lovers, and believers--can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories. Crumb's Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire that rained from the heavens, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh, where Joseph's embalmed body is carried in a coffin, in a scene as elegiac as any in Genesis. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretation that have often obscured the Bible's most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of Biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a "kind've depressed guy who doesn't strike you as physically courageous," and his bother, Esau, "a rough and kick ass guy," to Abraham's wife Sarah, more fetching than most woman at 90, to God himself, "a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard." As Crumb writes in his introduction, "the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself." Crumb's Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling which celebrates the astonishing diversity of the one of our greatest artistic geniuses. Nominated for three 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: Best Adaptation from Another Work, Best Graphic Album, Best Writer/Artist.
Ohio, called "the cradle of great cartoonists" by the Washington Post, has had a large influence on the history and continued legacy of comic art, cartooning, and graphic novels. Cleveland has been home to many influential creators of comics and graphic novels.
According to Jeff Smith, creator of the Bone series, the state of Ohio has produced "some of the most important and foundational figures in the field."
Notable graphic novelists, comics creators, and cartoonists from Ohio include:
And many more!
For more information on the history and continued legacy of comics and graphic novels in Ohio, check out the following links:
Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum - Comprehensive list of cartoonists who lived or worked in Ohio
Ohio History Central - The history of Superman, created in Cleveland by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Cleveland Review of Books - Comics in the Midwest: A Brief History of the Form
The 2021 Comics Issue, The 2022 Comics Issue - Every year, Cleveland Scene magazine publishes a curated list of comics by local creators called The Comics Issue. This is a good resource to learn about new and up-and-coming comics creators working in Cleveland.
Support local comic book shops, publishers, and organizations.
Comic Shop Locator - Find a comic book store near you
Genghis Con - Cleveland's Small Press and Independent Comic Convention