On sale date: February 8, 2015
A kinetic graphic biography about Michael “Air” Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time and most influential athlete in history, from the creator of the acclaimed and best-selling 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente.
This tour-de-force graphic biography explores basketball superstar Michael Jordan’s public successes and private struggles, with Santiago’s passion for his subject shining through on every full-color page. At the age of 19, Jordan scored the winning jump shot in the final seconds of the 1982 NCAA Championship, earning him the moniker “Air.” He was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984, a team with a decade of failure. By 1991, Jordan led the Bulls to their first NBA championship, besting Magic Johnson and the L.A. Lakers. In 1992, Michael Jordan joined the Dream Team, an assembly of 12 legendary NBA players who steamrolled everyone at the Barcelona Olympics and brought the gold back home. Despite taking a season off to try his hand at professional baseball, Jordan still led the Bulls to three consecutive NBA Championships. However, his life is not without controversies or calamities, and no amount of success or money can shield him from it. But everyone wanted to be like Mike, and Santiago comes closer than anyone to putting you on the parquet floor of the Chicago’s United Center in your very own pair of Air Jordans.
Praise
“In Michael Jordan: Bull on Parade, author-illustrator Wilfred Santiago crafts an expressionistic portrait of Jordan that is, in its comic-book treatment, as penetrating as any biography. It turns out that a graphic approach is a particularly effective way to convey the unique epic-ness of No. 23. …[T]he artwork pulsates with an effervescent, visceral jolt.” — David Davis - Chicago Tribune
“With a strong, tightly-written narrative that often deftly illustrates social issues of the time, the book seeks to show the private life and motivation behind Jordan’s basketball career—it’s more a behind-the-scenes biography than an action-adventure sports drama. ... In all, this is a sympathetic portrayal of Jordan for those who like to look deeper into their sports stars.” — Publishers Weekly
“Where the artist’s baseball biography [21] had all the crisp lines and clear action of a well-played nine innings, his chronicle of Michael Jordan’s glory years is flashier, sweatier and altogether more energetic. ...[T]he rhythms and gestures of basketball inform every page.” — Sean Rogers - The Globe and Mail
“This unique glance into Michael Jordan’s life explores some of the darker corners of his closet. Wilfred Santiago (writer and artist) tells this story in smaller chunks of Jordan’s life throughout five major sections of the book, each including brief interludes. The nonlinear structure of the story helps maintain a smooth pace and is artistically diverse in execution.” — Michael Bettendorf - Comics Bulletin
“What’s brilliant about Wilfred Santiago’s Michael Jordan: Bull on Parade is how it works to reconcile the two sides of the person the public believed he was and the person he might actually be. It’s an empathetic and exciting whirlwind of a story that spans across decades of tragedy and triumph to come out the other side with a portrait that could only end with a certain level of complex ambiguity.” — Patrick Hess - Nothing But Comics
Specs
- Pages
- 200
- Format
- Hardback
- Color
- Full-color
- Dimensions
- 6.4" × 8.1"
- ISBN-13
- 9781606997116