Love in Vain: Robert Johnson 1911-1938, the graphic novel

Description

From 'Crossroads Blues' to 'Sweet Home Chicago', 'Hellhound on My Trail' to 'Come On In My Kitchen', Robert Johnson wrote some of the most enduring and formative songs of the original blues era, songs that would go on to help shape the birth of rock'n'roll in the 1960s. Beloved of Clapton, Dylan and the Stones, Robert Johnson remains one of the most iconic and mythologised figures in popular music (and the first of many to die at the age of 27). Born in the in the South in Mississippi, Johnson made his way to the urban North as a travelling musician, but it was only when he returned to the South that he recorded the twenty-nine songs, in two sessions, which would create his legacy. Exploring the stories and legends that surround his life and death - his childhood, his womanising, his pact with the devil at the crossroads - Mezzo and DuPont have produced a fittingly creative and beautiful depiction of this most extraordinary life.

An avid admirer of Robert Crumb, Mezzo is one of the most respected artists in the French graphic novel world. His cult classic King of the Flies (with Michel Pirus) was published in the United States by Fantagraphics. A former music journalist, Jean-Michel Dupont also worked as a copywriter for advertising.

All the time that the tension builds, so too does the detail in Johnstone's picture of a once-happy family ground down by sorrow...I would have been happy to read chapters and chapters more of this book. -- Independent on Sunday