Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon (the pair who produced the bestselling graphic adaptation of the 9-11 Commission Report) have a new book out: Che: A Graphic Biography.
In addition to narrating the remarkable story of Guevara's life, Che is a very good backgrounder on the geopolitics that gave rise to Guevara's pan-Americanism, the Cuban revolution, and his tragic and brutal execution (the press that published Che, Hill & Wang, were last mentioned here for their graphic biography of Leon Trotsky).
The graphic format is especially well-suited to these geopolitical sequences, in which multi-page spreads are used to connect the dots between historical events and nations to give a compact but extremely informative tour through the complex story of Latin American colonization and independence as well as the Cold War.
This background also sets the stage for the complex story of Che, the man; and Che, the symbol. Both are fraught -- Che, the man, was fierce, brilliant, flawed, vicious, and compassionate. As a symbol, Che has become a revolutionary icon devoid of any substance, for sale on mugs and t-shirts (a warped mirror of Guevara's veneration in Cuba itself, where his larger-than-life image has likewise become an ideological icon).
As with every biography, the biographers have had to take sides, and, by and large, they side with Che. They don't whitewash his actions in war, or the disastrous blunders in Africa; but they also give just appreciation to Guevara's bravery, his commitment to justice, and his integrity.
The contemporary popular narrative of Che has two grossly oversimplified sides: sneering neocons who dismiss him as a butcher or a fool and denigrate those who sport Che badges as naive kids; and the worshipful reification of Che as a kind of revolutionary saint who could do no wrong.
The reality is subtler and more important than either position has it. The colonial story is one of immense greed and profit-taking by rich countries at the expense of the poor; it's the story of corruption and brutal repression, and it's the story of revolutions attempted, betrayed, and destroyed by internal and external forces. Guevara's life is a lens for understanding what colonialism does to its participants -- as Guevara says, "imperialism bestialises men."
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makes one wonder what status these people will have in a 100+ years time.
if only the historical records had been as reliable some 1800 years ago...
Plus Ernie Colon is an artist I don't see enough of anymore. He did a long run on a DC fantasy comic called Arak about an American Indian wandering Europe in the time of Charlemagne fighting wizards and dragons and demons, all very boy oriented Conan style action. And then he did Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, a solid good faith effort to produce comics girls would like too. Both were a lot of fun and I wish DC would put out some of their phone-book sized reprint collections of them.
Che Guevara was a brutal, unrepentant killer whose legacy sickens me. He was killed for trying to start a revolution in a country he shouldn't have been in. I understand that things were bad in the area he was from at the time, and you can argue that some things still are, but violent revolution is never acceptable and no one should count this sort of man amongst their heroes.
imperialism bestialises men.
Unfortunately, so does the sort of half-baked revolution that Che was in favour of. It was really only Uncle Castro's work that made Cuba the comparatively great place that it is today.
Does this tome get into Che's racism?
violent revolution is never acceptable
Velvet revolutions are few and far between. Think of the state the world would be in today if it weren't for violent revolutions.
War is over if you want it, El Mariachi.
@2 "Violent revolution is never acceptable"
Would you include George Washington, Louis Riel, Simon Bolivar, Iranian rioters, and Nelson Mandela in your list of people "no one should count...amongst their heroes," then?
Sorry to join the pile-on, but "violent revolution is never acceptable" is just about the most ridiculous statement I've ever read. There are very many justifiable violent revolutions that have occurred over the past centuries.
Well, there are are two major types of violent revolution -- the first, modeled after the French Revolution, and mimicked in the October 1917 Russian Revolution, never goes well. These revolutions want to completely change society and remold it into some theoretical ideal. Of course, huge numbers of "reactionaries" need to be exterminated first, and eventually you end up with a strong man -- a Napoleon, Stalin, or Mao, who is worse than the worst of the monarchs that the revolution was trying to get rid of in the first place.
