Comics Alternative

This week on the podcast, Derek and Andy W. discuss three new and very different titles. They begin with a narrative based in reality, Mike's Place: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv, written by Jack Baxter and Joshua Faudem, with art by Koren Shadmi (First Second). This is the story of an American who travels to Israel to make a documentary, teams up with an Israeli film student, and then learns firsthand both the promises and the dangers of the conflicted culture. Mike's Place is beachfront bar in Tel Aviv where politics and religion are checked at the front door. It's sacred text is written with music, drink, and multicultural camaraderie. But the filmmakers soon learn that safe havens, political and personal, can be a tenuous proposition. Andy and Derek highlight the authors' evenhanded approach to their politically charged subject matter as well as their ability to make Mike's Place a story of community, not a single-minded treatise. And after all of that reality, the Two Guys head in t