By: Derf Backderf
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
Price: $24.99
Page Count: 288
As I sit down to write this I wonder if it is at all possible for me to be objective with John Backderf’s newest graphic novel, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. Not only is Derf is one of my favorite cartoonists, he was also one of the first that I met when I started to broaden my comics horizon beyond that of superdudes. This was in 2002, in Columbus, Ohio, at the then-called Mid-Ohio Con where he had a table and was selling his first, 24 page, edition of My Friend Dahmer (which I still own, against Derf’s blessing to sell it and buy a nice meal). Beyond this, Kent State University is one of the most important places in my life, even though they politely asked me not to return. While I was attending the school, I met my wife, I watched my first international film, I was the president International Film Society, and I had my first film review bi line at the Kent Stater. That all took place during the 30th Commemoration of the May 4th Shootings. So, when I heard that Derf was writing a diligently researched story about this tragedy my interest was piqued.
From Abramsbooks.com: Amazon
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children—a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent—as relevant today as it was in 1970.
In his introduction Backderf makes the reader aware of how much time and energy was spent interviewing survivors, reviewing Kent State’s May 4th archive, and several visits to the campus. As a former student I was able to immediately recognize several locations but with a few clicks through the archive I can confirm that Backderf does not hesitate with recreating images in eerie detail, while still maintaining his trademark linework. However, I suspect that nothing short of being present 50 years ago could really prepare a reader for the full narrative.
Each day is both a chapter and a countdown to tragedy. You know where the story is heading and, if you are reading the physical version, you can feel how far you are from it, but Backderf manages to make the story as engaging as needed while also seeming to let it breath enough to simulate the ever rising tension.
Backderf says that his intention is to focus on the victims, to give the reader a better understanding of their lives in the days leading up the shootings. The little details about these young people make the story even more of a gut punch when it finally happens. I think this was the best way for Backderf to connect a reader when their only experience might be a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song. But, like in his book Trashed, Backderf occasionally pauses the action to educate the reader, through archival research on all of the notable characters and groups, to minimize any confusion of what happened, and how.
Now, I believe that there is a need for a word of warning. To some this book will come across as anti-authority, almost to a level of mockery. This jives with the tragic outcome of the narrative, and will hopefully help to open the eyes of the curious, even though I doubt they will read this book. Maybe this book will leave a reader with a greater interest in finding a way to minimize school violence. Or maybe it will give people a better understanding of how leadership distorts facts to suit their own fears or conspiracies. At least I hope it does.
As I said at the top, there is nothing about this volume that would stay my hand when it comes to pre-ordering, so I can’t be surprised if someone reads this and dismisses it as pandering. But I implore you to take the time to read it yourself. The amount of humanity and history that Backderf captures here should elevate the book beyond a mere graphic novel into something that will cross genre lines enough to finds its way onto more shelves.