The second type, modeled after the American Revolution, and copied by many other former colonies, doesn't really want to change society that much, just put it "under new management" so to speak. Many historians don't even count the American revolution as a real revolution, as all the revolutionaries wanted was to set up a parliamentary system of their own, clearly modeled after England's, with a few tweaks of their own. These revolutions tend to be more successful over time. They also have a substantially lower body count.
Funnily enough I just finished another graphic bio of Che by Spain Rodriguez, a good read imo.
I may have to create a blog later just to send you a fuller response to your question, Cory Doctorow, because I feel like there's a lot to discuss there. But, yes, that is my feeling overall. Che Guevara is a hero to some, but to others he is "the butcher of La Cabaña". Similarly, my feeling is that George Washington and Simon Bolivar are not considered heroes by the British and the Spanish. While you can argue that much has been accomplished through violent revolution, the whole concept of government and democracy- what all of those people you listed were fighting for- is that we agree as a whole to resolve our arguments in a non-violent way. There is not a certain threshold to which you can disagree with a person, or set of people, that violence suddenly becomes acceptable- and, if you think there is, then that threshold is obviously arbitrary and can be set as low as any violent person needs it to be.
I would much rather see people stock their list of heroes with advocates of non-violence who still managed to make the world a significantly better place.
Like most revolutionaries, his "brutal actions during the war" weren't the worst problem, it's what happens when the revolutionaries are in power. War policies are always tempered by pragmatic considerations; what happens after the war are a different matter and also better hidden by the ruling regimes. That's why so many folks still romanticize Communist revolutionaries while those of us who have lived in post-revolutionary societies view most of them with revulsion.
Yeah, so Che skipped out after only a few years or so of state building (you know, arresting dissidents, executing them and others, etc.) and wasn't blamed for a lot of it like Castro was doesn't mean he was "committed to justice" for people who don't agree with him.
I'm all down for violent revolution, but Che was down with shooting the wives and children of his opponents in firing lines. Talk about civilian casualties.
If it wasn't for his dual role as a sex symbol he would never have been half as popular as he is today.
I think there's a pretty non-arbitrary threshold: when violence is already taking place. There is a certain point where revolutions are essentially self-defense. As a clear-cut example from long ago, the Qing dynasty in China was overthrown after sentencing mobs to death for being late to work.
Violence gets out of hand quickly, though, and rarely gives you just the results you want, so is definitely to be considered sparingly.
The difference is the kind of regime those other revolutionaries aimed to accomplish.
Ché Guevara is for me exactly what it has become, the poster of Communism. How it looks cool and hopeful and a much desired alternative to the way things are, which is BAD for many people in many countries... and ends up being WORSE cause all that shit is false rethoric and it ends up being a power trip for the revolutionary elite who really want to be that boot on your face forever.
Stop having it as a saint if you want real alternatives from the left to be taken seriously.
Che was NOT involved or advocated for shooting of wives and children. He did call for executions of chivatos (traitors) who worked against the revolution. Get your facts right before spreading false information about Che.
and I'm gonna guess that ryxxui also thinks WW2 was a waste of time and won't support our brave American troops overseas, whether you agree or disagree with the war.
I'm a pro-Che supporter and this is the review on the graphic novel, it doesn't sound as great as you claimed it to be:
"The author lacks accurate information, and much of the information is distorted. This book was published in 2009. The author cites Mexico has a population of 50 million. Which year? Mexico's actual population is over 100 million. The author does not include the many atrocities of the Cuban Batista regime and of the Central and South American US backed dictatorship governments. President Arbenz of Guatemala was ousted by the CIA backed coup not becuase of the false CIA information of arms coming in from Czechoslovakia, as is noted in this book, but becuase he wanted Guatemala to be independent of foreign control. The author also forgot to include that Che's hands were cut off after he was assassinated. Jacobson would no doubt glorify Joseph McCarthy's red scare in his future publications. Central America continues to suffer the effects of decades of US backed and funded atrocities. Che saw it first hand. This is a mostly distorted comic book based on opinions. The author should do his homework before he writes any book."
