Prairie State blues; comic strips & graphic tales [Unknown Binding]

Bill Bergeron (Author)

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press Book (1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 091409002X
• ISBN-13: 978-0914090021
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,656,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why are there no other books by this marvelous creator?, July 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Prairie State blues; comic strips & graphic tales

I bought this in 1977, then a second copy, which I have to this day. It is poetic in its comic book presentation.

5.0 out of 5 stars A very unique reading experience, March 4, 2011

By 

Josef Daagarsson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Prairie State blues; comic strips & graphic tales

If you're interested in experimental comics, poetic vignettes, old time americana, empty desolate spaces, blues and really nice black and white drawings this book could be for you.

Not much information is given about the artist. Born in 1938. Worked for five years as a railroad fire man. As trains and railroads are repeated motives throughout several of the pieces it's easy to assume the author, to some extent based it on real life experiences. Prairie Strip Blues - comic strips and graphic tales, published in 1973, is a one shot which collects the work of Bill Bergeron. It is, as far as I know, his only collection.

This publication is without any predessors or successors. There is nothing else which prepares you for it. (Maybe a little George Herriman; the landscape, and some Fritz the Cat stories by Robert Crumb.) Still the voice of this book remains entirely Bill Bergeron's own.

Superficially it could be linked to the underground comic movement but this book was published by Chicago Review, (a small publisher of poetry), and remains a solitaire in comics. (Also it's printed like a soft cover book.)

Because of its subtlety, it's easy to imagine why this gem has been so overlooked among comic afficinados. Still it's well worth tracking down because it deserves its late, long overdue recognition.

The characters are mostly done in the funny animal tradition, but the stories in themselves are rooted in human experience, (much about daily work) . Apart from the characters, time and space plays a major part in these stories.

The book design is nice, the pacing between stories tastefully done and if this is Bergeron's only legacy it's still very impressive . (Look at all those wonderful panels again.)

If your willing to discover something truly unique, I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

I would love to know more about this artist.