45 Days Of CCS, #10: Andy Warner

Andy Warner has an uncanny knack for producing informational comics that are exceptionally well-researched but also fun to read. Like many CCS grads doing "applied cartooning," Warner's books aren't information for their own sake; he has a particular point of view that he's trying to push. Or rather, he's pushing back against traditional historical narratives that emphasize the supposed heroism of colonizers of all varieties while denying the basic humanity of their victims. 

In Spices And Spuds: How Plants Made Our World, Warner focuses on a seemingly neutral idea (plants are the bedrock of civilization) and examines it more carefully to show how exploitation and cruelty in service of profit have been part of humanity for thousands of years. He lightens all of this up with dopey jokes made by the actual people in the story, which was a necessity for a narrative of this magnitude--it's a lot of medicine. He also makes it a bit easier to process by separating the book into separate, smaller narratives, based on the plant: cotton, tea, tulips, pepper, rice, etc. He explicitly tells the reader that it's OK to skip around, and he's careful to craft the book in such a way that one can indeed enjoy and understand it, especially since a lot of the things he writes about tend to repeat themselves. 

The chapters on tea and pepper were especially interesting, and along with the chapter on sugar, are very revealing in how the addictions of a certain class can lead directly to the oppression of a marginalized class. Tea is a great example of this; the buzz of its caffeine led to a worldwide frenzy in its trade, leading to wars, destabilization of entire countries through opium addiction, and general misery. Innovation leads to demand, which leads to finding ways to maximize profit at the expense of the poor and othered. Warner is a great writer who has a way of breaking down complex concepts in a clear and direct manner, and he knows how to do it very briefly. 

The problem with having to cram this much information in such a small space is that every page is overwhelmingly text-heavy. The tiny panels have no room to breathe in a relatively small book size. Compounding this problem is drowning the book in color that overwhelms Warner's line on nearly every page. Warner does everything he can to ameliorate this problem with his witty cartooning, but at a certain point, this becomes more of illustrated text than anything resembling a more familiar comics narrative. This is a big publisher he's working with, which means certain commercial demands, but even a slightly bigger page would have made the comic feel less claustrophobic. It's a tribute to Warner's writing that the book is enjoyable to read, but it would also have looked so much better in black & white, or with spot color. Once again, the realities of commercial comics dictated he had to go in a different direction, but as a critic, it was frustrating to read something that was good that could have been excellent if different design decisions had been made.