From Puerto Rico's Murals to Syria's Streets

Molly Crabapple’s Cosmopolitan Colors

Listen fast, podcast people, because the beloved artist-satirist-global muckraker Molly Crabapple talks fast, the same way she draws and paints a sort of carnival of conflict out there: in Syria, in storm-damaged Puerto Rico, in New York City. Molly Crabapple was a naked model and café / cabaret ornament in Lower Manhattan before OCCUPY landed on her doorstep in 2011. In the turmoil she invented a new career that’s made her famous, illustrating rough places in the real world. With her color tubes and razor-sharp pen nibs, Molly finds the trouble and sends back hand-made images for a visual culture that’s overdosed on video. Her new book, with the writer Marwan Hisham, is Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War.

To block the view of snipers positioned just a few hundred meters away in the neighboring Masharqah, rebels and locals placed charred buses in between buildings in the entrances to the Bustan Al-Qasr battlefronts. Illustration by Molly Crabapple

The front lines in Bustan Al-Qasr. In the background, regime-held Al-Iza’a neighborhood where snipers from both sides cover the area. Buildings at firing range are still inhabited by civilians. Illustration by Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple posing with her portrait. photo and illustration by Susan Coyne

Illustrated portrait of Molly Crabapple by Susan Coyne

Guest List

Molly Crabapple
Artist and Co-writer of "Brothers of the Gun" and writer of "Drawing Blood".

Reading List

Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War
Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple
A bracingly immediate memoir by a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, Brothers of the Gun is an intimate lens on the century’s bloodiest conflict and a profound meditation on kinship, home, and freedom.