Writer Steve Duin and New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler will discuss their graphic novel Oil and Water at the Manzanita Writers’ Series September 15, 2012, held at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita.
In August 2010 when ten Oregonians travelled to the Gulf Coast to bear witness to the devastation wrought by the Deepwater Horizon spill, they discovered that “Oil and Water” is just the first of the insoluble contradictions. Through photos and video, Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler, author and artist of Oil and Water and Mike Rosen, PDX 2 Gulf Coast organizer, will tell the story behind the creation of the graphic novel and share personal stories of what they witnessed in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. The readers’ perspective on what hope and what mission remains along a ravaged coastline, and one awash in both seafood and oil, will be changed as irrevocably as that of these ten Oregonians. The authors show admirable self-awareness in portraying their semi-fictional companions (and by implication, themselves) as naive voyeurs whose presence mostly irritates their subjects.
“Lemme get this straight,” says one character. “They white. We black. They blue. We red. They rich…and I got $53 to buy a week’s worth of groceries. And they gonna tell our stories?” Actually, they do a fine job. — from a book review in Williamette Week by Ruth Brown.
Oregonian columnist Steve Duin, twice named the nation’s best local columnist by the Society of Professional Journalists, is also the author or co-author of six books including Comics: Between the Panels. Shannon Wheeler is the Eisner Award-winning creator of Too Much Coffee Man who has appeared internationally in newspapers, magazines, comic books and opera houses. Mike Rosen holds a PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from OHSU and has worked to promote a clean environment and healthy watershed for over 20 years.
Following the presentation and Q&A, we’ll have our popular Open Mic where up to nine local writers will read 5 minutes of their original work.
Admission for the evening is $7.