Scottsboro, Alabama: A Story in Linoleum Cuts

In 2002, New York University Press published this singular, powerful comic in the form of a wordless novel rendered entirely in stark linoleum cuts. The single issue distills the harrowing true story of the Scottsboro Boys—nine Black teenagers falsely accused of rape in 1930s Alabama—into a sequence of visceral, expressionistic images. Created by artist Lin Shi Khan and historian Tony Perez, the book uses the raw, immediate medium of the linocut to confront racial injustice with a stark, unforgettable visual language. It stands as a landmark work of graphic storytelling, demonstrating how the comic form can bear witness to history with profound artistic force.