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist-- were the Contras justified in their brutality simply because they were opposing a Communist regime? Was Allende "evil" simply because he was a communist, even though he was democratically elected with no violent revolution, and didn't engage in the "disappearing" of opponents like Pinochet?
I think Cory said it well: "The reality is subtler and more important than either position has it."
The true irony of this is that Che really, really hated artists and writers and creative people. The fact that people are making money by creating books, films, and art about his life is a hilarious post-fate.
"the Cuban revolution, and his tragic and brutal execution"
And here I thought that sentence was going to go a little further: "his tragic and brutal execution of peasant 'traitors'."
Does that make me a sneering neo-con? No, just a gay liberal who knows how idiotic it is for leftists to gush over the "heroism" of the likes of Che and Castro. Imagine Doctorow writing something like "Little Brother" under a Che or Castro regime, and trying to get it published. He'd be releasing it in little text bursts over twitter, if at all.
More Ernie Colon! The previous poster forgot to mention his awesome 80's graphic novel The Medusa Chain. He also drew a ton of Richie Rich comics and was the best Richie Rich artist of the 70's.
How about the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? How about my great uncle, the Partisan fighter who lost an arm fighting the Nazis on the Polish front?
So, slaughtering people for being gay = "commitment to justice"? Good to know.
Two old sayings: history is written by the victors, and authenticity is often frightening.
Citation needed.
I've never understood the fascination some people have with this mass murderer. I don't think I ever will.
Jonathan,
Have you been to France? They have a much higher opinion of Napoleon there than Louis XVI, I assure you. They like their Republic just fine, thanks.
Also, the French Revolution was influenced more directly and immediately by the American than any other revolution you can name.
Che's was a very brave man with high ideals. His involvement in Bolivia and Africa was for two reasons. He neede to stay away from Castro. He was actively involved in revolutions to forward his ideology and fight against American imperialism. He was a firm believer in socialism and that can only be achieved 2 ways. Full democracy and revolution. Poor, dictator repressed countries are perfect for the latter. True democracies find their own way into socialistic ideas.
I don't get this love for Che. The fact that some of the nations he tried to foment rebellion in had nasty governments doesn't justify his actions. The Czars and Chiang Kai-shek were also had nasty and brutal regimes. Having brutal regimes being replaced by the likes of Stalin or Mao isn't exactly an upgrade. We don't revere butchers that replace butchers.
So, did Che live in a world of shitty governments and foreign international meddling? Sure. Were the brutal despotic anti-liberal regimes that he created or tried to create any better? Nope.
Fighting a violent revolution isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fighting a violent revolution using horrific methods and setting up a anti-liberal despotic regime afterwards is. It certainly isn't worth the laughable love and adoration of westerners living in liberal democratic nations.
Does that make me a sneering neo-con? No, just a gay liberal who knows how idiotic it is for leftists to gush over the "heroism" of the likes of Che and Castro.
Apparently a gay liberal who's under 30 or has a selective memory. Do you have any idea what life was like for gay people in the US in the 1950s? Until 2003, when they were struck down, you could get five years to life for sodomy in Idaho. Gay men in the US went to prison less than twenty years ago for consensual sex in their own bedroom.
How about life in the US for people of color? Do you think that was better in the US than under Castro in the 1960s? How about now?
As long as you compare leaders whom you don't like to some utopian ideal, you'll always have an argument, but not a valid one. Try comparing them to the real world.
Are you talking about Bush? Yes, fascinating.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Once you tire of mass murder, would you like to see an American hero throw a puppy off a cliff to the laughter of his compatriots? Warning, this is real video
Welcome to the imperialism that bestialises men.
--------------
On another note, I keep trying to find a reliable, cross-referenced sources for these claims that Che rounded up, tortured and killed homosexuals, women and children. Does anyone have a good source for this? I keep finding these things only being spouted by shrill right wingers on vanity sites so far. If you don't know how to find solid, verifiable sources please don't bother and don't waste our time.
