the geekocracy

The Beats: A Graphic History

Don’t meet your heroes. You know what? Don’t even research your heroes. I learned, a long time ago, that they’ll do nothing but disappoint. Thankfully, before reading The Beats: A Graphic History, I was well aware that Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs were assholes, no, even worse, just plain bad people. Ginsberg on the other hand, well I didn’t care for his poetry the way I cared for the prose of Kerouac and Burroughs, so I was wholly surprised to find myself eating up every fact about him in the book. Actually, I enjoyed all the stories in The Beats, even those that put some of my heroes in an unfavorable light (which they deserved.)

Harvey Pekar’s name isn’t only on the front of the book, his presence is felt on every page penned by him. Yes we’re getting these very direct stories about these larger than life characters and you’d imagine it’d be easy for an author to become forgotten amongst the more interesting, but that’s not the case. Like Studs Terkel before him Harvey Pekar is able to tell the stories of these amazing people with his own distinct roar. Harvey Pekar’s straight forward approach to writing, while including his own asides and plain spoken language (that’s a compliment), makes for the perfect window dressings for these varied and distinct people. One Beat is not the same as another, in politics or philosophy, and that very clear distinction may have been lost if this book had been in the care of anyone else but Harvey Pekar and editor Paul Buhle.

Ed Piskor, like Harvey Pekar, is direct. He delivers his illustrations to the reader in a clear and concise manner fitting for this kind of work, all the while retaining his own unique style in the mix of it all. His facial expressions in particular have the same exaggeration shown by his predecessors from the 40s, expressions you’d find in Tales from the Crypt and Weird Science, while also maintaining story sensibilities only developed by the comic writers of today.

The story Beatnik Chicks is also worth mentioning. While at first abrasive (if, like me, you’re male and intimidated by second wave feminists) it becomes a well told, melancholy, but also positive story that’s well drawn. The story Lamantia, written by Nancy Joyce Peters and Penelope Rosemont and illustrated by Summer McClinton, is another well drawn story. It’s shading gives depth to a medium which is most often content to stay 2d. The last story of the bunch, Tuli Kupferberg, by Jeffrey Lewis and Tuli himself, is also worth mentioning because of its heavy first person narration. It’s a creative story about beatnik band The Fugs, a band that I didn’t know existed and would never have cared learning about in any capacity, that is, until I read about it in the Beats.

The anthology doesn’t have a bad story in it. There’s much I haven’t mentioned, but just because I haven’t doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s rare you find yourself enjoying every single page in an anthology like this, but that was definitely the case for me. Whether you’re interested in these people or not, it’s a great read, and you have to keep in mind that this is coming from someone who was born long after these people were famous. So go out and buy it!