The Beats: A Graphic History

The Beats covers a lot of ground in terms of a historical movement and its constituents. The Beat Generation monicker is applied to a group of writers whose works appeared post-World War Two and were a precursor to the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. Most of this book covers a triumvirate of Beat writers, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. It is unflinching in its portrayals of their drug use, sexual activities, and various other activities, though it only documents profane activities and does not depict them. It also chronicles their major works, career achievements, and the arcs of their lifetimes. It is at once highly informative

as well as entertaining enough, full of interesting tidbits and good stories.

After attending to the "big three" Beats, the rest of the book contains many shorter pieces about less well known poets and writers, like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Rexroth. I found these succinct pieces more desirable and informative.They certainly cast a larger view of the movement and these authors that went beyond the hard-drinking, hard-living, and largely misogynistic portraits of Kerouac, Burroughs, and, to a lesser extent, Ginsberg.

Although I am a big fan of much of Harvey Pekar's comics work, overall this set of stories is a little stiff, perhaps too journalistic, and overly celebratory for me. Additionally, I am a big fan of Ed Piskor's work, but this effort is more a story with graphics than it is a graphic narrative. I think he has grown exponentially as a comics creator, and his more recent efforts on Wizzywig and Hip Hop Family Tree are more fleshed out, vibrant, and exciting. More to my liking among the Beat poets stories were some of the shorter stories in the back of the book, especially the ones about Gary Snyder drawn by Peter Kuper and Diane di Prima illustrated by Mary Fleener. I was also enthralled by Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons' tale of painter Joy DeFeo creating The Rose, and the final piece in the book by Jeffrey Lewis on poet/anarchist/pacifist Tuli Kupferberg and his band The Fugs, which excellently portrays the transition from Beats to hippies.

Perhaps the best part of this book was a piece written by Joyce Brabner and drawn by Summer McClinton about beatnik women. This visual essay provides a strong counterpoint to the rest of the book, acknowledging and transcending the sexism and cruder parts of the beatnik movement. It is a smartly written and well flowing look at a largely overlooked set of writers and thinkers who deserve more credit for their accomplishments.

The reviews I have read have taken this history to task for various matters. The New York Times' John Leland called the book "plainly celebratory" and added that it glosses over some history and is somewhat self-promoting. Pádraig Ó Méalóid, a fan of Pekar's earlier work, did not enjoy this book, stating "that the writing and art often seemed terribly static and undynamic." Gerald Nicosia felt that the beginning of the book was a "disaster" and fraught with errors, but that the latter parts focusing on beatnik women and more minor poets saved it. He summed up that it was "notable for the completeness of its portrait of that magical era - an achievement that, whether in comics or literary biographies, is as impressive as it is rare."

The Beats: A Graphic History was published by Hill and Wang.

Hip Hop Family Tree, Volume 1

Originally serialized at Boing Boing, Hip Hop Family Tree, Volume 1 follows the "viral propagation of a culture." The narrative starts in the late 1970s in the Bronx and covers a large swath of events and figures. One of the great features of the large page format is that the riff on traditional Marvel Treasury Editions includes some rough paper and old-school coloring that makes the rappers and moguls appear as larger than life figures like superheroes. And there is a multitude of colorful characters in here, including graffiti artists, beat boxers, luminaries like Rick Rubin, Run DMC, Russell Simmons, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Kurtis Blow; record companies like Sugar Hill Records, radio DJs, and club owners.

Image found at the Columbus Museum of Art

One of my favorite parts of the online version is its inclusion of specific songs highlighted in every episode. Although that feature does not accompany the book, the fine folks at Stumptown Trade Review have a 4 hour playlist of many of the artists and songs featured in the book here.

Accomplished creator Ed Piskor has done lots of nonfiction comics in the past, including working on American Splendor and a biography of The Beats with Harvey Pekar. Even his hacker book Wizzywig, which I absolutely loved, was based on reality. He is an excellent researcher and deft artist, and his imagery is an excellent combination of reality and super-expressive, cartoonish comics. Piskor manages to capture grit, enterprise, power, and frivolity with his pictures, but with his words he also does a sort of comic rapping, incorporating snippets of lyrics and song titles into his dialogue as well as setting up visual imagery and foreshadowing future events. This does not come off as too clever or cute but adds to the vitality of the narratives. I found this book to be a marvel of ingenuity and a testament to his great skills as a comics creator. He speaks more about his influences, career, and work on this book in this interview. He also spoke at length with Tom Spurgeon here.

All of the reviews I have read online about this book have been glowing. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and called it "a massive undertaking, but Piskor succeeds mightily in chronicling hip-hop’s formative years with riveting detail." Win Wiacek called it "cool, informative and irresistible" as well as "wild fun and deliciously addictive."

Hip Hop Family Tree, Volume 1 is available from Fantagraphics. They provide a preview and much more here. You can also read most if not all of the comics online at Boing Boing. Piskor is still doing new entries in the series and reportedly will keep going for 5 volumes, until he reaches the time period his interest in rap music waned in the early 1990s.

On a side note, I met Ed Piskor this past summer at HeroesCon, and pre-ordered this book. He was an incredibly smart and polite man, and I am glad to show off the sketch he drew in my copy.

Slick Rick!

Wizzywig

Kevin Phenicle is a slight, nerdy adolescent who gets picked on by his peers and who lives with his grandmother. He does not look like much of a threat to anyone. But as "Boingthump," Kevin gets into all kinds of mischief and mayhem. He copies and sells pirate versions of popular computer games. He scams the phone company so he can make all kinds of free calls. He gains access to classified databases. He rigs phones so he wins radio station contests. He invents computer viruses and worms. As a hacker, he finds himself the target of FBI sting operations, ends up imprisoned multiple times, and spends much of his life on the run from the authorities.

Boingthump is a fictional amalgam of a character, with attributes of many famous hackers. He is based mainly on former fugitives Kevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen, but he also runs some famous scams perpetrated by legends like Cap'n Crunch, Captain Zap, and Phiber Optik. He even gets credited for an infamous TV jamming scheme. Although Boingthump perpetrates many criminal acts, he appears as a sympathetic figure in this book. It is difficult not to root for him when it seems he is really trying to infiltrate and hoodwink monolithic authorities. Having the support of a friendly radio DJ advocate helps make him seem less unsavory, as does the stark contrasts with an oily TV newsman who capitalizes on Boingthump's notoriety and the thuggish figures who antagonize him, embodied by federal agents and prison inmates.

The contents of this book first appeared serialized as a webcomic, which is still available online. Creator Ed Piskor is best known for multiple collaborations with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor as well as The Beats: A Graphic History. A prolific modern creator whose style is reminiscent of underground comix, he is currently working on a Hip Hop Family Tree webcomic. Piskor talks more about his work on this graphic novel in this interview with IFC.

This book definitely has much to add to the discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of technology hacking. Reviews of it I have read have been very positive. Wired Magazine's Steven Levy called this story "a delight, wryly rendered and packed with dead-on details of the hacker life." Comics Should Be Good's Sonia Harris wrote that "the book is beautiful, a lovely experience to read, made with much love and attention to detail" and well worth buying. The Onion's A.V. Club Comic Panel concluded that Piskor's "passion for the subject jumps off the page, making Wizzywig both an entertaining read and a powerful argument-starter."

A preview and more can be found here from the book's publisher Top Shelf.