Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story

I have two little ones and have almost completely stopped doing any real reading outside of work. Too tired. So thank goodness for Peter Bagge allowing me to rediscover an author I vaguely remembered from 10th grade English. Loved it. Am going to attempt a re-read of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Insightful, historically informative, engaging. I studied Zora Neale Hurston in undergrad and have always been enthralled by her. This book is incredible and a great way to learn about her, the Harlem Renaissance, and a means to explore other historical figures or events.

Once again, Peter Bagge provides humor and insight into a historical figure! If you are a fan of Zora Neale Hurston- you'll trees this book! And if you have never heard of her, THAT DOESN'T MATTER - because you'll have so much fun reading it!Bagge did a wonderful job in writing about and illustrating her life! SIMPLY AMAZING!

I love the layout of the book and the story line.

Three cautions: I read (and loved) Alice Walker's "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" back in 1975 when it was first published, I do not like Peter Bagge's illustration style, and even though one of my best friends brought me this book, we both felt uncomfortable about the illustrations.As a long-time fan of Hurston and her work, I read Bagge's introduction and already felt Hurston's story was in the wrong hands. He has a breezy, smart-alecky style that might be cute but instead seems trivial and insincere. The illustrations are not deliberately racist, but when I looked up after reading the first few pages, my girlfriend (whop is Black) said she thought they were offensive too. She had only read a few pages of her copy before setting it aside."Is this author white?" I asked her. "I think so," she said.I probably need to be more clear. I am not saying that a white man is incapable of writing a respectful, intelligent, and interesting graphic novel about the life of Zora Neale Hurston. I am saying that Bagge is not that man.Bragge manages to make Hurston both sassy and pathetic. So much self-doubt on these pages, with a failure to show enough strength on the part of Hurston. In fact, Bragge's work sometimes seems completely distanced from Hurston. As an example, he uses the actual words of anthropologist Boaz, but announces in the intro that he will not be doing that for Hurston. The dialogue throughout is clumsy and clunky, often expository and almost never revelatory.The panels (6-8/page) are small caricatures and obvious, without moving the story along. They certainly offer no hint of Hurston's style. Faces twist and mouths are wrenched every which way, everyone has a hunched back, and most of them look pretty much alike.While I do, in fact, understand why he chose a single color for her clothing throughout to make Hurston's figure distinctive in each frame, I wish that color had not been an insipid yellow, a color no woman with Hurston's style and color would have chosen. I wish the uniformity of the figures and faces it had not been so necessary.In the back is a biography and explanation, with supporting photos and details, of what each page is about. In other words, Bagge's graphic bio is so inadequate to its task that the author (or someone) was compelled to clarify the story told in the illustrated pages. Sometimes the only way a page makes sense is to read the explanation in the back. This text in about 6-point font, is far more interesting and revelatory than this disjointed mess of a graphic novel. And that is a pity.Hurston lied a bit in her autobiography Dust Tracks in the Road but that book is still more useful in understanding her life than this wreck. She deserved better.

Peter Bagge has been a staff writer and cartoonist for Reason magaine since 2003. As a libertarian, he was no doubt drawn to Zora Neale Hurston's independent social and political views that refused to mesh with those of her intellectual friends, both black and white. She made controversial statements about race, segregation, language (she was criticized for using dialects in her writing), and politics. Bagge brings to life Hurston's significant and pivotal moments from childhood to death, including her family (not poor, although publishers sometimes presented her that way), an evil stepmother, her professors (one was Franz Boas), lovers and several husbands, mentors and supporters, and folklore and W.P.A. colleagues like Alan Lomax, Katherine Dunham, and Stetson Kennedy. I read somewhere that Bagge was influenced by the kinetic movement of early Disney cartoons like Steamboat Willy. I can't find this reference now, so you will have to take my word for it! He also collaborated with R. Crumb, and both influences are perceptible in his work, but transformed by Bagge's acid bright color and the personalities that shine through his character drawings. Eyeballs pop, spaghetti arms and legs fly everywhere, and screams reveal teeth, tongues, and tonsils. On the other hand, the subtlety of a Bagge sneer can impart just as much emotion a tantrum. Hurston is usually in white or bright yellow, as seen on the cover, which depicts a folklore-collecting adventure for which she bought a new car, pistol, and holster with her grant money. The loveliest illustration of her, in my opinion, is the back cover. This drawing was based on the only known color photographic portrait of Hurston, taken by photographer Carl Van Vechten, with Huston wearing something Van Vechten described as a "traditional Norwegian skiing outfit." Bagge notes that Hurston was adventurous dresser!Reading the graphic-novel biography took only a few days. I spent far more time reading through the 26 pages of Bagge's *tiny* notes that flesh out the comic episodes with archival photographs, stories, and even some gossip. The notes are permeated with a joyful, breezy style with lots of exclamation points, italics, and caps, calling Langston Hughes a "doofus" and including tidbits that did not make it into the body of the book, such as Hurston's creation (with a white friend) of a black "Sara Lee" baby doll that was supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and ultimately manufactured by Ideal Toy Company. Bagge's commentary made me want to read the Hurston works that I have missed (of which there are too many) and talk with Bagge about them over a beer.There has been some criticism of Bagge because he is a white man taking a biography of a black woman and/or that he is employing some kind of revisionism to make Hurston seem less of a feminist or her politics more ambiguous. I didn't know Hurston and have not done any kind of extensive research on her, but it seems to me that Bagge was inspired by her complex ambiguities rather than selecting a black, feminist icon and saying, "let's see if I can make a Libertarian out of her!" Nah. I don't think he would do that. I think he loves Hurston too much to mess with her story.

I'm a big fan of Peter Bagge from way back to his Weirdo and Neat Stuff days and I'm enjoying the twists and turns of his artistic career. I enjoyed his graphic novel biography of Margaret Sanger, but was a little bit leery of his subject choice for his second biography. Then, I thought of the marvelous mini-biographies that Robert Crumb did of blues men and others unlikely subjects like Kraft-Ebing and Kafka and realized that it all made sense.As much as I enjoy Bagge's always lively art, I found myself much more impressed with his copious notes and photos at the back of the book. Honest analysis and entertaining commentary.This book is highly recommended for both the diehard Zora Neale Hurston fan and the reader who is a blank slate on the subject.