Diario de Oaxaca

Starred review from September 21, 2009
Kuper has long been among the most politically engaged and stylistically distinctive artists working in comics, and both qualities take center stage here. This dazzling annotated sketchbook recounts two years Kuper and his family spent living in Oaxaca, Mexico. Anticipating a sojourn from American politics, Kuper instead found himself in a city roiled by a teachers' strike that was violently suppressed by the regional government. He recorded his observations in his sketchbook and in illustrated letters home, crisply reproduced in this bilingual (English and Spanish) book. Kuper's facility with diverse art media shines in early pages covering political action, as colorfully penciled protestors stand against rigidly inked military barricades set against the lush backdrops of Oaxaca. As the populist forces are rapidly suppressed, Kuper records a panoply of further visual impressions: beaches, stores, dogs, vendors, ancient ruins, street art and many, many insects. Throughout, Kuper's letters, rooted in personal observation but clearly intended as eyewitness reports for public consumption, provide helpful context. And if his increasingly profuse style mixing suggests a departure from earlier visual in the book, the final observations about a beautiful, merciless natural order obliquely ratify the political convictions that open the book.

September 1, 2009
Diario de Oaxaca. (Oaxaca Diary: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico) Kuper, Peter. U.S.: PM Press. 2009. 209p. ISBN 978-1-60486-071-9. $29.95. GRAPHIC MEMOIR STARIn 2006, illustrator Kuper moved from New York to the impoverished but ethnically and historically rich southern Mexican city of Oaxaca, bringing his wife and pre-teen daughter. The region was wracked by a massive teachers' strike that made headlines worldwide, by the corruption of the state's notorious governor, and by conflicts in the streets involving tens of thousands of protesters and troops-an interesting place for a politically minded artist to be. Kuper has done covers and other illustrations for a host of major topical publications including TIME, Newsweek, the Progressive, and the New York Times, and has for more than a decade drawn the "Spy vs. Spy" comic series for MAD Magazine. This is the appealing product of his two years in Mexico. Kuper's diary entries, paired with a side-by-side translation into Spanish, help set the context for the 150-odd pages of paintings, sketches, cartoons, and collages that are the highlight of this book. Kuper's offbeat eye and his MAD sensibility make for some striking images-comical ones, too, such as his Day of the Dead tribute to the Peanuts gang, which shows the skeletal dog Znupe digging through a boneyard while his Charlie Brown ruminates about death. Fans of comics and art lovers will appreciate Kuper's unusual take on a remarkable place. Recommended for libraries, particularly those with graphic art and design collections, as well as general bookstores.-Bruce Jensen, Rohrbach Lib., Kutztown, PA

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