Fifth Estate 416, Spring 2025 Add to the Bookbuilder

a review of

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore. Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics, 2024

Two writers, life-long friends, became practicing magicians and decades later decided to share what they have learned. Alan Moore is almost certainly the most important comics writer of the last half-century, having greatly expanded both the range and the depth of the medium, subverting, deconstructing, or reinventing every genre in which he has worked.

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The man responsible for the death of Oakland, Calif. social justice activist, anarchist, and baker, Jen Angel, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for manslaughter and robbery. Twenty-year-old Ishmael Burch accepted a plea deal in August of last year.

Angel was dragged to death in February 2023 when she became entangled in the car Burch was driving after he had stolen her purse.

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a review of

World War 3 Now? World War 3 Illustrated, Issue #54 by Jordan Worley, Nicole Shulman, Seth Tobocman, Sue Simensky Bietila, eds. AK Press, 2024

The new issue of World War 3 Illustrated, the 54^th, is one of the biggest in the history of this long-running project, with over 50 artists and writers contributing.

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A deadly drone war rages between Ukraine and Russia. A.I.-generated images are appearing on restaurant menus and as logos in grocery store aisles. Students all around the world are flooding ChatGPT essays into their online courses.

And, for some reason, the world’s richest man is now tampering with the secure government data banks of one of the world’s most powerful nations because the country re-elected a third-rate reality TV star who has a meme coin worth $180 billion dollars. Despite all of this, the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December by 26-year-old Luigi Mangione may be the most cyberpunk event of the 21^st century.

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1920s Chilean workers scene from El Montaje. ¿Quién conoce a Gómez Rojas?, Teatro Fresa Salvaje (Chile), at 2016 Theatre Festival Photo: Alvaro Pachec

A longer version of this article is available on the Fifth Estate site at https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/416-spring-2025/the-montreal-international-anarchist-theatre-festival/the-montreal-international-anarchist-theatre-festival-long-version/

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a review of

Fight for a New Normal? Anarchism and mutual aid in the Covid-19 pandemic crisis Ed. Jim Donaghey, Foreword by Ruth Kinna; Afterward by Rhiannon Firth. Freedom Press, 2024

People all over the world, including in the U.S., are facing increasing authoritarianism, natural disasters, industrially-produced destruction of the living environment and intensifying social breakdown. Nevertheless, there is some basis for hope because of the growing numbers of mutual aid projects with the potential to be part of strengthening community defense and decentralized liberatory communities, emerging everywhere.

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