The Battle of Churubusco: American Rebels in the Mexican-American War

Andrea Ferraris, Jamie Richards (Translated by)

$22.99

Publication Date: January 9th, 2018

Publisher:

Fantagraphics

ISBN:

9781683960577

Pages:

200

Description

A soldier under fire faces a crisis of conscience in this remarkable work of historical graphic fiction.

Today, Churubusco is a residential suburb of Mexico City. But in 1847, it was the stronghold of the San Patricios, a motley battalion of soldiers — including some runaway American slaves — who deserted the United States Army for a just, if suicidal, cause. In this graphic novel, Andrea Ferraris uses a bold charcoal technique to tell the story of the San Patricios through the eyes of Gaetano Rizzo, a 22-year-old Sicilian immigrant (based on a real soldier of the time). Promised citizenship and a parcel of land, Rizzo joins the U.S. Army in the fight to take California away from Mexico. Before long, he realizes that the cruelty he is ordered to inflict is no different from the horrors he had escaped from in his home country.

About the Author

Andrea Ferraris (b. 1966, Genoa, Italy) has worked for Disney for more than 20 years and also draws Donald Duck stories for the Danish publisher Egmont. He lives in Paris.

Jamie Richards is an Italian-to-English translator from Southern California currently based in Milan, Italy. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa.

Praise for The Battle of Churubusco: American Rebels in the Mexican-American War

A haunting allegory of human resilience amidst the cruelty of war.
— Publishers Weekly

Franco-Italian cartoonist Ferraris brings historical acumen and impressive artistic craft to this tale of heroism and morality in the Mexican-American War. ... Ferraris’ dynamic black-and-white charcoal drawings rivet attention with their vivid depiction of the barren desert landscapes and the grisly battles.
— Booklist

Ferraris uses a richly textured charcoal style to capture the heat and dust of the environment and the shocking visceral experience of war.
— Broken Frontier

The Battle of Churubusco is cinematic in the extreme, practically begging you to imagine it on the big screen with a John Ford type behind the camera. ... It's very effective and cruelly beautiful.

— The Comics Journal