In my weak defense, I’d only ever seen the cover in thumnbail form, rendering the people vaguely Civil War-ish. Also, the friends who raved about the book on Twitter are mostly the sort who do like LITTLE WOMEN and/or contemporary works that explore side storylines from classic lit. No one said much as to what the book was actually about; and, as a non-American, I wasn’t familiar with the author's reputation.
As you may have gathered, MARCH is not about Mr March from LITTLE WOMEN. It’s US Congressman John Lewis’s graphic memoir of his work during the Civil Rights Movement.
I might have remained ignorant until the very moment I opened the book (which I read through Scribd; hence the whole no-cover-larger-than-a-thumbnail thing), were I not in the habit of googling each writer and artist whose work I read. I manage my reading to ensure I don’t OD on white creators and/or books that ignore non-white experiences, so googling is an essential step.
Imagine my surprise when a quick search for "John Lewis comics" turned up not a veteran comics writer with a string of original graphic novels (and perhaps the odd superhero title) beneath his Wikipedia widget but a politician.
There had to be a problem with my google-fu. Surely politicians didn’t write comics. Surely all politicians were Very Serious People who dismissed comics as a medium for kids and individuals who refuse to grow up.
Nope. No mistake. John Lewis is a US Congressman, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, and the writer of a comic that chronicles his experiences in the 1960s.
