Our first foray into international graphic writing finds work antic and sober, documentary and fanciful, all combining words and images to singular narrative effect. David B. shows France learning to stop worrying and love the bomb, while Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot imagine a more explosive encounter in the pyramids. Grzegorz Janusz and Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz set a Polish detective on the trail of the meaning of life. Ilia Kitup reveals the secrets of modern Russia in his “Only True Guide to Moscow.” Elke Steiner salutes the German medical superhero Käte Frankenthal. Jorge Garcia and Fidel Martinez’s female political prisoner struggles with the perpetual confinement of the Franco dictatorship. And Russian Eufrosinia Kersnovskaia combines gritty detail with watercolors both gentle and stark in her wrenching Siberian Gulag journal. We thank Corey Sauer, patron of the graphic arts, for his generous support.

WWB mourns the loss of the agent Ray-Güde Mertin, whose untiring efforts to promote the work of Hispanic and Lusophone writers internationally was instrumental to the careers of José Saramago, Lygia Fagundes Telles, and Juan José Saer, among many others. She will be missed by writers and editors around the world.