Oh yes, and I also see where a poster above also claims Che was a racist... like to see good sources for that as well.
"Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men — how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?" - Che Geuvara
When it comes to the taking of another person's life, you can break down the possible view points into three categories:
1) It is always acceptable to take another person's life,
2) It is sometimes acceptable to take another person's life,
3) It is never acceptable to take another person's life.
The first category should strike anyone as being incompatible with human life in society- nearly all humans believe in their own right to live. The second category has the problem of establishing how to decide when it is or is not acceptable to take another human's life. With six billion people on the planet, and the makeup of that six billion changing by the minute, I believe that it would be nearly impossible to establish when it is or is not acceptable to take a life on a world-wide scale. Even on the small scale, you still run into the problem of oppressed minorities- 51% percent of a population thinking it is acceptable to kill the other 49%. As long as two people are able to have differing opinions on a subject, you will never be able to truly say that it is completely acceptable to take a life. Because of this, the second category always has the potential to descend into simply a weird version of the first category. The only acceptable decision is for all rational people to agree that it is never acceptable to take another person's life.
Cory, I am sorry for all of the people that have suffered in the past. Hind-sight is always better. All we are able to do is to observe the past and attempt to make the world a better place in the future, and I believe that moving towards a world where it is never acceptable to take another life is an important step that is completely within our grasp. I understand why you might find the actions of the people you mention heroic, but as long as I hold these beliefs I would much prefer to hold those with non-violent intentions in higher regard.
1. The current French Republic only *exists* because Napoleon's Empire was defeated (yes, I know that there have been numerous French governments both republican and not between Waterloo and today, but if the empire had continued there would be no republic today). I'm sure many French admire Napoleon as a great general and all that, but I don't think many are sorry that they don't live in an empire today.
2. Yes, I know that the French revolution was inspired in part by the American Revolution -- the American Revolution demonstrated that revolutions against monarchy were feasible -- but that doesn't change the fact that they were very different affairs -- the French Revolution was the first ideological revolution -- the Americans just wanted their rights as Englishmen respected.
@ #16 You must be confused. Those killed at La Cabana were done so under his authority. He oversaw every execution. In the 150+ executions there were a number of children, some as young as 14.
Get my facts straight *indeed.*
Sounds fantastic. Where are your cross-referenced, reliable sources for this? I keep finding hearsay from shrill right wingers without substance.
Please show me how and where you got your facts straightened.
I heard Che put a poodle in a microwave to dry it off.
I heard Che put on a coat at Wal-Mart and got bitten by a snake.
I heard Che was smooching his girlfriend in Lover's Lane and heard on the radio about The Hook being on the loose, and drove away only to find the hook stuck through his door handle.
I made all that up. Give me cites, or admit that my information is as good as yours.
Try comparing them to the real world.
United States: Blacks 10% minority= Barack Obama President of the United States.
Cuba: Blacks 62% to 70% mayority= Fidel Castro 50 years all white totalitarian regime with no blacks in any important position. 85% of penal population (200 jails and more than 100,000 prisoners)are blacks.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/islas/English/v1n3-pdf/77-79.pdf
Yeah, Castro sucks. Now do Che with comparisons to the US in his lifetime.
Apparently a gay liberal who's under 30 or has a selective memory. Do you have any idea what life was like for gay people in the US in the 1950s? Until 2003, when they were struck down, you could get five years to life for sodomy in Idaho. Gay men in the US went to prison less than twenty years ago for consensual sex in their own bedroom.
How about life in the US for people of color? Do you think that was better in the US than under Castro in the 1960s? How about now?
