Dave Nance

The authors of this graphic biography are so bad at writing comic books that they felt compelled to add four to six pages of text at the start of every chapter to try to explain the choppy, opaque, context-free mess that follows. People march across the page with little or no introduction and, too often, for no reason.

My favorite non sequitur comes at the end of Chapter 2 when we are told, "Depressed at his wife's death in an automobile accident, the great editor, J. A. Wayland, commits suicide." Wayland had only been referenced previously in one panel as the editor of the Appeal to Reason, a socialist newspaper. If his death is so important, perhaps his life should have been also?

Ironically, the best and most coherent chapter -- Debs' sedition trial -- was written by the guy who only gets a "with" credit on the cover. Next time, give him his own book free of those fools Paul Buhle and Steve Max. Noah Van Sciver's art is fine, but I'm lumping him in with Buhle and Max as an enabler because he knows how to make a good graphic novel and went ahead and drew this instead.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Time Line of Debs's Life -- Debs: An Introduction -- 1. The Rise of Eugene V. Debs -- 2. "Debsian Socialism" -- 3. Triumph – and the Edge of Tragedy -- 4. Martyr Debs -- 5. The Debs Legacy: Norman Thomas, Michael Harrington, Bernie Sanders -- Further Reading -- Acknowledgments -- List of Sustaining Contributors… (mere)

The colourful Eugene V. Debs would make a wonderful subject for a graphic novel but unfortunately, this is not the book I'd recommend. A text-heavy graphic novel that cannot decide if it's "Debs for beginners" or something far more serious. It is filled with half-ideas, people and institutions that pop in for a moment, are never introduced, and who then disappear a moment later. (Will anyone reading it know who Daniel De Leon was? Or for that matter, William Winpisinger?) Much is done to show Debs as if he was a 21st century politician, far ahead of his time on issues like race and gender, though one wonders how true this is. (The party he led was hardly free of racism and sexism.) There are passing references, largely uncritical, about the Bolsheviks and their American supporters. A not insignificant part of the book focusses on American socialism post-Debs, showing Norman Thomas as a rather nice old man and Michael Harrington in a very critical light. The authors' political agenda is evident on every page, but the real Eugene Debs does not come alive here. A pity -- this was such a great idea for a book.… (mere)