Four Wordless Graphic Novels edited by George Walker This collection brings us back to a fascinating era of wordless novels -- i.e. novels told entirely in pictures -- that had a modest flowering during the first half of the 20th century.  These novels tended to emerge from a socialist  -- and even, dare we say it, communist -- consciousness and often centered on class struggle and/or the clash between labor and capital.  This volume contains four excellent works, each hand crafted by a master of the form between 1918 and 1951: The Passion of a Man by Franz Masereel;  Wild Pilgrimage by Lynd Ward; White Collar by Giacomo Patri; and Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde.  Part of the attraction of politically motivated artists to this form, as George Walker explains in his excellent introduction, is the universality of the image -- it does not need to be translated, and can cross cultural barriers in a single bound, as it were, and so communicate the message of human liberation that the creators were eager to impart as widely as possible.  Somewhat ironically, these class-conscious works that aimed  -- at least in part --  to raise the awareness of the exploitative quality of capitalism and spur the masses into rising up against "the man" were produced by members of more-or-less the middle class and published by companies that put out hardcover volumes priced in dollars that aimed at the middle class, while at the same time just down the street at the comic book publishers, works were being published that sold in huge numbers for a dime and that would ultimately prove to have the greatest impact in shaping the consciousness of the of these very masses that the picture novelists were trying to reach.  This is not in any way to knock these works -- they are excellent and show precisely that compassion for the human condition that super hero power fantasies worked so hard  -- and, one must add, succcessfully -- to obviate.  It is not at all surprising that these works are coming back into vogue at this juncture as the values that they champion are sorely in need at the same time that the public at large is warming to the idea of reading graphic novels, of which, in many respects -- not the least of which in this regard is the enthusiasm of mainstream publishers -- the works collected here may be seen as  precursors if not progenitors.  This collection definitely warrants a look, and, if you like what you see, it really is a great value when you consider it collects four complete works.  The stand out, in our opinion, has to be Lynd Ward's Wild Pilgrimage.  Ward is probably the most well known and widely published of the creators collected here, and his work God's Man has been kept in print far longer than any other work in this genre, but Wild Pilgrimage is probably his most intense work. 

In this lively comics translation of Rachel Khan's semi-autobiographical novel, Les grandes etles petites choses, artist Aude Massot delivers a colorful, upbeat and charming visualization with the assistance of Ivanka Hahnenberger's "adaptation"*. 

Here's the story: Nina is 18 in the mid-1990s. She’s trying to find her place in a world constantly throwing her differences back at her face. Nina was born in a multi-culltural and multi-ethnic family: her father is black Muslim of Gambian origins and her mother is of Polish-Jewish descent. But Nina will turn her differences into strength as she embraces track and field. She runs, not to escape reality, but to be the champion of her own life.

Read a recent interview with Rachel Kahn on comicon.con, HERE.  And then take a moment to check out a preview on The Beat, HERE.

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* (as the original novel was in French, we're not sure if this adaptation includes translation, but suspect it does as there was no credit for translator that we could find; unless Ms. Khan herself provided the English language text, which is a possiblity)