Do you like graphic novels? Join our new Graphic Novel Discussion Group! Each month readers discuss alternative graphic novels tackling real-life issues and non-fiction subjects, and the independent publishers that release both alternative and mainstream superhero, sci-fi fantasy graphic novels and comics.
Our first selection is “The Secret to Superhuman Strength” by Alison Bechdel.
We will meet on Zoom on the first Monday of each month beginning Wednesday, November 3.
Copies of “Seek You” are available now at the Reference Desk.
About “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”:
Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s (“Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!”) to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author’s own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others.
A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times.
