Let’s get this out of the way: if Snowden is right then the NSA just cached this review and could use it to aggregate data on what we at BookGateway.com and I personally believe about a variety of topics, including America, the President, political views, beliefs and more. If that bothers you then you may have Snowden to thank (or blame) for illegally leaking info about these programs to the public. The real question is: what now?
Beyond: Edward Snowden
Written by Valerie D’Orazio
Illustrated by Dan Lauer
Bluewater Productions
May 2014
Is Snowden a whistleblower or a traitor? How did he get access to so much sensitive data? What has he done with the data? That’s one side of the coin. The other side is more about why the NSA is collecting all this data? What will the NSA do with the data? And how did the NSA get approval to collect so much data on American citizens? Yeah, no answers here. Just questions. Exactly like the comic.
Like an illustrated Wikipedia page, Bluewater and D’Orazio’s Snowden is a brief biographical illustrated article that gives insight and asks questions that are missing from so much of the nation’s dialog on this subject. Not simply traitor or patriot but more real life. Nuanced. And complicated. A great starting place for those interested in Snowden and aren’t sure they are getting the whole story by just reading the headlines.
D’Orazio does a good job of building a biography of Snowden prior to his leaks and then posing questions. She doesn’t answer them and does a good job at walking the line between journalist and editorial. Lauer does an adequate job of illustration. It’s stilted and stiff, but the style matches the almost realism of the topic. It won’t win awards and isn’t pandering to the Jim Lee fanboys. It works though.
For more information about Snowden, check out this video of his recent interview with Brian Williams.
Inside The Mind of Edward Snowden ~ NBC News… by HumanSlinky
If you are interested in these kinds of instructive, editorial comics then check out the rest of the Bluewater lineup. They’ve also covered newsworthy people and topics such as Colin Powell, the Tea Party Movement, Hillary Clinton, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Christie, Anderson Cooper, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Barak Obama.
@ashertopia is the Managing Editor of BookGateway.com. He is an avid reader and a lifetime learner. His favorite genres include science fiction, fantasy, as well as theology and Christian living. His personal blog is AshertopiA – a land flowing with milk and honey… and a lot of sticky people.
This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.