You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive

New York, 1989: as a decade of activism around the urban housing crisis and beyond comes to a close, legendary graphic artist Seth Tobocman is there to document it all in his bold comic style.

You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive collects many of Tobocman's most enduring images in a powerhouse assemblage that cuts right to the heart of 1980s activism. All the high (and low) points are there: the imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal; the rise of Reaganomics; the struggle against apartheid; the Miami Race Riots; and, of course, the turf wars that dominated the city of New York, as activists and low-income families alike demanded their rights to the city's abandoned buildings.

Now available in a brand-new twentieth anniversary edition, this stunning and candid portrait of a decade of struggle to preserve basic human rights and build a better world is sure to appeal to a new generation of activists ready to demand the right to the city, and worthy of a place on the shelf of every historian of urban struggle.

Includes a new introduction by arts activist and historian Alan W. Moore.


Seth Tobocman is one of the founding editors of World War 3 Illustrated, an author/illustrator of three collections, and an educator. He has shown his work in streets and galleries across the globe—including Exit Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Alan W. Moore is an art historian who has written on artists groups, cultural districts, and cultural economies. He worked with the artists groups Colab and helped start the cultural center ABC No Rio. Hes written a bunch of stuff, including chapters for two noteworthy collections, Alternative Art NY and Collectivism after Modernism.