World War 3 Illustrated: 1979-2014

Description

Founded in 1979 by Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper, World War 3 Illustrated is a labour of love run by a collective of artists and political activists working with the unified goal of creating a home for political comics, graphics and stirring personal stories. This full-colour retrospective exhibition is arranged thematically, including housing rights, feminism, environmental issues, religion, police brutality, globalisation and depictions of conflicts from the Middle East to the Midwest. Contributors include Sue Coe, Eric Drooker, Fly, Sandy Jimenez and dozens more.

Peter Kuper is a cofounder and editorial board member of political graphics magazine World War 3 Illustrated and a teacher who has taught at New York's School of Visual Arts and Parsons the New School for Design. Best known for drawing Mad magazine's Spy vs. Spy comic since 1997, he has also illustrated covers for Newsweek and Time magazine. He is the author of the graphic novel Sticks and Stones, which won the New York Society of Illustrators Gold Medal, and Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico. Seth Tobocman is the cofounder of World War 3 Illustrated. He is the author and illustrator of five graphic books, including Portraits of Israelis and Palestinians, Understanding the Crash, and You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive. He has participated in exhibitions at ABC No Rio, Exit Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. His illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, among many other publications. They both live in New York City. Bill Ayers is a professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is the founder of the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society and the cofounder of the Weather Underground. He lives in Chicago.

"World War 3 Illustrated is the real thing.... As always it mixes newcomers and veterans, emphasizes content over style (but has plenty of style), keeps that content accessible and critical, and pays its printers and distributors but no one else. If it had nothing more than that kind of dedication to recommend it, it would be invaluable. But it has much, much more." --New York Times "Reading WW3 is both a cleansing and an enraging experience. The graphics remind us how very serious the problems and how vile the institutions that cause them really are." --Utne Reader "Powerful graphic art and comic strips from the engaged and enraged pens of urban artists. The subjects include poverty, war, homelessness and drugs; it's a poke in the eye from the dark side of America, tempered by what the artists describe as their 'oppositional optimism.'" --Whole Earth Review "This is art--not marketing--on the newsstand. It represents the sort of creativity too rarely given an outlet in comics. It's the best and longest running alternative comics anthology around." --Comics Journal "The artists of World War 3 have forged a space by turns harsh and exciting, honest and rowdy, boisterous and straight-forward, always powered by the wild and unruly harmonies of love. It's a space where hope and history rhyme, where joy and justice meet. Their voices provoke and soothe and energize. I want to hear more." --Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground