Eventized: A Michael Neno Blog: February 2023

Friday, February 24, 2023

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Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Recently Read: Credo: the Rose Wilder Lane Story, by Peter Bagge

Rose Wilder Lane was a free soul, a proto-feminist, a proto-libertarian, partial author of the Little House books and much more. Her amazing life (starting on a dirt poor De Smet farmstead, as described in Laura Ingalls Wilder's posthumously published The First Four Years) has been documented many times and ways (including Lane's autobiographical works) and is intrinsically fascinating. Here it gets the Peter Bagge treatment and, being a fan of both the Little House books and Bagge's work, I had high hopes for this book.

I was first surprised by Credo's diminutive size. When I first began reading Bagge's work, in 1985, it was being published magazine size. Later his work was published comic book size. Here it's published less than 7" x 9". What's next - postage stamp size? Bagge's lettering and art seemingly haven't been altered to accommodate the smaller size, either, making the work small, cramped and just plain hard to read. The font size used for the introduction practically requires a magnifying glass. Really, Drawn and Quarterly? Couldn't you give a great cartoonist a chance to shine?

Bagge's cartooning is as fun and expressive as ever, capturing the ever-shifting emotions and agendas of a person famous for their mood swings and short attention span. The drawing is excellent. The pacing, though... I would have loved to see the story slow down enough for longer dramatic scenes. As it is, the (only 72-page) work feels like a picaresque travelogue, one that checks off a list of chronological events, but doesn't delve deeply into any of them. It's a lost opportunity because there are so many events in Lane's life that could benefit from the kind of wry but respectful observations I've seen in earlier Bagge fiction.

Bagge's afterward, on the other hand, is a wealth of great resources for further study of the people Rose journeyed with, with fun and insightful observations and commentary. For Bagge fans and Lane fans, the book is a must, despite its faults.

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