I'm 49, and I live in the Deep South. I've been subjected to police harrassment as a dyke, and I've seen racism around me my entire life. And I'm still dismayed by leftists, particularly leftist queers, who romanticize Marxists. They're living in a fantasy world. Che's racism and brutality are well-documented, as is that of the Castro regime. Anyone yelling "show me the sources" can take 10 minutes and do the research himself. Postor1 does a fine job of comparing racism in the U.S. to racism in Cuba, by the way. Of course life for people of color is better in the U.S. now than under Castro. So is life for gay people.
The assumption that people who reject this juvenile romanticizing of Che must be Bush fans and neo-cons (see some comments above) just shores up my belief that dogmatic, kneejerk thinking fuels these elistist, pseudo-revolutionaries.
Anonymous,
Admitting that you've lived your whole life in the US, and without providing any citations for your claims about Cuba, why should I regard your assertions as anything other than neo-McCarthyism?
That's a terrible argument. It essentially breaks down to this: if something is ever wrong, it must always be wrong, to prevent people from doing it when they shouldn't.
This only holds if you already assume there is never a situation when people should do it. For instance, sometimes it's wrong to be upset with people, but does that inherently mean that it must always wrong to be upset? I think it's unreasonable to claim so.
This is the same thing taken to the extreme. You don't want violence without need, and it makes sense to err on the side of caution, much more than most people do. But remove even the vaguest threat of violent opposition, and I expect more tyrannies would care even less about what people think, and so become even harder to dislodge by any other means.
A sadly typical demand on the Internet.
How 'bout no? YOU made the claim, YOU cite the source. It's called burden of proof, and it rests on you. Why should people have to find the citations for every claim hurled at them? Fuck that, either the claimant provides the evidence or the claimant shuts up about it. That's the way it works over here in Adult-Discussion Land.
Anonymous #39 said:
I don't know what qualifies as proper research for you, but I honestly did research into the claims that Che was a mass murderer of homosexuals, women and children (and was a racist) but I honestly can't find any sources that approach validity.
As Chemist above has pointed out, it would be really helpful if you could at least point us in the right direction here instead of expecting us to take your word on it.
You seem so utterly sure of yourself that you must have some easily accessible, solid sources that you've used yourself to come to these undeniable conclusions, correct? Why not share them?
The more you and others flounder on this, the more you'll discredit yourself.
Welcome to the Boing Boing terrordome.
A dead human of intellect still makes waves for decades, for good or ill.
#Ernesto "Che" Guevara
"We're going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing." -Che Guevara
"The Negro is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."- Che Guevara
"Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians." - Che Guevara
"Given the prevailing lack of discipline, it would have been impossible to use Congolese machine-gunners to defend the base from air attack: they did not know how to handle their weapons and did not want to learn," - Che Guevara
Che Guevara also railed against "long hairs," "lazy youths," and homosexuals.
VICTIMS OF CHE GUEVARA
http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/che_guevara_victims_11.20.08.doc
Everyone else is doing a bang-up job of bringing his documented cruelty/brutality to the forefront, so I can't add more on that particular point, but will ask Cory: Do you believe Che's wife thought positively "his integrity" as he was having his affair with a fellow revolutionary?
postor1,
Links to angelfire and a word doc on an unknown political site don't qualify as citations.
What about Martin Luther King's integrity?
Ghandi?
No others spring immediately to mind but they're out there, and I'm well aware that Che never embraced non-violence, but you can't harp on a person's love-life in order to undermine them. Also, and I'm not going to repeat the old saw verbatim, but there's something to be said about how love can diminish our capacity for rational and ethical thought.
No one ever said Che was a saint. Refusal to call him a mass-murderer does not automatically mean people default to adoration and worship, any more than refusing to call the UN effective means people default to saying it should be done away with completely.
I hasten to remind people that another group of revolutionaries engaged in chattel slavery, they bought and sold other men. They also perpetrated ethnocide and were responsible for massacres of other people on their own land. We call them presidents.
Now we know why I don't believe in hero-worship.
I figure I would start with your very first quote as it might have some order of significance to you. After some digging I found that it was said that Che said this to radio host Luis Pons, but I can't find any verification of that anywhere and that word doc link you posted with it has nothing to do with your "quotes", but more on that later...
