(Final panel from Earthquake Strip #8 "The Last Lesson" by Chinese graphic artist Coco Wang. Click on image to enlarge)
Today is the one-year anniversary of the terrible Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, China. At least 69,000 people lost their lives, and perhaps as many as 11 million were left homeless. Of the fatalities, 19,000 were schoolchildren. "The central government estimates that over 7,000 inadequately engineered schoolrooms collapsed in the earthquake. Chinese citizens have since invented a catch phrase: tofu-dregs schoolhouses, to mock both the quality and the quantity of these inferior constructions that killed so many school children."
I'm lighting a candle to mark this yartzeit. The most moving and human coverage of the tragedy that I read in the aftermath came from graphic artist Coco Wang, whose 12 earthquake strips in June 2008 brought the grief and loss to us on a comprehensible level. Click on the link to go read the strips for yourselves.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
IN MEMORY OF THE WENCHUANG EARTHQUAKE
Friday, June 6, 2008
COCO WANG'S STRIPS ABOUT THE 12 MAY CHINESE EARTHQUAKE
Over at the Dykes To Watch Out For thread, a commenter has posted a link to a Coco Wang's comic strips about the devastating 12 May earthquake in China.
These are simply extraordinary. Wang introduces them with:
"...Almost all the TV channels in China are broadcasting 24 hours non-stop of every development and stories of all the rescue operations in all damaged locations.
"I don't know how much information the BBC or any UK media received from us, I imagine the UK audiences were presented with the major developments of the incident, but you are probably unaware of many important and inside details which are only known to people inside China.
"The amount of incredibly moving stories of victims, rescuers, volunteers is simply shocking at the moment. I have been collecting newspapers of all the stories, and telling them in the form of comic strips. I hope these stories could show the UK readers the love, warmth and courage of the Chinese people, also the sad and cruel reality of the horrible 5.12 Earthquake."
Please, go read the strips. Let them boil the grief out of you. Pass it on.
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