{"id":21248,"date":"2021-07-06T09:28:26","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T16:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=21248"},"modified":"2021-07-06T09:38:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T16:38:27","slug":"new-graphic-novel-about-18th-century-activists-fight-against-slavery-stunning-brilliant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/07\/06\/new-graphic-novel-about-18th-century-activists-fight-against-slavery-stunning-brilliant\/","title":{"rendered":"New graphic novel about 18th-century activist\u2019s fight against slavery stunning, brilliant"},"content":{"rendered":"

In order for an artist to make good art, they really need to be willing to dive into challenging themes. Think of the classic example of William Shakespeare\u2019s depressing break from comedy while he did the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, or, to give a more modern example, Dennis Lehane\u2019s dark description of human nature in his masterpiece novel Mystic River<\/em>. Now, graphic novelist David Lester,\u00a0with editors\u00a0Marcus Rediker\u00a0and\u00a0Paul Buhle, adds another darkly themed piece of art to the table with his visually stunning take on slavery abolition in his new graphic novel Prophet Against Slavery<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Based on The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist<\/em>, Rediker\u2019s award-wining biography on 18th-century slavery abolitionist Benjamin Lay, Prophet Against Slavery <\/em>vividly integrates Lester\u2019s illustrations with profound words that expertly represent Lay. Lester\u2019s graphic novel is a brilliant adaptation that pays tribute to both Lay and Rediker\u2019s biography while providing its audience with a captivating reading experience that they won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n

Before I sat down to read this book, I hadn\u2019t read Rediker\u2019s biography, or even heard of Lay, so I cant speak to which book tells Lay\u2019s story better, but I will say that what Prophet Against Slaver<\/em>y does an extraordinary job of is finding a creative and visual way to describe Lay as a person while at the same time telling his inspiring story to a modern audience.<\/p>\n

One of my favourite scenes in the graphic novel is the courtroom scene at the beginning. In this masterfully drawn scene, Lay\u2014who was one of the first Americans to really spoke out against slavery\u2014is in court desperately trying to convince the jury that anyone who owed slaves should be considered a notorious sinner and therefore should face legal ramifications for their actions against God. What I like about this is Lester\u2019s chosen method of introducing Lay to his audience. Instead of making the common mistake of just writing down a brief description that would have only given us the gist of Lay instead of the whole picture, Lester instead lets his descriptive drawings of Lay\u2019s expressions tell his story, which is the key element that really made me fall in love with this graphic novel.<\/p>\n

Prophet Against Slavery<\/em>\u00a0is an absolutely stunning graphic novel that shows rather than tells Lay\u2019s heroic quest to abolish slavery, and is a reading experience that\u2019s guaranteed to stay stuck in readers\u2019 minds long after they have flipped the final page.<\/p>\n

Got something to say? Write a letter to the editor at editor@nexusnewspaper.com<\/a>. Letters may be edited for clarity and printed.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order for an artist to make good art, they really need to be willing to dive into challenging themes. Think of the classic example of William Shakespeare\u2019s depressing break from comedy while he did the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, or, to give a more modern example, Dennis Lehane\u2019s dark description of human nature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21248"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21253,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21248\/revisions\/21253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}