Lewis & Clark [Paperback]

Nick Bertozzi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2011

Two of America’s greatest explorers embark on the adventure that made their names—and sealed their fates.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed St. Louis, Missouri, for one of the greatest adventures this nation has ever known. Appointed and funded by President Jefferson himself, and led by a cadre of experts (including the famous Sacajawea), the expedition was considered a success almost before it had begun. From the start, the journey was plagued with illness, bad luck, unfriendly Indians, Lewis’s chronic depression, and, to top it all, the shattering surprise of the towering Rocky Mountains and the continental divide. But despite crippling setbacks, overwhelming doubts, and the bare facts of geography itself, Lewis and Clark made it to the Pacific in 1806.

Nick Bertozzi brings the harrowing—and, at times, hilarious—journey to vivid life on the pages of this oversized black-and-white graphic novel. With his passion for history and his knack for characterization, Bertozzi has made an intimate tale of a great American epic.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Meriwether Lewis, a complex and fascinating figure in American history, was a bold explorer and a man haunted by demons. Both sides of his personality are revealed in this saga of his search for a Northwest water passageway to the Pacific. This retelling begins as Jefferson informs Lewis that Congress has approved this expedition. After recruiting William Clark and obtaining necessary provisions, the expedition departs St. Louis in 1804. Death, stampeding buffalo herds, steep-sided canyons, large bodies of moving water, and encounters with multiple Native American tribes must be negotiated. The author makes excellent use of the generous page size. The vertical orientation of side panels frames a deep chasm and scale the heights of a tall tree. Prairies are depicted with long horizontal panels spanning the gutter, and full-page spreads show the expansive country, contributing to readers' understanding of the vastness of the journey. Traditional panels and speech balloons are used to portray the points of view of the explorers. Shapes and outlines of panels alter significantly when the various Native communities are depicted, with a different design for each tribe. Inventive use of differently shaped speech balloon help readers identify each individual tribe that the explorers encounter. This story continues beyond the conclusion of the expedition; it ends three years hence, detailing Lewis's tragic end as well as suppositions regarding Sacajawea's whereabouts.—Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
(c) Copyright 2011.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

This important and often retold episode from U.S. history—the scientific exploration, federally supported by President Jefferson, to find a water route from the Missouri to the Pacific—receives an accessible, humorous, and accurate rendering by cartoonist Bertozzi (Houdini: The Handcuff King, 2007). Relying on good research and his own clarified sense of what these historical figures might have felt, Bertozzi shows us Lewis’ depressive psyche, Jefferson’s devotion to scientific inquiry, Clark’s mediation skills, the slave York’s self-perception, Sacajawea’s role and personal considerations, and the attitudes, fears, and certainties of the general populaces of the exploration party, Native American villages, and white townspeople. The small, black-and-white panels provide clear and action-packed detail as well as insightful poses and facial expressions. The different languages being spoken and even hand signs are creatively distinguished by different balloon outlines. An excellent supporting choice for the American history curriculum and a fun and edifying read in itself. Grades 7-12. --Francisca Goldsmith

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: First Second; Original edition (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596434503
• ISBN-13: 978-1596434509
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nick Bertozzi grew up in and around Providence, Rhode Island, and lives in Queens, NY with his wife and daughters. He received a Xeric Grant and multiple Harvey Awards and Ignatz Awards forhis smart and human cartooning. He is the author of LEWIS & CLARK(First Second) a graphic novel about the Journey of Discovery; THE SALON (St Martin's Press), and the forthcoming SHACKELTON (First Second). He has also collaborated with Jason Lutes on the graphic novel HOUDINI: THE HANDCUFF KING, the first of Hyperion/CCS's cartoon-biographies. You can read his ongoing
sci-fi/fantasy cartoon, PERSIMMON CUP, for free every week at ACT-I-VATE.COM. And for the past decade he has been teaching cartooning at NYC's School of Visual Arts and has also taught at RISD and The Center for Cartoon Studies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fun and Exhilarating Look at American History, June 20, 2011

By 

GraphicNovelReporter.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lewis & Clark (Paperback)

You could spend hours getting lost within the pages of Lewis & Clark, which is, of course, the point. Writer/artist Nick Bertozzi quite modestly notes in his foreword that he hopes his new nonfiction work will be taken as "in no way intended to be a replacement for the many scholarly recountings of the journey" of the famed historical explorers, but the truth is that he's created such a smashingly engaging piece of historical narrative that it deserves to be included along with those references.

