Announcing my full-length comics adaptation of James Loewen’s influential Lies My Teacher Told Me, out April 16th, 2024 from The New Press!

I like to describe this book as a history book about history textbooks: it both illuminates and corrects many misconceptions and outright falsehoods commonly accepted in American history, while outlining how these errors, myths, and lies have found themselves embedded in our historical understanding and education—and a path to fixing what our miseducation has broken, developing critical thinking skills, empathy, and room for contradiction along the way. Loewen’s book has sold over two million copies since its initial release in 1995.

“Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book.” –Howard Zinn

Preorder here from Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powells.

(So there’s no confusion: I also recently announced my next fiction graphic novel, Fall Through, which is out February 6, 2024 from Abrams ComicArts— you can preorder that and get more info here.)

 Lies My Teacher Told Me was an earthshaking reading experience for me in the early 2000s, and I had reread it several times when the late, great James Loewen contacted me in early 2020 about adapting his text into the comics medium. I said yes on the spot, and we worked out details and approach over the phone during his final year. Jim was a very kind, open person and it hurts knowing that we never got a chance to meet in person—and so it’s my deepest honor to bring his work across the finish line, hopefully doing justice to his ideas, knowledge, and humanity.

 I also want to clarify that my role on this book is not merely as artist. This is a full comics adaptation for which I am the sole creator, comparing and synthesizing multiple editions of his book and updating and recontextualizing parts of the text to meet with both standards of knowledge and perspective after his 2017 edition was released, and after his passing in 2021. Mr. Loewen and I overwhelmingly see eye-to-eye in our worldviews, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we agree on everything, so in my role adapting his work I let him speak for himself and allow room for a more complex understanding of our joint perspectives on this history—which is the entire point of the book.

 I look forward to new conversations and a deepened understanding of the world we share once this book hits shelves—please preorder and spread the word. Thank you for your support and faith, as always!