Customer Reviews

J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rick Geary does it again with his graphic biography of an American icon, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI. He uses his trademark illustrative style to chart the course of Hoover's life from birth to death, and all points in between. Hoover is now a controversial figure thanks to some scandalous, yet unproven rumors (mostly about his personal life), but Geary treats his subject matter fairly, and portrays Hoover in an unbiased fashion. This is a new venture from Geary's excellent "Treasury of Victorian Crime" series, and it does not disappoint. Anyone looking for a concise, yet thoroughly enjoyable biography of Hoover need look no further.

J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for the creation of what is known today as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and could be claimed to have strongly influenced American, and subsequently global, history through his dossiers on politicians and other influential people. The man used intimidation and wire tapping, along with having his agents follow people and compile information on every aspect of life, to build himself an empire of secrets upon which he kept power until his death.

A Machiavellian figure, Hoover's life seems to have been as clandestine as his agency's work - he had a male partner his whole life but there is no evidence to show that they were involved sexually, though the two were inseparable and went on holiday twice a year together. Hoover also had no real female partners in real life either, instead having a very strong relationship with his mother whom he lived with until her death. The rumours of his cross-dressing take up barely a panel in the book as Geary thankfully doesn't deal in rumours but in fact.

The truth is though that there isn't much to report besides his work at building the FBI - that was his life. It was a conservative, reactionary group that treated black people as second class citizens, didn't hire any women agents, went after communists most of the time, and failed to cooperate, in fact actively block, with other government bodies.

Laid out in this well written book, drawn in Geary's inimitable style, it's hard to see what Hoover did right. He spent most of his career chasing "reds" while enforcing the real corruption within politics, an endemic problem to this day. He turned a blind eye to the mafia and actively fostered an image of himself as a hero all the while he was destroying innocent peoples' lives with accusations of being a communist.

Hoover was truly a horror of a human and would have fit in well with former President Bush's war on terror which utilised much of Hoover's tactics to get away with crimes against humanity. Hoover's legacy is that of subverting the US Constitution and forgoing its' values on liberty, instead choosing to opt for the very opposite of the best of what America stands for. He also seems to have been a sad, lonely man and often comes across as robotic rather than human in his lack of human warmth, kindness, and emotion.

Rick Geary's written/drawn an enthralling biography of one of the most notorious figures of 20th century America. He is thorough and apolitical, the conclusions I've drawn above are my own, though the facts speak for themselves. An excellent read and very enlightening, highly recommended.

This book was a great, easy read with important & useful information and visually appealing graphics. Definitely a worth-while purchase and the perfect gift for a "history buff."

I love graphic novels. I think that they're a fantastic medium to explore a multitude of topics. Sadly, besides memoirs, there are very few nonfiction graphic novels (I am aware of the contradiction in that statement). So when I stumbled upon Rick Geary's graphic biographies, I felt like the graphic novel deities had granted my wish. Sadly, I don't think that this series is all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, I would stick to his series on Victorian era murders.

I am not going to rely the entire biography of J. Edgar Hoover here. If you're interested in his life, go see the new movie or Google it. Instead, this review is going to focus on this specific biography. Like Geary's work in his other series, his graphics are used to illustrate the very dry text that he supplies. In fact, the book reads more like a timeline than an enthralling biography. At just about 100 pages, there really isn't enough room to really delve into the conflicting aspects of Hoover's character.

Personally, I had never read anything about Hoover so I was hoping to learn a great deal from this book. Unfortunately, the facts came at me rapid fire and I had difficulty remembering them once I closed the book. That being said, I think that people who are familiar with his life may enjoy this book as a refresher. The graphics are typical Geary but they somehow lose their charm in this book. Of course this is not a comment on all of his graphic biographies (though I took a stab at the issue on Trotsky and couldn't get through it). For me, I'm going to stick with his previous series instead!

This book gets 5 stars for the illustrations, as Geary is very good.

But as for the text, this is another subject. I see Publishers Weekly calls Hoover ultra conservative and fascist, which is probably how Geary sees him too, which is the tone of the book. He doesn't seem to have any fondness for Hoover and puts him down and seems himself to be sympathetic to leftist causes, so isn't this really the pot calling the kettle black. Two sides to every story and two outlooks to government issues, etc. Hoover might have laid it on strong in some areas, but in general he was a true American and played a great role in its history. What lasting damage has anything Hoover did still exists? If not him then probably someone else. I, for one, admire him. I will give Geary credit for making disclaimers that in all the things people put Hoover down for, that they either were never proved or that there was nothing to substantiate the allegations.