Bohemians: A Graphic History

By Edited by Paul Buhle

The nineteenth-century countercultures that came to define the bohemian lifestyle spanned both sides of the Atlantic, ranging from Walt Whitman to Josephine Baker, and from Gertrude Stein to Thelonius Monk. Bohemians is the graphic history of this movement and its illustrious figures, recovering the utopian ideas behind millennial communities, and covering the rise of Greenwich Village, the multiracial and radical jazz world, and West Coast and Midwest bohemians, among other scenes.

Drawn by an all-star cast of comics artists, including rising figures like Sabrina Jones, Lance Tooks, and Summer McClinton, alongside established artists like Peter Kuper and Spain Rodriguez, Bohemians is a broad and entertaining account of the rebel impulse in American cultural history.

featuring work by Spain Rodriguez, Sharon Rudahl, Peter Kuper, Sabrina Jones, David Lasky, Afua Richardson, Lance Tooks, Milton Knight, and others.

The ebook edition is expanded from the paperback edition, and includes additional chapters on the swing music scene, La Boheme and midwest bohemians, as well as expanded material on the Greenwich Village intellectuals, Walt Whitman and Harlem jazz club Minton's Playhouse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verso Books
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781781682623

Book preview

Reviews for Bohemians

[amanda4242_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Sucked hard.Received via NetGalley.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bohemian as defined by the Oxford dictionary: "a socially unconventional person, especially one who is involved in the arts". This is a non-fiction graphic anthology that tells the history of "bohemianism" from the 1840s to the 1950s/early 60s stopping just prior to the "Beat Generation". Each chapter is written and/or illustrated by a different author/artist making for a varied reading experience. The book is hard for me to rate as I will relate. However, I did enjoy the book very much as an historical and biographical text of a certain type of artist during this time period. I'm well-read in Victorian and pre-WWII history so found the first part of this book familiar territory for me and mostly what I had expected from the book. Stories of the artistic type (writers, dancers, artists, poets, etc and those who supported them) that defies social conventions, gathers in salons, talks about current events with disapproval, is involved in scandal, lives without moderation and is sexually promiscuous. The book concentrates on the American scene and in this part of the book we are first introduced to Bohemian origins in artisan Paris, then move to the New World with Julia Branch, Ada Clare, Walt Whitman, Victorian suffragists with artistic bents, Gertrude Stein et al. and Oscar Wilde. This is all in keeping with the subject of the book and the Bohemian becomes recognized as someone who agonizes and suffers over their art, is sexually permissive and deviant mostly involving multiple lovers of either sex, adultery and sexual relations outside of marriage. It is also quite plain from the beginning of the text that the author is very left wing as he blatantly speaks as though being anti-Communist is a *bad* thing (?!) It is then at this point where I found the book frustrating, though I still enjoyed the material, found the historical information interesting and learned a lot of new things personally. However, the editors seem to have lost touch with the topic as the next section is all about Communists and Communist sympathizers who were artists. Does being an ultra left-wing artist make you Bohemian? Then the last part of the book is about African-American artists (mostly musicians and dancers) who of course were engaged in the Civil Rights movement. Was it socially unconventional for a black person to be fighting for civil rights? I would suggest not. I expected to find Josephine Baker here, rightly so, but Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Langston Hughes? So two of them were either bi. or *may* have been gay; they didn't lead flamboyant, promiscuous lifestyles. Does simply being black, an artist and possibly a closeted gay make you Bohemian. Again, referring back to Oxford's definition I think not. So in the end, I enjoyed the book as a strangely unconnected history. The information was entertaining and interesting; the comic art was well done and I knew several of the illustrators involved (Milton Knight, Lance Tooks, Matt Howarth, etc) but the editors failed to provide a clear understanding of Bohemians and prove it with specific examples.