Flight Blues

Bluesman book one by Rob Vollmar & Pablo G. Callejo has a lot to recommend it. In art that reminds me somehow of woodcuts it tells a tale of two traveling blues musicians in the early 20th Century. It's a compelling story with interesting characters, a very real situation (grounded in research that is highlighted in the text: something that would be well worth discussing), and an intriguing structure ("a twelve bar graphic narrative in the key of life and death") also worth exploring. Its one significant drawback is that it's in three books (I think only two out so far). I should ask NBM if there is a plan for a collected edition. Otherwise it's buying three books for one text, or else trying to do something with an incomplete work, which students and I both hate.

Flight Volume 3 was everything I've come to expect, and I can readily make use of any of the Flight anthologies in almost any class. Especially in Comics as Lit, one of the Flight volumes is a great way to bring a lot of creators in for a relatively low cost. And these books continue to highlight the range of possibilities in comics. I notice that Volume 3, to some extent, moves from more conventional to more challenging stories, so when I use it, I should consider finding a break point somewhere in the middle so that we have a separate day to consider the more difficult stuff. Otherwise students may be tempted to focus solely on the more straightforward narratives.