Noah Van Sciver

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)

A pretty standard satire of an author as an enfant terrible. Writer Fante Bukowski is so awful and entitled in the first book that I doubted I would have tried the second if I had read it as a stand-alone work, but since it was but the first chapter of this collection of all three books in the series, I powered on and slowly the jackass ground me down and I started to see some of the charm hidden under the cringe and stupidity. Mostly though I think I was won over by the trio of women who suffer his buffoonish presence.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Introduction / Ryan Boudinot -- Fante Bukowski Book One / Noah Van Sciver -- Fante Bukowski Book Two / Noah Van Sciver -- Fante Bukowski Book Three / Noah Van Sciver -- 6 Poems by Fante Bukowski / Noah Van Sciver -- Visual Tributes by Various Artists / Josh Bayer, Marc Bell, Box Brown, Nina Bunjevac, Anya Davidson, Max de Radiguès, Simon Hanselmann, Jesse Jacobs, Steve MacIsaac, Pierre Maurel, Bryan Moss, Ed Piskor, John Porcellino, Cristina Portolano, Joseph Remnant, Eric Reynolds, Giulia Sagramola, Zak Sally, Leslie Stein, and Alessandro Tota, illustrators -- Works Cited… (mere)

In a bit of "have your cake and eat it too"-ism, Noah Van Sciver recounts the tall tales of Paul Bunyan while throwing in a few pages criticizing Bunyan as a lumber industry mascot whose very existence was propaganda for the disastrous clearcutting and deforestation that changed the face of the North American continent and displaced indigenous populations. I'm sure some segments of the readership will be eager to denounce this as a woke version of Paul Bunyan.

Around Van Sciver's graphic novel are several text pieces by indigenous writers touching on the colonialism that Bunyan represents that really add more depth to what Van Sciver is getting at in his story. I wish Van Sciver had kicked his tale up a few grade levels and added more pages to more fully integrate the additional material into the narrative, because you just know a lot of readers are going to skip the pages without word balloons.

Anyhow, I appreciate this take on Bunyan and how it made me see him in a new light. And it gave me an excuse to spend some time googling information about folklore vs. "fakelore."

Also, now I really want to read a book mentioned in the endmatter: Nenaboozhoo and Paul Bunyan.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• Introduction: The Power of Storytelling / Lee Francis IV (a/k/a Dr. IndigiNerd), writer
• Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend / Noah Van Sciver, writer and illustrator
• Postscript: The Invention of an American Legend / Deondre Smiles, writer
• Tree-Dwelling Little People / Marlena Myles, writer and illustrator
• Important Plants & Trees
• About the Authors… (mere)