Badiucao, Melissa Chan
You Must Take Part In Revolution: A Graphic Novel
You Must Take Part In Revolution: A Graphic Novel
SKU:Street Noise
Comics & graphic novels
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Starred Review from Library Journal, “Its unflinching portrayal of oppression and the vital necessity of maintaining idealism in the face of utter despair is as timely as it is deeply stirring.”
Starred Review from Booklist, the journal of the American Library Association, “The potent narrative . . . proves hauntingly timely with today's global unrest, growing militarism, proliferating wars, and even U.S. politics. . . . Readers could well be witnessing an oracular warning of an imminent future.”
From Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan and esteemed activist artist Badiucao comes a near-future dystopian graphic novel about technology, authoritarian government, and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom.
It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. Taiwan is divided into two. As conflict escalates between nuclear powers, three idealistic youths who first met in Hong Kong develop diverging beliefs about how best to navigate this techno-authoritarian landscape. Andy, Maggie, and Olivia travel different paths toward transformative change, each confronting to what extent they will fight for freedom, and who they will become in doing so.
A powerful and important book about global totalitarian futures, and the costs of resistance.
You Must Take Part in Revolution Q&A with Badiucao & Melissa Chan
What motivated you to write this dystopian story?
Badiucao: One of the important duties of an artist is to reflect what’s happening in our world and to do our best to imagine the future of humankind. For me it’s important to critique the regime of China as well as the current fascist tendencies of the U.S. I hope readers understand that no matter how difficult a situation is, we are empowered to make choices. However, these choices will have consequences and a specific price to pay.
Melissa: The idea for the graphic novel was motivated in part by this feeling that everything was truly going off the rails and heading in the wrong direction. And for those unfamiliar with China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, we hope to provide some understanding of the dynamics between these different sets of Chinese-speaking people. We are living in scary times, and we hope people understand the importance of resistance but also consider the costs.
Tell us about your process as a researcher, writer, and an artist.
Badiucao: This project has been an entirely new experience for me as an artist. I’ve done everything from political cartoons to paintings to museum installations, but sequential art and the graphic novel language is new. I think the most important thing to understand is the spatial dialogue between different panels on each page, and the passage of time as an extra dimension in which I can further play with artistic expression.
Melissa: Both of us have lived and worked in China, and in my case, I’ve also reported from other authoritarian states such as Russia, Cuba, and even North Korea. So, much of our story is not an abstraction for us, but a once-lived reality. But in creating the book we spent a lot of time developing the characters and world-building. This was a truly collaborative effort. At times, we were on the phone every 24 hours, even though we were on two different continents. And this process lasted for years.