I cannot find a single legitimate source for this quote, sir. Yes, I found it parroted all over the right-wing place with message board copypasta (including beautiful sites like the white pride site stormfront.org).
Do you consider stormfront.org a good source, sir? How about showing your ACTUAL sources for these quotes?
By the way.. that word doc spam you threw at us (which had nothing to do with the "quotes" you cited) came with this disclaimer:
So I go to this "database" which will supposedly give me sources... I even signed up for it with a username and password and it just presents me with a way to search names. So, I plug in a name from that word file and it comes up with "No records found".. and another... and another... and another... and another...
It's complete bullshit.
Do you bother to check your "sources"... at all, postor1?
Right.. all except the part about it being documented, buzzcrow. Maybe you can finally show us some actual sources that hold up a little bit better than a wet paper towel?
You really need to brush up on your logic, or study it to begin with.
"As long as two people are able to have differing opinions on a subject, you will never be able to truly say that it is completely acceptable to take a life."
Er, no. Someone else's uninformed dogmatically fundamentalist opinion has no bearing on whether it is morally acceptable. The consensus of reasonable people does. Not to get all "24" on you, but isn't it okay to kill one person to prevent him from killing millions of others? Wouldn't your orthodox position make you personally culpable for the deaths of those millions?
Seriously, this is junior high school gedankenexperiment material. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler etc. Wrong forum, imho.
Actually, I take that back. Che definitely exhibited violent actions on his part. But, the legit sources I'd still like to see is where he was a mass murderer of homosexuals, women and children (and was a racist).
Kind of reminds me of all the claims against Bill Ayers of the weather underground that popped up during the McCain/Palin fiasco where we were to believe Ayers had killed people with bombs when the truth is he went to great lengths and persona risks to make sure only properly was destroyed. He never killed a soul, but he was branded by conservative idiots as a terrorist murderer.
Like usual, the truth is far more complex than what the conservatives spew at us all.
Che was a great revolutionary of his time. In a time when a so called "democracy" was the economic and sometimes direct backer of many military governments and dictatorships, many of whom carried out worse atrocities than Hitler, Che's actions were indeed justified. Granted, war is an ugly thing. But it is an uglier thing to stand by and do nothing while your country and your neighbor's country's are raped and pillaged.
Shame unto all of you who view Che as a racist murderer. Your simplistic analysis of the times and his reactions only prove your ignorance.
I see a lot of opinions but little substance please read
"no simple victory"
to understand the brutality of Stalin and "communism"
and read
"CIA legacy of ashes"
to understands the paranoia that Stalin generated.
History is only a vast sea of gray, there is no black and white
er, you DO know this is about Che Geuvara, right? Not Stalin. Looks like you're trying to fight opinion... with opinion right after bitching about... opinion.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Language NSFW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsogswrH6ck
"Che Guevara is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom, we will always honor his memory." --- NELSON MANDELA
Cory,
I respect you and your writing a lot, but I don't understand how the writer of one of the best anti-totalitarian fiction books can come out and defend an unabashed totalitarian who was instrumental in brutally doing much worse than was portrayed by you in "Little Brother".
I know you were brought up a socialist and so was I, but totalitarians no matter how they say what they do is for the "greater good" are bad news. The intellectuals of the west have really been excusing Che and Castro's brutal regime for too long, because in theory they were better than what came before.
Please check out the real heroes of Cuba. Like Yoani Sanchez http://dsdcb.cm/gnrtny/ and all the other ridiculously brave bloggers who are essentially doing what you preach in Little Brother. Someone should write a graphic novel of their life.
P
Where exactly did you learn this? I always hear people say Che butchered wives and children and hated music and literature, but I never hear any evidence for this. Where is the empirical evidence?
Lots of talking, nobody listening. Typical BB argument thread. Not to mention tons of classic argument fallacies.