{"product_id":"9781770463776","title":"Creation","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eCreation\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Sylvia Nickerson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNew life and opportunities arise from the wreckage of a North American city—urban renewal at what cost?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eA new mother takes us on a tour of Hamilton, a Rust Belt city born of the Industrial Revolution and  dying a slow death due to globalization. This mother represents the city’s next wave of inhabitants—the artists and young parents who swarm a run-down area for its affordability, inevitably reshaping the neighborhoods they take over. \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e looks at gentrification from the inside out—an artist mother making a home and neighborhood for her family, struggling to find her place amid the existing and emerging communities. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile pushing her child’s stroller around Hamilton, Sylvia Nickerson shows us the warehouse filled with open barrels of toxic sludge, the parking lot where the city’s homeless population sleeps, and the refurbished Victorian house (complete with elegant chandeliers) that is now a state-of-the-art yoga studio. \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e presents the city as a living thing—a place where many small lives intersect and where death, motherhood, pollution, poverty, and violence are all interconnected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawn in evocative watercolor, \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e is unafraid to leave questions open-ended as Nickerson wanders the city and ponders just where the personal and political intersect, and where they ought to intersect.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Multi-page spreads of people and animals lost among clouds, smog, park corners, and broken glass suggest the chaos of a city struggling to survive. [\u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e] thoughtfully considers the connections between people, places, and artistic expression.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An uncommonly empathic, beautifully illustrated examination of the conflict between the desire to serve and improve one’s community and the reality of the (underprivileged) community itself.”—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e] affirms that the enormous question of whether or not to have children in an unstable world isn’t something anyone has to ponder alone.”—\u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The boundlessness of imagination and fantasy meet the restrictions of physical limits and socio-economic oppression in \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e...power—social or individual, biological or psychic—remains a haunting element in this complex and richly ambivalent read.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eCanadian Art\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nickerson is expert at cyclical plotting, allowing certain events and images to repeat in a fractured order that offsets the memoir's \"broken\" motif of shattered windows and emotional lives.”—\u003ci\u003ePop Matters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nickerson interweaves introspection and wide reflection throughout \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e. It’s this duality that allows her to paint herself and the city in the same honest and exacting brushstrokes.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eEntropy Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The power of Nickerson’s work derives not from heavy-handed didactics but her velvet-glove, poetic approach to complicated yet universal, timeless issues. \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e is a soulful, big-hearted work of depth and vision.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Comics Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e is such a nuanced piece of work that combines a widely shared experience with a deeply personal narrative.”—\u003ci\u003eRoom Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e is about the cost of losing and gaining identity, both as a city and as a self.”—\u003ci\u003eWinnipeg Free Press\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Nickerson] fills \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e with complicated, cluttered spreads that cram together many aspects of the city, both structures and life into a crazy, kinetic super organism often filled with tragedy and anonymity, frequently populated by faceless people and ghostly human outlines going about their business, or being without a purpose.”—\u003ci\u003eComics Beat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nickerson allows the profoundly personal to be completely universal in  her stark, soft drawings and faceless figures. This is a deeply human,  generous book.\"\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eEleanor Davis, cartoonist of\u003ci\u003e The Hard Tomorrow\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Way  back in the Stone Age, when I first began making comic books for  adults, it was with hopes that books like this would follow. Sylvia  Nickelson's \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e is filled with the deep, complicated, messy  stuff of real life—hard, sad, funny, insightful, and very rich in  empathy.\"—Seth, cartoonist of \u003ci\u003eClyde Fans\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Creation\u003c\/i\u003e  is an ambitious work that thoughtfully explores themes of  gentrification and one's complicity therein and also talks frankly about  the difficulty of making art after having children, all in Sylvia  Nickerson's unique and vibrant comic art style.\"\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eJoe Ollmann, cartoonist of \u003ci\u003eThe Abominable Mr. Seabrook\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781770463776\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Drawn and Quarterly","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40683182588110,"sku":"9781770463776","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_76829635-324a-46d5-ab4a-abc4ea31515d.jpg?v=1640144941","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781770463776","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}