MICE Presents: Comics in the divided age

How United States history is remembered is often dictated by the loudest voices in the room. In our charged political environment the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 has been intensely debated with significantly different viewpoints. Harvard Law School professor Alan Jenkins grew alarmed about the historical record of Jan. 6 and the future of democracy. A comic book enthusiast, he channeled his concern into “1/6: The Graphic Novel,” developed with graphic novelist Gan Golan and illustrator Will Rosado. The novel imagines what would have happened if the insurrection had succeeded.

Like the re-casting of history on Jan. 6, the national conversation around the killing of Black Americans by law enforcement, has changed amid a second Donald Trump presidency. But cartoonist Ben Passmore has taken the moment to cast a longer historical lens on Black activism with his graphic novel, “Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance.”

In partnership with The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE,) Joel Christian Gill, cartoonist, associate professor of art and chair of the Department of Visual Narrative at Boston University, will lead a conversation with Jenkins and Passmore centered on social justice comics.

Copies of “1/6” and “Black Arms to Hold You Up” will be available for purchase from and Jenkins and Passmore will sign following the conversation.

About “1/6: The Graphic Novel”

Written by Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan and illustrated by Will Rosado, “1/6" asks and answers the question: What if the January 6, 2021 nsurrection had been successful?

The graphic novel chillingly illustrates how close we came to authoritarian rule in America and the threats to our democracy that we still face. In the tradition of speculative fiction from George Orwell’s “1984” to Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” to the “Twilight Zone,” it explores themes of autocracy, scapegoating strategic disinformation and more, all told through a compelling, character-driven story.

In Issue #1, we meet our determined characters, learn their mission and experience America in the aftermath of a violent, successful insurrection.

Drawing on real-life events, Issue #2 travels the road that led from back-room meetings, white supremacist rallies and the Four Seasons Landscaping parking lot to a violent attack on the Capitol that left several Americans dead, and shook our nation to its core.

In Issue #3, the heroes grapple with violence at the Capitol, militias in the streets and the rise of an authoritarian regime in the United States of America. Some face incalculable loss while others become part of a rising resistance.

About “Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance”
It’s the summer of 2020, and downtown Philly is up in flames. “You’re not out in the streets with everyone else?” Ronnie asks his ambivalent son, Ben, shambling in with arms full of used books: the works of Malcom X, Robert F. Williams, Assata and Sanyika Shakur, among others. “Black liberation is your fight, too.”

So begins “Black Arms to Hold You Up,” a boisterous, darkly funny and sobering march through Black militant history by political cartoonist Ben Passmore. From Robert Charles’s shootout with the police in 1900, to the Black Power movement in the 1960s, to the Los Angeles and George Floyd uprisings of the 1990s and 2020, readers will tumble through more than a century of armed resistance against the racist state alongside Ben — and meet firsthand the mothers and fathers of the movement, whose stories were as tragic as they were heroic.

What, after so many decades lost to state violence, is there left to fight for? Deeply researched, vibrantly drawn and bracingly introspective, “Black Arms to Hold You Up" dares to find the answer.

Ways To Save

WBUR’s Legacy Circle, Murrow Society, Sustainers and Members save $5.00 on tickets to this event. To apply the discount to your ticket purchase online, you’ll need to enter a promo code. You can get your code by emailing [email protected].

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