9th Ave: Darrin Bell with Lawrence Lindell

Tuesday, June 13, 2023 - 7:00pm

Cover of Darrin Bell's The Talk. The cover is orange with an illustration of a young Black boy in the center. His eyes look concerned.
Join us on Tuesday, June 13 at 7pm PT when Pulitzer Prize winner Darrin Bell joins us to celebrate his book, The Talk, with Lawrence Lindell at 9th Ave!

Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online at the link below
https://youtube.com/live/FcH4Boc68yM?feature=share

About The Talk
This graphic memoir by a Pulitzer Prize winner for Editorial Cartooning offers a deeply personal meditation on the “the talk” parents must have with Black children about racism and the brutality that often accompanies it, a ritual attempt to keep kids safe and prepare them for a world that—to paraphrase Toni Morrison—does not love them.

Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn’t play with a white friend’s realistic water gun. “She told me I’m a lot more likely to be shot by police than my friend was if they saw me with it, because police tend to think little Black boys—even light-skinned ones—are older than they really are, and less innocent than they really are.”

Bell examines how “the talk” has shaped nearly every moment of his life into adulthood and fatherhood. Through evocative original illustrations, The Talk is a meditation on this coming-of-age—as Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and strangers, and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, and showcasing his award-winning cartoons along the way, Bell takes us up to the very moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and when he must have “the talk” with a six-year-old son of his own.

About Darrin Bell
Darrin Bell, recipient of the 2016 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning, the 2015 RFK Award for Editorial Cartooning, and UC Berkeley’s 2015 Daily Californian Alumni of the Year Award, began his career in 1995 at the age of twenty. While serving as the Daily Californian’s staff cartoonist, he began freelancing for the Opinion pages of the Los Angeles TimesSan Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune. In 1997, he cocreated the comic strip Rudy Park and self-syndicated it to technology magazines. United Media launched it into newspapers in 2001. In 2003, Darrin launched his other comic strip, Candorville, in newspapers via the Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), which also began syndicating his editorial cartoons in 2013. While WPWG still syndicates Candorville and Rudy Park, Darrin moved his editorial cartoons to King Features Syndicate in late 2018. He’s also a contributing cartoonist for the New Yorker. Darrin lives with his wife and two children in California.

About Lawrence Lindell
Lawrence Lindell is an artist, musician, and educator from California who works in many artistic disciplines, including comics, music, illustration, and mixed media. He is the co-founder of Laneha House. His graphic novel "Blackward" (Drawn and Quarterly) is out in Fall of 2023 and his middle-grade graphic novel "Buckle Up!" (RH Graphic) is out in Fall 2024. You can also find Lindell's comics in the SF Examiner, Razorcake and The New Yorker. 

 

The Talk By Darrin Bell Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9781250805140
Availability: Click the TITLE to view store availability
Published: Henry Holt and Co. - June 6th, 2023

Winner of the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Graphic Novels
Winner of the Libby Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel of the Year
Named The Year's Best Graphic Novel by Publishers Weekly

Named one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Best Books of 2023
Named one of NPR's Books We Love


Blackward By Lawrence Lindell Cover Image
$22.95
ISBN: 9781770466784
Availability: Click the TITLE to view store availability
Published: Drawn and Quarterly - September 26th, 2023

Black, weird, awkward and proud of it. Welcome to the club!


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