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Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman

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Emma Goldman is one of the big name names of American anarchists, as well as one of the earlier to contribute to free speech, birth control, and the labor movements. She was an amazing public speaker, something that is lost in this day of television and radio, and her writing still ranks amongst the classics of Anarchist thought for a free and just society. From her involvement in the shooting of Frick (though Alexander Berkman was a lousy shot) to free speech fights to labor struggles in Massachusetts to getting deported by Edgar Hoover, all the way to being amongst the first radicals to denounce the government of the Bolsheviks (which ostracized her amongst the left), and finally working to raise funds for the Spanish Revolutionary cause. She was jailed for fighting against the draft, advocating for birth control, and for "inciting a riot." In a lot of ways, the stuff she said then was visionary for the time period. She remains one of the most amazing people in history, and someone who gave her all so others could be free and live in a just world.

"Dangerous Woman: A Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman" can be best described as a graphic novel version of "Living My Life", and it's a real treat. The artist, Sharon Rudahl, does a great job capturing Goldman's turbulent and unique life, growing from a fiery Jewish peasant girl fleeing Russia to an active Anarchist speaker and organizer hated by the government, to the patron-saint of the American Anarchist movement, though small by the time of her death. She spares no detail, especially the parts about Emma's sex life and her many partners over the years. One of my favorite scenes in the book is when she has been sent by her mentor, Johann Most, on a speaking tour "Against the 8 Hour Day" (it was too little and was too reformist and not revolutionary enough.) She encounters an older man in the Chicago stop of the tour who tells her that while he understands why young people would be impatient with small demands, but "I won't live to see the revolution. Will I never have a little time for reading or to walk openly in the park?" After this encounter, Emma vowed never to let doctrine or ideology get in the way of a good fight that brought real change to real people's lives. That's a lesson that a lot of radicals then and now could learn and take to heart.
Today, the closest we in the United States have to an Emma Goldman is academics in ivory towers, as loud mouth voices in the sea of state and corporate rule. The speaking tours of yesterday is the youtube, internet, music albums and television of today, which is much more controlled than speaking in public used to be, though less prone to violent disruption by people who disagree with the author. It's hard to imagine a story like hers again where someone from such a humble beginning devotes her entire life, to the point where she refused to correct health problems like infertility, to the cause of fighting the existing order, and becoming such an international figure as she did. Maybe a new Emma Goldman of the internet or TV or music like hiphop will arise to become an inspiration to people's movements everywhere, like Subcommader Marcos in Chiapas has, or elsewhere. It's hard to say. Either way, check out Emma's life in graphic novel comic form, because she's a real life superhero in a way that Superman never could be.

Sharon Rudahl's "A Dangerous Woman" covers the life of a well-known anarchist around the turn of the century. Sharon's art is very appropriate for a fiery speechmaker; the plot as presented by Sharon never drags, and you get a book and a movie at the same time!

I had heard about Emma Goldman, but my political youth was spent in the socialist movement, not the anarchist movement, so I never researched Ms. Goldman's life or work. One piece I found interesting was Ms. Goldman's opposition to the amendment granting women the right to vote, and why she opposed it. Since my grandmother was a prominent suffragette, I approached this part of the book with some skepticism, but it was presented with such passion that I found myself agreeing in principle with some parts of Ms. Goldman's philosopy on this particular topic. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, and it's difficult to go back in time to try to understand things with the perspective in effect at that time, but Ms. Rudahl does a fantastic job with her art of helping to build that paradigm.

I found it difficult to put the book down, it was so entertaining, and in a way that enlightens. Emma Goldman didn't live her life as an audition for a reality show, so you probably won't get that kind of stilted melodrama from it. What you WILL get is a fascinating historical presentation with Ms. Rudahl's art, and a dialog that both complements the art and creates it's own story.

A very fine book, and I heartily recommend buying it.

Rudahl's descriptive expository approach to Emma's story did not work for me; it seems her aim for this graphic biography was creation for the benefit of instruction--to teach the youth of today, which is perfectly fine. But to me the approach set a forced tone. I feel this could have been so much better had Rudahl taken another approach (e.g. telling the story from Emma directly or from the memory of Alexandar Berkman or niece Stella or from police files).

The art--I like how Rudahl uses a variety of different frames and image montages, and the composition of her work is very good--movement, balance, and perspective. However, I am not keen about her style, especially her inability to convey expression in characters' faces. Over and over the same wooden image of Emma Goldman. Characterizations of people, graphically-speaking are flat; the images of people often reminded me of manikins.

If you want to learn about Emma Goldman, I suggest reading her story in her own words, Living My Life, volumes 1&2

There is a tremendous amount of thugishness in hard times, people locked up in prison or deported, even in large countries like the United States and Russia. Emma Goldman could be a speaker who actually incited riots because the form of law and order imposed upon the poor did not give anarchists the same freedom of speech that millionaires and billionaires have today if they want to be anonymous about what they really think, and donuts will get you $14 trillion after the money has already been spent. At the age of 70, Emma Goldman was trying to save Arthur Bortolotti from deportation under the War Measures Act in Canada because he possessed an Anti-Fascist Leaflet!! She died in 1940 after Bortolotti was released from prison sick with flu. She is remembered for more than half a century of trouble-making.

I was required to buy this book for my college history class and, I never knew about Emma Goldman before I read this book (or well, comic book if you will). It is a very easy read because of the fact that it is a comic book and it is very informative and it's really enjoyable to read. I found it very interesting and you learn about the difficult times that immigrants like Emma had to go through. There is great history content through-out the book and I'd reccommend this to anyone who wants a fun way to learn about a story in history!

This comic book takes a serious subject and simplifies its Emma Goldman's comments that are an affront to what she stood for. It is overly simplistic as well as "comical" in its drawings. The illustrator should be ashamed of the explicit sexual drawings.

I bought this to introduce Emma to a young lady and, after looking in it,
decided it would cancel any interest she might have had. Stick to Living My Life and imagine the visuals.