For over a year now, I have been immersed in a great project that I have written about on this blog. The Cradle to Prison Pipeline Comic Arts Zine Project brought together three local organizations to create a series of graphic novels or zines about juvenile justice related issues. On a separate track, the Chicago PIC Teaching Collective has also been collaborating with our friend, the talented Billy Dee, to create an illustrated zine about the PIC. Finally, everything is coming together as we prepare to send each of these publications to the printer next week. I am not overstating it when I say that each publication is superb [which I had nothing to do with].

I am so excited to be able to share the final products with all of you in May 2011. We will have a zine release party on May 12th at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. I hope that those who live in Chicago will join us as it will be the only opportunity for people to receive hard copies of the full set of 5 zines. We have already allocated all of our print run to local schools and community-based organizations. If you live outside of Chicago, not to worry you will be able to download PDF copies of the zines online. We hope that everyone who gets a copy of the zines uses it to raise awareness about the PIC and to organize to dismantle this system.

I have just seen the final draft of the PIC Is zine illustrated and designed by Billy today. It brought tears to my eyes. It is just that affecting and mind-blowing. I can’t wait to share all of the zines in May. In the meantime, here is just one image with text from the PIC Is zine.

It may be hard to decipher because I am limited in terms of how large the image can be but the words read: “The Prison Industrial Complex warehouses hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people who have been denied appropriate health care on the outside.”

Note: Dovetailing with my earlier post about preaching to our choirs… These publications will be our choir’s offering to the broader movement. They may not resonate with everyone else’s choir but we will put them out into the world as our contribution and invite any others who might find them useful to sing from them too (using their own improvised riffs of course)…