More: Patrick McDonnell steps out of 'MUTTS' world to make comics-inspired abstract paintings
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Hewitt said the series is being used in schools to talk about the importance of environmental issues in urban areas, particularly since communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the negative effects of climate change. Today, Charlie La Greca and Rebecca Bratspies carry on the tradition with “Mayah’s Lot,” a comic book series from the Center for Urban Environmental Reform focusing on the relationship between social justice and environmentalism. " is the only one of all the many cartoonists who really loves nature and wanted to teach urban kids about nature,” said Gardner, adding that after Dodd’s death in 1991, Congress honored his titular character by designating a section of the Chattahoochee National Forest section as the Mark Trail Wilderness. Others, such as Ed Dodd’s “Mark Trail,” an educational strip familiar to anyone who grew up reading the Sunday funnies, take a cheery approach to the outside world. Some of the images foretell apocalyptic doom, such as David Seavey’s “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it” (1989), which depicts a toxic trail of oil barrels leading to a smoke-spewing factory beneath a blood-red sky. Crumb’s “Short History of America” (1981) reveals a colorful time lapse that transforms a lush, green landscape into a busy street corner with cars, power lines, a convenience store and streetlights beneath a smoggy sunset. One woodblock print on paper by Hiroshige dates back to 1856 and comes from the “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” series, a tribute to the influential Japanese artist’s hometown.Įlsewhere, R. While the bulk of “Power Lines,” which will remain on view through May 8, 2022, comes out of that pivotal time in the 1960s and ’70s, the exhibit touches on more than a century of comic strips, comic books and graphic novels that deal with humankind’s interactions with the natural world. The pair planned the show prior to COVID in response to student interest in environmental issues, particularly "texts that are serious about the crisis, but also optimistic about the possibilities for change,” Gardner said. Gardner curated “Power Lines” with wife, Elizabeth Hewitt, also an Ohio State English professor. “Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, along with Carson’s congressional testimony that followed in the early ’60s, took environmental activism and environmental science and made it mainstream,” said Jared Gardner, an English professor, director of Popular Culture Studies at Ohio State and a frequent collaborator with the Billy Ireland Museum. One of the first things visitors see when entering the “ Power Lines: Comics and the Environment” exhibition at Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum is a display case dedicated to the work of Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and conservationist who wrote the 1962 book Silent Spring, a bombshell investigation into the chemical industry and the adverse effects of DDT and other pesticides.