Rob Vollmar and Pablo G. Callejo, Bluesman: Complete (NBM, 2008); $24.95, hardcover.
Bluesman appeared in 2006 in three parts and for
whatever reason, I completely missed it. I am drawn to the
connections between comics and music, and I have a soft
spot for historical fictions set in the 1920s and 30s.
Given the fact that I must be as close to the ideal
audience for this book as possible, the fact that I missed
it makes me suspect that others missed it as well—so I am
happy that we all have a second chance with the publication
this summer of a complete edition of this beautiful
book. Bluesman tells the story of a guitar player, Lem
Taylor, in the late 20s, during the pioneering days of
recorded blues. Lem had walked away from a rigid religious
family and the expectations that he would follow in his
father’s footsteps as a preacher, and he followed his love
of the blues which he encountered as a young boy listening
to a blind man play the blues outside of a revival meeting.
In the 1920s, this love took him on the road, tramping from
town to town with his traveling companion, an irrepressible
older piano player named Ironwood Malcott, looking for juke
joints to play for tips and a meal and hoping, maybe, that
the rumors of “big breaks” for recorded artists might come
true for them as well.
We know the famous bluesmen of this generation: Son House,
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson—mythic figures who
somehow emerged from the poverty, racism and violence
facing African Americans in the segregated south during a
period which witnessed the explosive resurgence of the Ku
Klux Klan and lynchings. Vollmar’s story seeks to create an
imaginative portrait of one of those who didn’t beat the
odds, despite extraordinary genius for the music. It is a
moving and a sad book, occasionally overwrought (and toward
the end it drifts toward a kind of magic realism and away
from its very grounded realistic portrait of the conditions
of the period). And it is a truly beautiful book, possibly
one of the very best books about music written in the
comics form, and certainly a book that deserves to stand
alongside other historical graphic novels about this
period, including Stagger Lee, Kings in Disguise,
and (although set a bit
later, a book that kept coming to mind for me in
reading Bluesman) Stuck Rubber
Baby.
This is the second collaboration between Vollmar and
Callejo; their first was Castaways, another depression-era story that was
quite successful although not as original or fully realized
as Bluesman. Callejo brings just the right touch
with his wood-cut style, respectful of the WPA traditions
from the 30s without being overdone or losing sight of the
unique dynamic energy vital to the comics form. Vollmar’s
prose is loving and believable at every turn, even when the
unbelievable is happening on the page. This is a book to
cherish, like the discovery of a rare recording by an
artist you had thought never had the chance to set his song
to wax.
