Out on the Wire

May 18, 2015
This instructive, impassioned, and educational volume uses a deliberate and friendly approach in the vein of Scott McCloud. Abel (La Perdida) brings readers on a tour of radio shows and podcasts that specialize in innovative storytelling techniques. Not surprisingly, Ira Glass of This American Life wrote the foreword and appears in Abel’s simple, sturdy, black-and-white line drawings as something of a quirky but eager and well-informed cohost. The shows covered vary in style, from the long-form essays of This American Life to the more out-there sonic experiments of Radiolab or epic personal histories of Radio Diaries, but their staff all share a deep and abiding curiosity. Abel digs into the structural details of how the shows are produced, from the obsession with “getting great tape” to the “ruthlessly collaborative” editorial meetings where feelings are rarely spared. A must-read not just for listeners of today’s great flowering of audio storytelling but for those who want to learn how to do it themselves. Agent: Bob Mecoy

Starred review from June 1, 2015
A richly engaging graphic narrative about radio storytelling and storytelling in general. Though drawing cartoons about radio would seem to be counterintuitive-exploring such an aural medium through visual means-Abel (La Perdida, 2006, etc.) shows what a complementary, multilayered relationship the two can have. This is a narrative about narrative-how it works and why-and the author is its narrator, so it provides insight into her work as well as that of Ira Glass and so many others involved in This American Life and other NPR storytelling programs. "Turns out, I need to read this book in order to write it," she explains toward the end in an untitled epilogue that finds the artist alone in the wilderness, trying to find a path through the trees. "In the end, that's kind of what happened. I wrote the book and read it, rewrote it and read it, and drew it and read it." The results are rewarding for author and reader alike, as the latter will not only discover the keys to narrative radio (along with the laborious work, including months of planning and hours of taping), but also the keys to graphic narrative as well. All are not only "character-driven," but "the characters change and they grow and they learn something new, and surprising." "A bunch of anecdotes aren't enough to make a powerful story," shares one of the characters in Abel's book, about the characters in one of the many radio stories illustrated here. "You need the person to undergo a change." Glass, the primary character and narrator here, other than the author, insists, "radio is a very visual medium." The illustrations of radio in action, the scenes behind the scenes, underscore that assertion. A spirited work whose readership should not be limited to those who make radio narrative or love to listen to it.

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November 15, 2015

Abel (La Perdida) has performed a metamasterpiece by reporting with visual finesse and detail the complicated and sometimes precarious process behind public radio shows such as Radiolab and This American Life. Ideas, character, story structure, voice, and editing are all vital. Her book itself was informed by that same process. For swamped by details after years of interviews and research, Abel found her way only by realizing that "I need[ed] to read this book in order to write it." The "wire" of the title refers to the high wire of a delicately balanced tightrope walker--as Abel illustrates at the end. Her realistic, clear-line inks intercut talking heads with numerous visual metaphors and group shots, enhanced by cast-of-character panoramas and back matter show descriptions. VERDICT Abel's accomplishment offers both a menu and road map of techniques that apply to all storytelling and nonfiction reporting, regardless of medium. Indispensible for communications collections and a valuable asset for anyone considering a career in media.--M.C.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2015
A devotee of true-storytelling radio shows such as This American Life, Planet Money, Radiolab, Snap Judgment, The Moth, and others, Abel draws on interviews with their producers for this engaging near primer on how they do it. In effect, she makes a comics analog of such programming, trading its most crucial dimension, sound, for hers, pictures. Portraying herself as inquiring reporter and the radio folk as expert informers, she covers the range of mechanical and aesthetic techniques they use, both generally and distinctively for each program (live, unedited performance or a continuous soundtrack of speech, noise, and music). Of those practices, the story-conference-cum-critiquing-session called the Edit proves most interesting, since in it a single story is shaped and toned for broadcast and streaming. Abel's concentration on the techniques of the broadcasters calls particular attention to her visual style as she varies the backdrops (from blank wall to landscape) before which her realistically rendered figures present the content. Just as it's impossible not to see her informants' stories, it's impossible not to hear Abel's comics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)