Based on the little known real life "Slave Insurrection" of 1741, this book imagines outlaw fugitive John Gwin and an eclectic crew of renegades as they attempt to disrupt and overthrow the colonial social order

Rebel fugitive John Gwin was previously introduced in Under the Banner of King Death and this graphic novel continues his adventures. Revolution by Fire is a hypothetical look at the inner workings of the so called “New York Conspiracy” or "Slave Rebellion" of 1741, following the figures who were considered the real-life masterminds of the plot.

Featuring an eclectic crew of African-American, Irish, and mixed race Hispanic sailors, soldiers, and renegades, Gwin and his band are determined to capture New York City in their own names and fight the higher class “wigs and ruffles” wearing white people. Unfortunately for the conspirators, suspicions about an uprising were already in the minds of the Governor and his fellow elites, and the events that followed change the course of everyone’s lives forever.

Based on the chapter titled “Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth” in Rediker’s and Peter Linebaugh’s The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, the book provides a fly-on-the-wall view of a historical event reimagined, highlighting cooperation among races and classes that transcends the social order of its time—and inspire us today.

David Lester is a musician, graphic designer and graphic novelist. His most recent book is Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press) created with Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle. He also illustrated “1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike”, (published in English, German and French editions). 1919 was co-winner of the 2020 CAWLS Book Prize. Lester’s poster of anti-war protester Malachi Ritscher was exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. He is guitarist in the rock duo Mecca Normal, cited as an influence on the founders of the feminist social movement Riot Grrrl. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

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Marcus Rediker is an historian of the sea working in the “history from below” tradition. A Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, Rediker is known for his animated histories of early modern piracy, slavery, and plebeian rebellion.

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Retired former senior lecturer at Brown University, Paul Buhle is a sixty-plus year veteran of social movements. He is the publisher of one of the first “alternative” comics in 1969 titled Radical America Komics. He has produced a number of non-fiction comics, including Wobblies! A Graphic History. He lives in Providence.

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“Revolution by Fire is a riveting graphic narrative of the 1741 New York City slave conspiracy. The innovative graphic narrative brings into full view America’s slave past and how enslaved people courageously rebelled against their enslavers. Readers particularly interested in the multiracial dimensions of slave resistance will find this graphic narrative a real gem.”
—Dr. Karlos K. Hill, author of The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History