[Servalan]

Peter Kuper: Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz (Crown 2007)

Mit seinem Alter Ego Walter Kurtz führt Kuper das Publikum durch die Comicgeschichte der letzten Jahrzehnte.

Billed as the “autobiography of Walter Kurtz,” Kuper’s cartoon alter ego, this autobiographical novel works perfectly on three fronts: as a memoir of teen years rife with sex, drugs, and rock and roll; as an exploration of the author’s identity as a spouse, parent, and artist; and as an expert example of how the graphic medium can be used to tell a good story.

The life story of Kuper-as-Kurtz spans his adolescence during the Vietnam War years in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, to his college days and professional life in New York City, and up to the present day when Kurtz receives word that his graphic novel is being published by a major publisher. Along the way the reader is introduced to Kurtz’s parents, various girlfriends, and the friends who grew up alongside Kurtz, as well as the political events that helped shape his generation. Kuper uses many different kinds of graphic and literary devices to tell his story. The narrator directly addresses the audience on several occasions, and Kurtz’s baby even describes her own passage down the birth canal. Flashbacks are drawn in sepia tones, while the rest of the book employs black and white ink.