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Sat 11 Nov 2009In their own little worlds
GRAPHIC NOVELS:The Beats: A Graphic HistoryEdited by Paul Buhle Souvenir Press, 200pp. £12 Tamara DreweBy Posy Simmonds Jonathan Cape, 256pp. £12.99
THE BEATS: A Graphic Historyis a book of two halves. The first half is a straightforward triple biography of the three best-known Beat writers, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs, written by Harvey Pekar with art by Ed Piskor. Although Pekar occasionally shows up to comment on the influence they had on other writers (including himself), this section for the most part sticks closely to the facts, and even when Pekar proffers a judgment or opinion, he expresses himself in rather a dry, bare way, with this spareness amplified by Piskor’s simple, no-frills art.
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