Mark Twain Was Right

Dan P. Moore's first graphic novel Mark Twain Was Right charts the course of the 2001 Cincinnati Riots, the largest urban unrest (the first in the 21st century) since the 1992 LA Riots. Moore's book is an engaging work of journalism--as-narrative-comic, tracing the riot's genesis from the senseless police killing of a 19-year-old black man to the man's funeral six days later. What results is a tumultuous cocktail of nonviolent civil disobedience, frustration-fueled looting, and further police violence. Interviews with people of varying perspectives--activists, community leaders, a looter, bystanders, etc--weave a tale of inner-city community coming together. Here we witness a city boiling over, and all the political grossness, interpersonal rallying, and rampant destruction that entails. At 96 pages, Mark Twain Was Right is an important chapter of American history, a story often overlooked and generally misreported, a piece of our lineage that must not be forgotten.