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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Books You Got Pictures In My Words: Syncopated

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM

What's the book? Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays edited by Brendan Burford.

What's it about? Like the title says, it's a collection of short comic-book-style essays written and drawn by various artists including Nate Powell, Alec Longstreth, and Sarah Glidden. Topics include how to bale hay, subway graffiti art, the torture of suspected terrorists, and the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.

What's the art look like? Well, every story is very different. Here's a bit from Longstreth's Dvorak piece, which is my favorite in the book:

You can also find the whole Dvorak comic here. It's free.

Do you recommend it? Yes. I've long hoped for NPR to do a This American Life comic book. Comics have been underutilized as a medium for non-fiction, and this is a good anthology to get people excited about the idea of non-fiction comics. But it's not perfect: Not enough of the pieces are compelling enough to make the book a must-read. I hope the next volume—if there is one—will be more urgent than this one.

Comments (6) RSS

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On any reasonable scale of importance, learning dvorak typing is at least ten rungs below biking to work, buying local produce, and quitting smoking. Thus, having some self-righteous cartoon characters tell me why I should bother learning it for the greater good is at least ten times as annoying as someone telling me to quit smoking. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get more vicodin for my massively swollen carpal tunnels.

Posted by samiaint on August 27, 2009 at 4:46 PM

Have you read the This American Life comic that Jessica Abel did?

Posted by Kevin Erickson on August 27, 2009 at 4:47 PM

actually, the dvorak comic was pretty entertaining, minus a few cutesy mis-steps like "if you use Linux...you're awesome!"

Posted by samiaint on August 27, 2009 at 4:58 PM

It also has words. And is made of paper.

Posted by the old man on August 27, 2009 at 6:13 PM

The whole Dvorak thing is a scam anyway. There has been only one study, done decades ago, that showed any
speed gain. And it was done by, you guessed it, the Dvorak people.
And the story that qwerty was invented to slow typists down? A myth invented by Dvorak himself.

Posted by Indy on August 27, 2009 at 7:37 PM

Also, This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International. It's just carried by NPR stations. A minor detail, but one that Ira Glass himself always makes clear. And yes, their already existing explanatory is nice. Room for more though, always room for more.

Posted by quibble on August 28, 2009 at 8:39 AM