Sometime during the summer of 2018 New Yorker cartoonist Sofia Warren noticed what seemed to be an army of young volunteers canvassing her Brooklyn district in support of Julia Salazar, a young latina democratic socialist running for the New York State Senate. Intrigued, she emailed Salazar asking if she could follow her around to create a nonfiction comics chronicle of her campaign. To Warren’s great surprise, Salazar quickly agreed to her request. The result of that email request is Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator, a lively and detailed graphic memoir documenting Salazar’s unlikely election to the state senate; it’s also an entertaining guide to the nitty gritty of community organizing and what it takes to build a grassroots political campaign focused on affordable housing and tenants' rights in a gentrifying New York City district. In this 13-page excerpt, Warren sends that fateful email and meets Salazar for the first time at a coffee bar in Brooklyn. Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator by Sofia Warren will be published by Top Shelf in June. PW's More to Come podcast also interviewed Warren.
