Cravan by Richardson and Geary
Cravan. Written by Michael Richardson. Drawn by Rick Geary. Dark Horse, 2005. 72p. black and white hardcover, $14.95.
I was quite excited about this book when I heard about it. I’ve read a lot about Surrealism and Dadaism, and Arthur Cravan–boxer, poet, artist, mystery-man–was influential in many ways. He’s not the kind of person you’d expect to see a comic about.
Richardson and Geary’s book tells the story of Cravan’s life from his youth in European boarding schools to his disappearance off the coast of Mexico, as well as one possibility of what happened to him afterwards. Cravan (a pseudonym) was an elusive figure who utilized numerous identities and passports. He forged paintings and sold fake work by Oscar Wilde (Cravan’s uncle). He boxed, gave rowdy artist’s lectures, and published a dadaist magazine. Fleeing the war, he came to the US and married poet Mina Loy. After living in Mexico for a time, she left, supposedly to be followed by him, but when he left Mexico in a small boat he was never seen again.
Richardson speculates that Cravan was the author B Traven (another elusive figure whose identity has never been clearly settled; best known for writing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). There seems to be only slight anecdotal evidence for this assertion.
Compressing a biography into 66 pages ensures that much will be left out. Richardson adds a framing tale with a reporter looking through the left-behind belongings of a man who died in a New York apartment. The man has no relatives to claim his goods, and the story strongly hints that the man is Cravan. This framing tale adds little to the biography, instead making a coy little wink of speculation about Cravan somehow living out his life in New York (which would also contradict the B Traven theory).
The rest of the book often feels rushed and elided. The bulk of the story focuses on Cravan’s movements from country to country and place to place, and his multiple identities and subterfuges. Very little time is spent on his artistic endeavors (other than a dramatization of his famous talk at the Armoury show where Duchamp’s “The Fountain” was rejected). Little effort is made to get into Cravan’s psychology, so he never really becomes more than a joker, a trickster.
Geary’s art is adequate but I’m not particularly attracted to it stylistically. It tells the story well enough, but I found myself not wanting to linger on the art at all.
Curiously Richardson provides no references or bibliography for the book. I’d like to see where his information came from. How much is fictionalized? Does it matter in the case of Cravan? And if not, why not dramatize more of his life, rather than narrating so much of it?
For more on Cravan, I’d suggest Atlas Press’s Four Dada Suicides.
Tags: dada
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