[lbo-talk] Dr Marx in the comics

[Michael Smith]

Just had an interesting experience. My teenage 
daughter -- who never reads books if she can help 
it, but loves comic strips -- asked me what this 
dude Karl Marx was all about. 

I thought for a minute and then told her that he 
was a guy who thought history was all about class 
struggle. (Shallow, I know, but you try 25 words 
or less while a teenage girl with a short attention 
span looks at you skeptically). 

Her response: Well, duuhh, everybody knows *that*. 
Why do people think he's so crazy? 

I wanted to find a comic-strip version of 
Capital to give her. Apparently there isn't one
yet in English, though just last month, it seems, 
a manga version appeared in Japan. 

This seems shocking to me. Why on earth hasn't 
somebody done a comic-strip Capital years ago? Marx 
is so concrete and vivid -- he'd be as big a treat 
for an illustrator as Dickens.   

-- 

Michael Smith
mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org