Front Lines: A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance

Reviews Alex Dueben | September 3, 2026 Susan Simensky Bietila is a member of the World War 3 Illustrated collective, and her comics and art have appeared in books like Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World and magazines like The Nation. She was one of the editors of the pioneering, iconic feminist newspaper RAT. Her new book, Front Lines, which came out this year from PM Press is one part memoir, one part collection of artwork, but it is really a story of activism and community. This is Bietila’s story, and like her artwork, and her long career as an artist working in many media, it is truly singular. But this book tells the story of her life as a part of many different communities. It is the story of how activist movements that many see as isolated and unconnected are in fact deeply intertwined. This is a book about art and activism, that talks as much about other people as it does herself, because that is how Bietila sees the world. It is how she has always perceived the world. Late in the book Bietila quotes Paulo Freire, the great educator and philosopher who asked his students to “analyze personal experience and connect it to the causality of oppr...