Instead of investigating fear and loathing in Las Vegas, artist Molly Crabapple and journalist Laurie Penny tripped off to Greece, where global bond-and-currency vigilantes have brought austerity to the homeland of democracy.
The result? The e-book-only anti-joyride Discordia, out now from Vintage Digital.
“I’ve been a fan of Molly’s art for years, and was excited when we properly got to know each other at Occupy Wall Street,” Penny told Wired. “After a few months of mutual fangirling and working together on small reporting projects, we realized we had to knuckle down and collaborate for real.”
Penny and Crabapple spent their summer soaking up Greece’s economic and political instability, conducting interviews and sketching blowback from the rise of the nation’s disturbing right-wing political group, Golden Dawn. Months later, they distilled Penny’s 24,000-word essay, Crabapple’s 36 illustrations and a foreword from Paul Mason into Discordia’s digital-only gonzo journalism.
“We stuck together during the trip, taking notes right through, and discussed the images and text with each other first,” Penny said. “But otherwise, we worked fairly independently. Molly finished the drawings first so I could shape my text around them, which was an interesting exercise.”
Click through Wired’s preview gallery above, in which Crabapple and Penny discuss Discordia, Greece and more. But what would Socrates say? “I only know that I know nothing.”