2018
http://www.blackenterprise.com/why-anthony-bourdain-mattered/
I had just finished my work at Black Enterprise’s Entrepreneurs Summit conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. Exhausted, yet exhilarated over meeting so many people of color with entrepreneurial dreams, goals, and pursuits – I retired to my hotel; happy and tired. As I do so often on a business trip, I kept the TV on to news. Calculating about six hours of sleep before I had to get up to work again, I was jolted in the fifth hour. CNN broke the news that its celebrated travel journalist and on-location bad boy, Anthony Bourdain, was dead.
I am a foodie and a huge fan of chefs. Being an atrocious cook yet one who can make something palatable by fanatically following a recipe as closely as a programmer writes code, I am enamored of those who take the time to make the stuff that keeps our bodies alive and also bring the deliciousness. Or, enamored of those who can tell us where to find the delicious food and why it is to be appreciated. Hence, my almost 15-year devotion to Bourdain; not only as the ultimate foodie, chef, and adventurer, but as a profound, soul-stirring writer.
I met him first as did many, by reading his best-selling book Kitchen Confidential. I was enamored. This tall, white man, so prepped to receive all the goods that white maleness bestows- and so different from short, surly, black female me- resonated, He owned up to his privilege and did everything to experience what it was not like to be born so privileged,
From his show “No Reservations” to his CNN stint in “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain wanted to experience and show a world outside of the one in which he was raised. This eternal globetrotter always seemed to say, “Hey sheltered white people; here is a world, a culture, burdens you have never known” without any hesitation or pretense.
Tony Bourdain was the epitome of the 21st century Renaissance Man. Many of us, including people of color, admired him. He had the gift of bringing us cultures different from ours, and without any condescension.
Anthony Bourdain mattered. A former junkie, someone who knew what is was to be in debt, someone who went through divorce – he was so many of us. And yet, in his too short life, he touched so many and brought different peoples and cultures together in ways no one else could.
Please, if you are suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts, get help.
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Writer: Brian K. Vaughan / Artist: Cliff Chiang / Image Comics
By now you’d think we’d be exhausted by how little we understand of Paper Girls, but this comic stays great by its ability to tell short stories. While the bigger picture is messier than a Jackson Pollock painting there’s always a sense of urgency, a short game that matters more. It’s a hard gambit to play in a story — stringing readers along — mostly because it risks reader frustration and fatigue. Paper Girls‘ accomplishment though is that the payoff would be more of a bonus than an actual goal. Much of its joy — aside from its witty dialogue and the strength of its characters — is that Paper Girls is a playground of imagination.
In issue #21, from its opening dream sequence to its imaginings of where the girls find themselves in the future over 200 years from now, Vaughn and Chiang come up with elaborately creative visualizations and ideas of the future. It’s so much fun regardless of what’s going on; there’s always a plot in front of your nose that keeps you engaged while you piece together the bigger picture of who, what, when, why, and how the hell is this all happening. Depictions of the past is a fairly restricted sandbox, but the future? We’re in a land where they can go all out, and this arc is bound to be the most imaginative yet.
The girls are all reunited, plus the addition of future-Tiff, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to the answers they — and readers — have been searching for. I don’t expect them to come as easy, so look for a bad-luck curveball to keep some secrets safe, but we’re going to take another big leap forward in the plot come issue #22. Overall, Paper Girls continues to be the fastest read I cover. There’s no other comic that pulls me to the last page so fast that it feels like I just started. It’s suspenseful, smart, and wildly creative. Now more than ever, emphasis on ‘wildly creative.’
8.8 out of 10
Reading Paper Girls? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.
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