The Beginning of the American Fall: A Comics Journalist Inside the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Can a cartoonist and millions of random strangers change the world? The initial stages of their attempt are chronicled in this book of comics-journalism and written observations.

Stephanie McMillan, long-time activist and cartoonist, has waited her entire life for the American people to rise up. Sparked by uprisings around the world, a new movement bursts onto the national scene against a system that denies the people a decent life and puts the planet at risk.

With delightful full-color drawings, interviews, dialogue, description, and insightful reflections, this book chronicles the first several months of the fragile and contradictory movement. It situates detailed personal experiences and representative narratives within the broad context of a truly unique and historical global conjuncture. This book will stand as a record of the emerging movement in accessible comics form.

STEPHANIE MCMILLAN has worked as a political cartoonist since 1992. She self-syndicates Code Green, a weekly editorial cartoon focused on environmental emergencies, and writes the comic strip Minimum Security five days a week for Universal Uclick. Both can be found on her website: StephanieMcMillan.org. Her award-winning cartoons have appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide including the Los Angeles Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Daily Beast, Yes! magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, plus several textbooks and anthologies. McMillan has been an activist since the early 1980s, tackling such issues as imperialist war, immigrant rights, police brutality, and women’s reproductive freedom. She currently works with the anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist collective One Struggle. McMillan has given presentations at political conferences such as the Left Forum and Sierra Summit and on radio programs such as Terra Verde and Air America’s Ring of Fire. She was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her comics appearing in The Beginning of the American Fall. McMillan lives in Florida.