Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story

Peter Bagge is one of my all-time favorite comics makers. A multiple award winner with decades of credits, he created the seminal alternative comics series Neat Stuff and Hate and served as editor of the holdover underground comics anthology Weirdo. He has also created a number of graphic novels, including Fire!!, Woman Rebel, Apocalypse Nerd, Other Lives, and Reset. More recently, he has been a contributor to publications like Reason magazine (see his collections Founding Fathers Funnies and Everybody is Stupid Except for Me) and Vice Magazine (the Musical Urban Legends column).

Like Fire!! and Woman Rebel, Credo is a biography of a woman associated with a libertarian point of view. Rose Wilder Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of Little House on the Prairie fame, and a respected author in her own right. In fact, this book suggests that she had at least a small hand in her mother's literary success, at least as an editor and polisher, and perhaps even more so as the author of several books (the exact nature of her role is suggested but unclear in this book). She was also a very vocal woman, partly fired up by her bipolar mental state, who associated with a good number of the political and literary figures of the day, including Ayn Rand.

Like the other books in this series, Bagge portrays various highlights from her life, and it is clear for the substantive footnotes that follow the main text that he has done extensive research into his subject. He also inserts his own political leanings as well as a good dose of humor. I did not know much about Rose Wilder Lane before I read this book, and I felt that it was an effective and informative introduction to her life and works.  He speaks about his work on this book in this interview with Etelka Lehoczky.

The reviews I have read about this book have tended to be positive. Publishers Weekly called it a "loopy, frantic, and personality-packed tribute." Ryan C. pondered if Bagge is "creatively stalled out" and wrote, "my hope is that he’ll give the biography format a rest for awhile and tell us where he’s coming from and why rather than using historical figures as mouthpieces and/or human shields for his worldview." Rob Clough praised the book for intermingling comedy and historical research.

Credo was published by Drawn & Quarterly, and they offer a preview and much more info here. There is also a sizable preview available from Reason.

On a final note, I was glad to serve on a couple of panels with Bagge at the Denver Pop Culture Con this year, where he signed my copy of this book. He's an informed and funny speaker and a good guy, too!