Former Charles M. Schulz Museum cartoonist-in-residence and environmental justice lawyer and activist Eddie Ahn‘s debut graphic novel, Advocate, is arriving from Ten Speed Graphic on April 16, 2024.
Korean-American cartoonist Ahn is a self-taught artist with a powerful resume. He’s beforehand been acknowledged as cartoonist-in-residence of the Charles M. Shulz Museum, positioned in Santa Rosa, California, and was a featured artist on the Kearny Street Workshop, which the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, California, hosts. In addition, his art work was used as a part of the “One Richmond” marketing campaign and has appeared on AT&T utility packing containers all through San Francisco.
Watch a clip of the revealing of considered one of Ahn’s utility packing containers in 2018 under:
In addition to his work as a cartoonist, Ahn has been an environmental justice legal professional and nonprofit employee for fifteen years. “While working as the executive director of Brightline Defense, a San Francisco-based environmental justice nonprofit, he was inducted into the State of California’s Clean Energy Hall of Fame for his work in equity and clean energy,” reads Ahn’s writer profile. “In addition to his nonprofit work, he has served as president of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment as well as a commissioner on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Bay Conservation and Development Commission.”
Read the official press launch from Ten Speed Graphic under:
A graphic memoir of unusual energy, Eddie Ahn’s exceptional debut ADVOCATE (Ten Speed Graphic; April 16, 2024) intertwines household historical past with the unvarnished realities of preventing for environmental justice. Ahn’s beautifully-drawn, full-color panels take readers from South Korea to Texas to the Bay Area, exploring themes of belonging and repair, household and neighborhood, expectations and alternatives.
The little one of immigrants, Ahn’s household was fractured by the Korean War—a historical past he tries to know by means of reminiscences of his grandfather and the writing he left behind. Growing up, Ahn’s dad and mom run a liquor retailer and dream of a unique future for his or her son—although not the nonprofit work he finds himself pulled in direction of earlier than and after legislation faculty. Becoming the director of Brightline Defense, an environmental justice group, Ahn learns the complexity of working inside communities and navigating political areas—all whereas coping with the calls for of monetary hardship and racial profiling, the orange skies of the local weather crises and the urgency of the pandemic.
A self-taught artist, Ahn’s distinctive perspective and layered relationships inform his very good artwork. From burrito math to the poker desk, being mistaken as a rideshare driver, present process eye surgical procedure after durations of blindness, and changing into a frontline employee throughout lockdown, Ahn’s expressive visuals, empathy, and humor amplify the affect of his experiences.
Essential studying for anybody drawn to environmental and immigration points, in addition to nonprofit work and neighborhood organizing, ADVOCATE is bound to affix the pantheon of seminal graphic memoirs together with Kate Beaton’s Ducks, Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.
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