Bertozzi begins in 1803, as Meriweather Lewis receives notice that congress has approved of his exploration--all $2,500 of it. He recruits his partner, William Clark, and begins to plot his course through history--the Redcoats will obtain not one more beaver pelt, Lewis promises. And here is where Bertozzi has his most fun, dismantling history into comical tidbits that belie the massive undertaking that both Lewis and Clark are about to make their own. In a series of briefly paneled descriptions, Bertozzi depicts Lewis's fast-paced education in botany, medicine, geology, and navigation...and we begin to piece together just how daunting the task that lay before him truly was.

Lewis & Clark is a dense book, and it's also a historically accurate one. Beyond that, though, it's a fun and exhilarating look at one of the most remarkable pieces of American history: the exploration of the west that Lewis and Clark embarked upon was so fraught with danger and mayhem that it's almost unbelievable now. Yet watching it unfold and come alive under the dazzling pencil work of Bertozzi it becomes compelling.

What Lewis and Clark endured has all the markings of the most rigorous of adventure tales, and that should not be ignored. It isn't here. But as everyone knows, there were many personal demons that needed to be faced, particularly by Lewis, and Bertozzi does not shy away. It would be wrong to spoil the coda that but suffice to say that Bertozzi satisfactorily brings this tale to a close and gives it the poignancy it so deserves.

This is a rich work and an important one.

-- John Hogan

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Graphic re-telling of Lewis & Clark's Epic Journey, April 15, 2011

By 

Nicola Manning (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lewis & Clark (Paperback)

Reason for Reading: I enjoy Western history.

I've read a few books on Lewis & Clark before (children's books) and read many books on the expansion of the west where the Lewis & Clark story would take up a chapter so I am familiar with this story. This book is recommended for ages 12 and up but it isn't written down to a young audience, adults will enjoy it as much or more. The book of course tells the story of their epic journey from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean, in search of a viable water route. That journey was fraught with accidents, bad luck, aggressive Indians, injuries and setbacks from nature itself. Bertozzi manages to tell a fine introductory tale of this expedition and these adventurers who were full of their success before they had even started.

Bertozzi also brings to life the personalities of Lewis and Clark in a way that I haven't encountered in my previous reading. Captain William Clark is shown as the level headed partner and thus is not the one that stands out. He is always reasoning with Lewis about there plans, calming him down, and putting out the flames of discord with others. He is shown as a quiet, intelligent, reasonable, respectful man who probably kept the expedition from becoming a mess, in more ways than one. Though he was willing to have as much fun as the next guy and went along easily enough with Lewis' more thrill-seeking adventures. On the other hand, Captain Meriwether Lewis was a man with a volatile temper, quick to anger, and if not for Clark's levelheadedness may have caused some serious trouble on their adventure. Lewis was obsessed with the expedition and finding a water route to the Ocean. When coming first upon a huge waterfall and eventually hitting the Rocky Mountains he took these hits deeply and went into deep depressions, took to drink, and could not be reasoned with. When they finally made it to the Pacific Lewis was not happy as they had not made it entirely be a water route and their stay at the end dragged on because he entered a deep depression. Bertozzi also plays up a story involving Lewis, his reactions and feeling which along with many other factors may have lead to his final act of ending his life.

Done in black and white, which I always think suits historical non-fiction well, the art is kept simple without a lot of background within the frame by frame discussions of characters. Lovely backgrounds are used but when necessary and are never added clutter. The one problem I did have though, was that at times we are supposed to read horizontally across both pages and this was not always made evident. Sometimes it was obviously clear, other times the reading went down one page and started up again at the top of the other and then there were those times you were reading along and realized you should have read horizontally across both pages once you got to the top of the second page. A minor annoyance that happened to me more times than it should have. A good, interesting story, which Bertozzi has written with a fine sense of humour but not exactly a page-turner.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Comic Book History, May 13, 2011

By 

drewyer05 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lewis & Clark (Paperback)

As excited as I was about getting my hands on Nick Bertozzi's LEWIS & CLARK, I have to say that it turned out to be a sad disappointment to read. Full of inacccurate historical details and incorrect details in Bertozzi's illustrations; the book fell far short of my expectations. Bertozzi's uniforms are pretty sad. His Indians are cookie-cutter stereotypes, both in appearance and in their speech. Lewis comes off as a raging lunatic (hardly the sort of man that Thomas Jefferson would have had as a Private Secretary...or sent to lead an expedition!). Having participated in the recent L&C Bicentennial observance, I just found myself wondering where Bertozzi got his information and his ideas? It seems to me that Nick Bertozzi took a fantastic tale of true adventure and tried to 'improve' on what is already a great story. Sometimes you just cannot make a great story better by exercising 'artistic license'. Looking at the bibliography on the last page of the book, I found myself wondering if the author READ any of the volumes he cites???

Nice 'comic book'. Disappointing historical graphic novel.