firedoor11's review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Wonderfully written and depicted. The footnotes, sources, and explanations there took almost as long ro trad as the book itself. So we'll researched and nearly every page sourced. Well done. Every Kentite should read it; really everyone should. There's lots to learn from this series of events.
dashadashahi's review against another edition
3.0
Despite its page count, it's a pretty quick read as must pages contain little text. I think the one reason I appreciate historical graphic novels is how they can convey person and emotion in a way that a historical monograph just can't. While some may consider the earlier parts of the book tedious and boring, I think it builds up who these people were, on both sides of the conflict. When the four murders occur they are brutal and heartbreaking. The notes at the back of the book are thorough and well done. My own gripe is the terribly....offputting...faces that the artist draws. But that is more of a personal opinion than anything.
myqz's review against another edition
4.0
Backderf has written a thorough, compassionate, and compact book here, and created the strongest argument for sequential art as a go-to art form for histories since March. While his art style is distinctive, it didn’t stand out nearly as much as his keen eye for editing a story. The art never distracts, it only illustrates, but in a history like this, that illustration is necessary to humanize. There is a difference between reading about bayonets, and being visually shown what it looks like as one enters a fleeing college girl’s abdomen.
Kent State was little more than a footnote in my American history curriculum and a Joni Mitchell song to me, and learning more about it, it’s easy to draw parallels to protest movements today; this history also serves as an explanation for why progressive protest movements never gain foothold in America: because the state will crush them, plant guns on their corpses, and bury them, leading a nation that not only excuses, but often delights in this bloodshed (Backderf cites a Gallop poll after the massacre in which only 11% of Americans blamed the troops in any way). Compassion isn’t just a extended to protestors or victims here, as Backderf also honestly illustrates the deployed National Guard members, many of whom were only enlisted to avoid being deployed in Vietnam.
Their comic filled me with a lot of anger, but it’s because the narrative was unflinching and uncompromising in reporting what actually happened. Victims are memorialized, guilty leaders are named (and history’s naming of these pathetic scumbags is the only justice they ever faced), and sources are exhaustively cited.
Kent State was little more than a footnote in my American history curriculum and a Joni Mitchell song to me, and learning more about it, it’s easy to draw parallels to protest movements today; this history also serves as an explanation for why progressive protest movements never gain foothold in America: because the state will crush them, plant guns on their corpses, and bury them, leading a nation that not only excuses, but often delights in this bloodshed (Backderf cites a Gallop poll after the massacre in which only 11% of Americans blamed the troops in any way). Compassion isn’t just a extended to protestors or victims here, as Backderf also honestly illustrates the deployed National Guard members, many of whom were only enlisted to avoid being deployed in Vietnam.
Their comic filled me with a lot of anger, but it’s because the narrative was unflinching and uncompromising in reporting what actually happened. Victims are memorialized, guilty leaders are named (and history’s naming of these pathetic scumbags is the only justice they ever faced), and sources are exhaustively cited.
debz57a52's review
3.5
As someone who grew up in the Cleveland area and went to college down the street from Kent State - and with a parent who graduated from Kent just before these horrible events happened - I have lived with knowledge of the Kent State shootings for a long time. I've been reading more and more about that period of American history, and I realized after a while that I just wasn't grasping it. I don't think that's a problem with my reading comprehension; I think it's a problem with all the secrets and intensity that the American government was dealing with, not to mention the steel grip of the ruling party and its contempt for any other perspective on how to govern. DB drills down in this historical story to look at what specific people were doing leading up to, during, and after the Kent State shooting, which makes the event so much more personal for the reader. I have never found DB's artistic style uplifting - frankly, it's always given me the creeps - but it is so appropriate for the subjects he takes on. I didn't like this book for its artistic style, but for its clarity, its ethos, and the research DB did to present something that is accurate.
zoethydear1850's review against another edition
4.0
As someone who has lived in Kent their entire life (of 23 years, but that's neither here nor there), this book touched me in a sore spot. A spot that has been aching for the past four years, even before then. If this book, that is wildly factual and straightforward, doesn't enrage you to the core- I don't know what will.
dlsmall's review against another edition
4.0
Honestly, a chapter of our history that I knew little about save the basics. In a graphic format, this was way more than an introduction, letting us get to know the four, as well as the other key participants in this tragedy...one that is too reflective of our times.