Seth Tobocman

SETH TOBOCMAN, nato nel 1958, U.S.A. Alla fine degli anni settanta si trasferì a New York e studiò in un film-accademy. Ha disegnato e pubblicato fumetti politici contro la guerra insieme a Peter Kuper dal 1979. Dal 1988 al 1995 è stato coinvolto nella scena degli squatter nel Lower East Side e ha preso parte a manifestazioni per i diritti umani. Pertanto è stato arrestato più volte. Tobocman ha lavorato come illustratore per il New York Times e altre pubblicazioni. | Vive a New York.

Seth Tobocman (born 1958) is a radical comic book artist who has been living in Manhattan's Lower East Side since 1978. Tobocman is best known for his creation of the political comic book anthology World War 3 Illustrated, which he started in 1979 with fellow artist Peter Kuper. He has also been an influential propagandist for the squatting, anti-globalist, and anti-war movements in the United States.^{[citation needed]} Tobocman's "Edith In Flames. World War 3 Illustrated #45" was listed under "Notable Comics" in The Best American Comics 2015.

Biography

Tobocman grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio; his father was a physics professor at Case Western Reserve University. He grew up reading superhero comics, and his biggest influences, from a storytelling standpoint, were Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
Tobocman graduated from Cleveland Heights High School. In 1970 Tobocman and his childhood friend Peter Kuper published their first fanzine, Phanzine, and in 1971 they published G.A.S Lite, the official magazine of the Cleveland Graphic Arts Society. Moving to New York City, he studied at the Pratt Institute (along with Kuper).
Tobocman created an animation for filmmaker Antonino D'Ambrosio's Let Fury Have the Hour (2012), which chronicles the movement of world citizenship.
Tobocman is a member of the radical avant-garde anti-art movement NO!art.

Published work

Understanding the Crash with Eric Larsen and Jessica Wehrle (Soft Skull Press, 2010)
Disaster and Resistance: Comics and Landscapes for the 21st Century (AK PRESS, 2008)
Portraits of Israelis and Palestinians For My Parents (Soft Skull Press, 2003)
War in the Neighborhood (Autonomedia, 2000) ISBN 978-1-57027-054-3
You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive (Soft Skull Press, 1999) ISBN 978-1-887128-35-3
Freedom of the Press in Black and White: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black Reporter (S. Chicago ARA-ABC Zine Distro, 1999)

Contributions

The Graphic Canon Volume 2: From "Kubla Khan" to the Brontë Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray (Seven Stories Press, 2012) — illustrations for Frederick Douglass's "The Message from Mount Misery"
Three Cities Against the Wall: Palestinian, Israeli And American Artists Protest in Three Cities (Vox Pop, 2006) ISBN 978-0-9752763-5-8
Katamine's Forest of Bobo (2006) — concept album, telling the life story of Bobo the bear; each song is accompanied by a drawing in the CD booklet, painted by Tobocman
World War 3 Illustrated 1980-1988 (AK Press, 1989) ISBN 978-1-56097-002-6

WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED

This is the most recent issue of the comic magazine I founded in 1980 with the help of Peter Kuper and Christoff Kolhofer, in response to the rise of Ronald Reagan and the Christian right. It became a forum for a wide variety of anti-establishment cartoonists. And it’s still going strong today.

www.ww3.nyc

WAR IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
A 328 page graphic novel about the struggles over homelessness, gentrification, police brutality and human rights that raged in the area surrounding New York's Tompkins Square park in the 1980s and 90s. It is a first hand account of the Squatters movement during which abandoned buildings were seized to make low income housing, and then had to be defended within a divided community.

PORTRAITS OF ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS
for my parents

by Seth Tobocman

This was my sketchbook as I traveled through the occupied territories in the Summer of 2002. I taught art and English in a Palestinian village and visited the religious community in Safed. It is my attempt to capture the beauty of people who maintain their humanity in the face of war and oppression.

Available from Amazon
www.amazon.com

THREE CITIES AGAINST THE WALL

The catalog of a visionary exhibition uniting artists in Tel-Aviv Israel, Ramallah Palestine and New York City in protest against the Israeli government’s building of a wall of imprisonment through the occupied territories. Includes works by Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Tayseer Barakat, Larry Abramson, Sliman Mansour, Dudu Geva, Eric Drooker, Susan Greene, Khalia Abu Arafeh, Ronen Eidelman, Mumia Abu Jamal and many others. With text in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

DISASTER AND RESISTANCE
(comics and landscapes for the 21st century)

by Seth Tobocman,
with an introduction by
Mumia Abu Jamal

A collection of comics describing the disastrous first decade of the 21st century : 9-11, George Bush, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, Global Warming, Hurricane Katrina. But it also illustrates inspiring acts of resistance: the protest in Seattle, the work of volunteers who fix homes in Louisiana or defend the rights of the Bedouin in the Negev. Taken together these pieces form a panorama, the tumultuous landscape of a new century.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO FUCK PEOPLE OVER TO SURVIVE

by Seth Tobocman
with an introduction by Alan Moore

Originally published in the 1980s, this book became an underground classic. It is now in it’s third printing. It is an attack on the morality, politics and social conditions of the Reagan era, expressing the passions and convictions that led to the formation of ACT-UP and to the Tompkins Square Riots. Many of these graphics have been used by peoples movements world wide, from the Squatters on New York’s Lower East Side to the African National Congress in South Africa.

UNDERSTANDING THE CRASH

by Seth Tobocman, Eric Laursen and Jessica Wehrle
with an introduction by Doug Henwood

This graphic book illustrates how Wall Street created an economic whirlpool with the help of Washington. Along the way we explain mortgage backed securities, derivatives, foreclosures and the deregulation that allowed it all to happen. We also discuss solutions and highlight the radical response of community organizations such as Cleveland's East Side Organizing Project and Miami's TAKE BACK THE LAND.

LEN (A LAWYER IN HISTORY)

by Seth Tobocman
edited by Paul Buhle and
Michael Steven Smith

A graphical biography of radical attorney Leonard Weinglass who represented the Chicago 7, Daniel Ellsberg, the Cuban 5 and many other political defendants. This book examines 60 years of American history through the life and work of one man.