Awards

• Commended for Oregon Book Awards (Graphic Novel) 2014

Overview

When ten Oregonians travel to the Gulf Coast in August 2010 to plumb the devastation wrought by the Deepwater Horizon spill, they discover that ""Oil and Water"" is just the first of the insoluble contradictions. Between the tarred sands of Grand Isle and the fouled waters of the Louisiana bayou, they come to find out that Gulf Coast residents are economically dependent upon the very industry that is wreaking havoc on their environment. In the shadow of the greatest ecological disaster of our time, they are forced to reassess their roles as witness, critic and environmental steward. In this 120-page graphic novel — written by Steve Duin, a columnist for The Oregonian, and illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler — readers will tour the shark-pocked beach at Grand Isle with the local head of Homeland Security; step aboard the crabbing boat of a 20-year-old Mississippian who works 16-hour days and spends his nights dreaming of M.I.T.; enter the ""Hot Zone"" where volunteers work desperately to save brown pelicans drenched in British petroleum; and hear shrimpers, Vietnamese and good ol' boys alike, describe what happens to their livelihood when 200 million gallons of oil flood the scene. The readers' perspective on what hope and what mission remains along a ravaged coastline, and one awash in both seafood and oil, will be changed as irrevocably as that of these ten Oregonians.

Full Product Details

9781606994924

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Reviews

A powerful eco-report, Oil and Water also manages to be a report on the gap between classes that isn t about who has what, but rather about what 'having' means to different groups of Americans.... Quick to read, but of lasting weight for readers from either side of the divide. --Francisca Goldsmith

...[T]he work effectively sets forth the essential dilemma: the region s economy remains dependent on the very industry that ravaged the coast; and the 'hush money' paid by BP in the wake of the disaster ensures that most residents continue to see oil as the solution to their woes rather than the problem. --Gordon Flagg

Author Information

Steve Duin, twice named the nation's best local columnist by the Society of Professional Journalists, is the co-author of Comics: Between the Panels. Shannon Wheeler is the Eisner Award-winning creator of Too Much Coffee Man. Bill McKibben is the author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, among other titles; he is the founder of 350.org, which in 2010 organized what CNN called ""the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history.""

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