Arts: Comic Relief

Jane Golden launched her Mural Arts Program 24 years ago as both a fight against graffiti and a way to bring creativity into young inner-city lives; 2,800 murals later, it’s still one of the coolest initiatives in town. To wit: Later this month, lead artist Lars ­Hokanson (whose work has appeared on covers of the New Yorker) and his crew of West Philly youths will unveil the most recent exhibit in Golden's “outdoor museum” — a larger-than-life comic book. The 300-foot-long L-shaped mural at the Charles Durham branch of the Free Library in Mantua will read like a graphic novel, interweaving the stories of famous historical (Crispus Attucks, Althea Gibson) and contemporary (Batman, Shrek) characters with those of some local heroes (the kids).