Every week, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 43-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
David Lester’s graphic novels are piling up! Here, in a short video, he gives a concise description of each of the four books in his “history from below” series, including his recently published The Black Schooner: Rebellion On The Amistad, a fantastically illustrated depiction of how enslaved Africans rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story.
Penguin Random House Reviews notes that “Lester’s powerful black-and-white art visually anchors the narrative throughout all stages of the historical ordeal—from the initial uprising to the subsequent U.S. imprisonment.”
“20 Years/No Escape” from Water Cuts My Hands (K, 1991) (download):