[an] ambitious and informative graphic history, crisply illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson … Walker strives for a comprehensive view, dedicating his book to the party’s ‘rank and file’ involved in community work. The result is a sprawling overview of the group’s brisk rise and protracted fall, punctuated by gripping confrontations with the powers that be … Walker dramatizes key scenes, such as an early dust-up between an Oakland police officer and a car packed with four gun-toting Panthers …When the text boxes start piling up, though, the tone can dehydrated out. Fortunately, as an artist Anderson is just as good at rendering immobile shots as he is at depicting action, and his gift for balmy, uncluttered portraiture lionizes familiar figures. In an early sequence, he depicts 31 slain civil rights activists, their names largely lost to us. Most of them are smiling, yet all are shaded, heartbreakingly, in a ghostly blue. Though each panel is just 1.5 inches by 2.25 inches, the depth of emotion could fill an entire page. It’s a turning point in the group’s history, chillingly rendered.
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