THE PUERTO RICAN WAR

Graphic narrative of an often-overlooked episode in the history of American empire.

Seized by the U.S. after the war against Spain and turned into an unwilling economic colony, Puerto Rico spawned a liberation movement after World War II that was populated by intellectuals such as Pedro Albizu Campos, inspired by Gandhian nonviolent resistance as well as by guerrillas less reluctant to use force. Four of the latter traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1954 and attacked the Capitol, wounding five representatives. Visual artist Vasquez Mejias tells this tale in a narrative punctuated by the voices of many of those actors. Counsels one revolutionary to a comrade traveling to the mainland, “My God, even the Library of Congress has a police force plus a new something they call Central Intelligence which goes around killing everybody. Trust no one.” After the short-lived campaign on the mainland, the U.S. promulgated a law that made it illegal to own a Puerto Rican flag or to “speak or write of independence.” The author recounts that his story was slow in the making, largely because he used the traditional medium of woodblock printmaking, about which he reasons, “Nobody is waiting around for this book, so it’s going to take however long it’s going to take.” The woodblock method lends density and gravitas to the work that command attention; each centimeter of each panel is rich in visual detail, inviting readers to linger over the page. One panel is particularly memorable, plainly evoking Francisco Goya’s famed painting The Third of May 1808. Reminiscent of the work of the pioneering graphic artist Lynd Ward, the hand-printed original of this excellent work now resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.

A brilliant blend of graphic and literary narration and a lovely work of art in itself.