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VPR's coverage of arts and culture in the region.

Cartoonist's Graphic Novel 'Berlin' Tracks Democracy's Decline In Interwar Germany

Cartoonist Jason Lutes, whose self portrait appears top left, spent more than 20 years writing and drawing the multi-volume historical epic "Berlin." The final volume was published in September.
Jason Lutes
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Drawn & Quarterly
Cartoonist Jason Lutes, whose self portrait appears top left, spent more than 20 years writing and drawing the multi-volume historical epic "Berlin." The final volume was published in September.

A grizzled journalist writing through his middle age. A young artist in her 20s fleeing an upper middle-class life traced out by her parents. The two meet on a train headed to Berlin in 1928, and their lives unfold, connect and diverge amid the backdrop of a changing Germany between the World Wars. They're among the characters in the graphic novel Berlin by cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies professor Jason Lutes.

Lutes began the project in 1996, releasing chapters over 22 years that were collected into three volumes. The final volume, as well as a single book capturing the more than 500 pages of the trilogy in one tome, was published in September.

Cartoonist Jason Lutes' "Berlin" tells the story of a changing Germany from 1928 to 1933 as much through its characters as through its snapshots of city life.
Credit Jason Lutes / Drawn & Quarterly
/
Drawn & Quarterly
Cartoonist Jason Lutes' "Berlin" tells the story of a changing Germany from 1928 to 1933 as much through its characters as through its snapshots of city life.

He joins Vermont Edition to discuss the project, the story and the resonance he sees in his historical fiction and America in 2018.

Lutes is giving a talk about Berlin and his art at the Center For Cartoon Studies in White River Junction on Thursday, Oct. 4, at 3 p.m. He's also speaking at book stores in RutlandMiddlebury and Burlington in October.

Details of the tour, which will take him to Montreal, Boston and beyond, can be found on his publisher's website

Broadcast live on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018 at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.

Jane Lindholm is the host, executive producer and creator of But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids. In addition to her work on our international kids show, she produces special projects for Vermont Public. Until March 2021, she was host and editor of the award-winning Vermont Public program Vermont Edition.
Matt Smith worked for Vermont Public from 2017 to 2023 as managing editor and senior producer of Vermont Edition.
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