Review: The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History by John Vasquez Mejias.
Union Square & Co, May 2024. 111 p. ill. ISBN 9781454952466, [hardcover], $20.00.
Reviewed July 2025
By: Matthew Garklavs, Electronic Resources Librarian, Pratt Institute Libraries
Woodcut printmaking is a meticulous process of carving a block and inking its raised surfaces to create an image. In Puerto Rico, the art form has a rich legacy, championed by artists like Lorenzo Homer and Rafael Tufiño as a way to capture their culture’s beauty. Continuing this tradition, Bronx-based artist and teacher John Vasquez Mejias spent a decade creating The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History, a work that tells the story of Puerto Rico’s 1950s independence movement.
In a series of intricately composed panels, Mejias narrates what he terms an “extremely complicated” story, presented like a Rubik’s cube of razor-sharp shapes and cacophonous calligraphy. Though brief in length, the book moves at a persistent pace, carrying readers through jungles, crowded theaters, high-speed car chases, urban mazes, and dreamlike sequences with cameos by historical figures.
Beyond its striking visuals, The Puerto Rican War uncovers a little-known chapter of history. In the preface and closing interview, Mejias explains his goal: to document this story and challenge Puerto Rico’s image as merely a vacation spot or a storyline from West Side Story. The result is a compelling work that is ideal for libraries of various types, book displays, classrooms, and scholarly study.
Another reason The Puerto Rican War deserves recognition is Mejias’s deep engagement with art libraries. The original edition is housed in the Thomas J. Watson Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and Mejias has even staged puppet-show adaptations of the story there. In this context, his work underscores an important truth: libraries are active partners in sustaining and advancing artistic expression.
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