9-11: Emergency Relief

by Jeff Mason (Editor), Harvey Pekar, James Kochalka

The terrorist attacks in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 touched people worldwide, and cartoonists have turned to art to express their grief and support. 9-11: Emergency Relief is a comic book project to benefit the American Red Cross featuring some of the comic world's leading talents. From legendary creators such as Will Eisner and Harvey Pekar to new talents on the cutting edge of the comics medium such as James Kochalka and cover artist Frank Cho, over 80 cartoonists from all areas of the cartooning world have joined together in this community effort. Released January 2002 from Alternative Comics, 9-11: Emergency Relief is a collection of these cartoonists' personal non-fiction accounts of their experiences related to the tragedy. 100% of the profits from the 9-11 Emergency Relief trade paperback will be donated to the American Red Cross.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, History, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Historical, Short Stories

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Vi]

not the easiest read, editorially speaking.

[Tony Laplume]

An anthology from a year after 9/11 demonstrating the broad range of thoughts that the terrorist attacked provoked, a social record of immense, continuing importance…

[Sara Forsberg]

I found this when I was cleaning up some old shelves, and I vaguely remember getting it many years ago at a comic book sale, but I'd never read it. It's a book created shortly after 9/11 to benefit the American Red Cross, and features stories from many different comic artists and writers. The stories are focused on the day itself and on how the different contributors experienced it. The quality is varied, even though it doesn't feel quite right to judge stories that are this raw and personal.

The interesting thing for me was reading this in 2014, 13 years after the tragedy, when these stories were clearly written within only months, even weeks after the events. Even though the impact of that day is still felt in the world today, we see it through the perspective of time and therefore reading these stories felt jarring. In some of the chapters it was a good kind of jarring, the kind that reminded me of how easy it is to politicize this event today and forget about the suffering. And in others it was an uncomfortable sort of jarring, when the writers unknowingly created a story that seemed at odds with the reality of the world at large today.

In the end, I'd recommend it to artists, because there are some very interesting and varied styles here.

[Sarah]

Great collection of short biographical and autobiographical post 9/11 reaction comics. It captures the intensity of emotion of that time. But it is fucking weird to read 8 years later, after Bush and Iraq and "enhanced interrogation" and hate crimes against Muslim-looking people in the US have stripped 9/11 of the sense of togetherness through tragedy. Now it is just a sad look back at a long ago time, when things were terrible and when the loss potential of the now is terrible too.

[Mary]

A so-so comics anthology when read around the 10th anniversary. The comics were all made soon after the attacks, so they mostly boil down to "what I was doing on 9-11" type memoirs. Not sure what I was expecting from this book, but skipped over some comics, and found none to be that interesting. This is probably better for younger people who don't remember that day for themselves.

[Peacegal]

It's surprising how many comics artists were living in NYC at the time of the attacks. I wish some of them would have written about the experiences of people in Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, as well. The story of Flight 93 was an amazing one, yet it was barely mentioned.

It's difficult and draining to read a book that is nothing but 9/11 stories.

[Stephen Snyder]

Excellent book. This book really turned students on to doing further research on the topic.

Thank you Franklin Public Library for the loan.

[kelly]

just ok