I knew Spain Rodriguez about 17 years ago back when the Mission District of San Francisco was a vibrant arts scene. He was teaching comic book drawing at the Mission Cultural Center and my son and I were in his class. By then this was long past his wild man underground days—he’d settled down with a wife and young daughter by this time—but there was still the fire of the rebel motorcyclist in him then, especially in his clashes with the Center’s dunderhead administrators.
And that fire is still there. Spain’s latest book, Che: A Graphic Biography—now available at Red Emma’s in Baltimore—is about another rebel on a motorcycle, the Argentinian-born revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and may be the most thrilling story in author-editor-radical historian Paul Buhle’s People’s History Series. Here’s Spain, looking and sounding very much like he did back in the early 90s, talking about why the legacy of Che is more important than ever.
Incidentally, Red Emma’s and I have something in common: membership in the IWW (International Workers of the World). Actually I was only a member in the early 90s, when I briefly joined up to help the IWW organize the office temp workers of San Francisco. But Red Emma’s is still part of this legendary labor union, and it’s heartening to know that there’s still somewhere in the world where people still believe in The Good Fight.
