Recent Researched Comics for Grown-ups

Some lovely graphic works for adult readership have come out this Spring, each based on fact to various degrees. Tillie Walden’s Charity and Sylvia came out this week from Drawn & Quarterly; last month gave us Opioids and Organs by Arizona O’Neill; and in March, the collected volume of Death to Pachuco by Henry Barajas and Rachel Miller came out from Image. All of these were great reads, and each of them also taught me stuff I hadn’t already known about the world I live in.

The beautiful and engaging Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden makes a terrific mid-June centerpiece for Pride Month. A sepia-toned, meticulously researched graphic novel, it tells the story of two women who lived together as a couple in rural Vermont in the 19th century. Walden uses artifacts and handwritten documents from the lives of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, and historical records of the larger American experience at the time, such as when railroads arrived, what undergarments looked like, how cold it was, and what was happening in national politics, to piece together a story of these women’s lives.

They really did exist, and live as a couple, and Walden’s version of their love and life story is both historically informed and beautifully depicted. In the Afterword, Walden tells us that like Charity and Sylvia, she, too, lives with her wife in rural Vermont.

I never watched The Walking Dead on television, and I only read a couple volumes of the original comics series it was based on, but I love Walden’s spin-off graphic novel trilogy Clementine. I eagerly awaited each new book in that series, and I think even though there are no zombies, Charity and Sylvia has a lot in common with Clementine because it is so atmospheric, and focused on people making humane connections with each other in the midst of extremely harsh circumstances. I recommend Charity and Sylvia if you are interested in queer history, love stories, American History, beautiful page design, or a masterclass on pacing. For a deep dive into any of these aspects, take a look at Walden’s website for the project, charityandsylvia.com

Opioids and Organs by Arizona O’Neill came out in May, also from Drawn and Quarterly, and also a fictionalized narrative based on facts. In Opioids and Organs, the beautiful art feels like lush, saturated watercolors and it  juxtaposes with the rough subject matter: the cartoonist is researching the correlation between organ donation and death by overdose in the United States. She has a personal connection, as her father’s organs were harvested after his death from opiate use.

When I started reading this book I was immediately drawn in by the art style, but unclear on why the cartoonist would be uncomfortable with the idea of organ donation. I’m an organ donor. I have the little ticky box on all my ID cards. I hadn’t thought about where most organs come from in this country, or how and why that might correlate to societal issues.

The cartoonist asks tough questions, like “why are opioids addicts treated as criminals, and not as though they have illnesses? They are never given the medical care that others have,” as she travels around with her sidekick, Frankenstein’s Monster. She calls him the first organ transplant recipient. I recommend Opioids and Organs if you want some beautiful visuals along with your sociological analysis of the medical industry.

Death to Pachuco by Henry Barajas (writing) and Rachel Merrill (art) is also inspired by real historical events, this time with a whole set of characters and fast-moving genre-savvy noir story overlaid. Death to Pachuco came out as a collected volume from Image in March, after being previously published in single issues.

In 1943 Los Angeles, wartime tensions are exacerbating existing race problems. The Sleepy Lagoon Murder case is in the news, and the Zoot Suit Riot looms.

In Death to Pachuco, Ricky Tellez is a Private Investigator for Mexican Americans who can’t call the racist cops. With a lot of Holmesian references and a drug addiction, he noirly makes connections between the various seedy underbellies of different walks of life in Los Angeles, figuring out what really happened in that murder, when police had just rounded up anyone who fit the racial profile, evidence be damned.

The story is twisty fun, with a lot of great characters, but one of my favorite parts of this book was reading about the historical basis of this case in the Afterword, which reproduces the pamphlet distributed by activists trying to clear the wrongfully arrested after the Sleepy Lagoon Murder. I recommend Death to Pachuco if you are interested in noir, WWII history, race history in America, or if you are a completist for Sherlock Holmes riffs.

Reading all of these books, I appreciated the story and artistry of the creators, and went on to read more about the facts that inspired them.