I just got a very welcome e-mail from Fantagraphics, with information about their new, upcoming edition of 7 Miles A Second. This book was revelatory to me as a young man, exposing Wojnarowicz’s struggles as a young man himself, though as a hustler on the streets of New York, and later, as an artist and his unfortunate stuggle with AIDS/HIV. James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook do a phenomenal job at bringing his story to life, and this is a vital and important piece of gay history that had been denied to me as a gay teen, and which has been out of print for far too long.
I’m happy to share a 7 page preview with you, and I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy when it is released in February.
– Chris
7 Miles a Second
by David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook
68-page full-color 9″ x 12″ hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-614-0
In-Store Date: February 3, 2013 (subject to change)
7 Miles a Second is the story of legendary artist David Wojnarowicz, written during the last years before his AIDS-related death in 1992. Artists James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook unsentimentally depict Wojnarowicz’s childhood of hustling on the streets of Manhattan, through his adulthood living with AIDS, and his anger at the indifference of government and health agencies. A primal scream of a graphic novel, 7 Miles a Second blends the stark reality of Lower East Side street life with a psychedelic delirium that artfully conveys Wojnarowicz’s sense of rage, urgency, mortality and a refusal to be silent.
Originally published as a comic book in 1996 by DC’s Vertigo Comics, 7 Miles a Second was an instant critical success and has become a cult classic amongst fans of literary and art comics, just as Wojnarowicz’s influence and reputation have widened in the larger art world. This new edition finally presents the artwork as it was intended: oversized, and with Van Cook’s elegant watercolors restored. It also includes several new pages created for this edition.
“Revolutionary…. a runaway, over-the-top circus… An excursion into areas few, if any, comics creators have tread.” – Jim Steranko
“Seven Miles a Second veers between an almost unbearably gritty naturalism and the incendiary heat of surrealist hallucination.” – The New Yorker
“A revelatory work of art.” – Art in America
“A cult classic… both a celebration of the unlimited potential of the comic book form, and a perfect melding of inspiring, iconoclastic imaginations.” – Jim Jarmusch
ABOUT THE CREATORS: David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was an artist, writer, filmmaker and activist prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. James Romberger is a fine artist and cartoonist living in New York City. Marguerite Van Cook is an artist and musician living in New York City with her husband, James Romberger.
PREVIEW:
