Where We Live: Las Vegas Shooting Benefit Anthology

July 9, 2018
Including 95 comics by nearly 200 creators, this massive, powerful volume documents a wide array of voices and stories raised in protest against gun violence, created as a response to the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. Eyewitness Lee Schoeppner’s memories of the tragedy are single frames: a bloody cowboy hat, a gunshot, his wife running. “When I think back, I see static images. I guess that’s my mind’s way of coping,” says Schoeppner, whose story is captured panel by panel in “Lee—Haunted.” Some entries feel raw and furious, such as “Untitled,” a rant from Brian Michael Bendis (Avengers): “Every time we go on goddamn Twitter or Facebook, the world reminds us it’s gone to shit! But! None of us know what to do.” Other pieces paint historical contexts for Americans’ relationship with guns, including “Reconstruction” by Malachi Ward (Expansion), about how African-Americans used guns to defend against white supremacist mobs. But, often, few words are necessary: a heart-stopping page by Mike Mignola (Hellboy) shows a person destroying a machine gun in front of a pile of blood-red skeletons. The figure shouts only one word: “Enough!” The crowd of creators in this packed volume shouts along—enough—with its rallying call to action.