Comic Verite

Kids in Mantua use pictures to tell the story of their neighborhood and themselves.

by Patrick Rapa and Sam Tremble

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Everybody's got a story — the trick is figuring out how to tell it. For the past two months, a group of at-risk youth in Mantua have been learning to express themselves through comics. The project — a collaboration between community organizations Mural Arts Program, ArtWorks!, Education Works and Mantua Community Improvement Committee, along with the University of Pennsylvania — aims to improve literacy skills in middle and high school students while getting them involved in their neighborhood. Required reading included comic books, of course, as well as pieces by well-known African-American writers. In May, the kids participated in the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention — an annual summit of African-American comics publishers and authors — learning the history and culture of their newly designated art form.

So far the project has led to a collection of student-created comics called Fragmental 3, and a colorful mural permanently adorning the façade of a local library.

Getting these kids interested wasn't easy, according to ArtWorks! coordinator Sherman Fleming. "A few really applied themselves to the task," he recalls. One student, Dayquine, "[at first] professed his dislike of drawing, [then] really rallied around the project to create quite a compelling story and artwork." The result is Dayquine's complicated tale of kinship: "JP's Best Friend."

Fleming calls Fragmental 3 "a record of what our youths think about, what they fear as well as their hopes for the future." Most of the students, he notes, eschewed the idea of creating a superhero comic in favor of using their pages for something more personal. Many of the tales are a mix of humor and real-life drama.

In "Grown Up," Nardira imagines working at McDonald's and attending classes at Temple. In "Dogs and Cats," Telia describes a girl getting chased home from school by local pets on the loose.

In "Five Minutes To Live," Angel R tells the story of a real-life shooting. "I picked this story because I saw it really happen," reads Angel's testimonial. "It happened right in front of my house. I did not do anything. I just went into my house. I thought I could draw that."

Fleming hopes to make Fragmental 3 available in comic book stores sometime in July.

Equally imaginative, but on a larger scale, is "Finding Mantua," the newly installed mural transforming the once bleak brick walls of the Charles Durham Branch of the Free Library on Haverford Avenue into something eye-catching and thought-provoking. The piece was created by artist Lars Hokanson with input from the students as well as local residents. In it, real and imaginary heroes are depicted holding up a map of the neighborhood. The idea is to honor "local Mantua residents who've taken on the responsibility of upholding the virtues of a cohesive community," says Fleming.

shea roggio Jane Golden (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

According to Mural Arts Project's Jane Golden, whose Penn urban studies/arts class assisted the kids with the project, the mural expresses learning and hope as long-term endeavors. "It illustrates, I think, both a general history of African-Americans, but it also illustrates the history of the community and the journey for kids as they open up to the world," says Golden. "And it could be their personal world, which could be filled with superheroes and figures from comic books, and that can transition to deeper history and thinking about their connection to the world."

In other words, it's not just a pretty picture.

"I think this project has a degree of intrigue and ambiguity that hopefully will cause the viewer to look twice at the mural and not just stand in front of the library, but go inside." Once in the vestibule, these mystery guests will find a document explaining the origin and inspiration for the painting.

The kids, Golden says, were encouraged to think about the ways superheroes overcome their obstacles. "And then think about their own life and what they had overcome."

"But they also had to, I think more importantly, do some soul-searching in this project; to stop, slow down and to reflect on their own lives. Which is hard for someone of any age to do."

(editorial@citypaper.net)