PRESS RELEASE
Oni Press is proud to announce the publication of the next book by Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History creator Joel Christian Gill, detailing his upbringing and relationship to the violence that surrounded it.
Fights: One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence is Joel Christian Gill’s visceral and deeply affecting memoir chronicling his youth and coming of age as a poor Black child in a chaotic southern landscape of rough city streets and foreboding backwoods during the crack cocaine boom of the 1980s.
“Oni is incredibly proud to include Fights: One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence as a lead title in our 2020 slate” says senior editor Shawna Gore. “Joel tells his story with astonishing nuance and clarity–the story of the troubled and conflicted boy he once was, told by the brave and compassionate man he became. Fights is an important and imposing book, both in size and what it aspires to reach in its readers.”
Propelled into a world filled with uncertainty and desperation, young Joel is pushed toward using violence to solve his problems by everything and everyone around him. But fighting doesn’t always yield the best results for a confused and sensitive kid who yearns for a better, more fulfilling life than the one he was born into.
This must-read memoir arrives in finer bookstores and comic shops in January 2020, and deserves a place on the bookshelves of every parent.
Joel Christian Gill is an award-winning graphic novelist and Associate Professor of Illustrationp at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. An educator, historian, cartoonist, advocate, and activist, he has written a number of graphic novel series including Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, volumes 1 and 2 (Fulcrum, 2014, 2018), Tales from the Talented Tenth, volumes 1 and 2 (Fulcrum, 2015, 2016), and Fast Enough, Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride (Lion Forge, 2019).
