Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band

That a graphic novel depicting the story of ‘70’s Native American rock band Redbone exists at all is in itself a thing of wonder, and its creators should be praised for bringing something so esoteric into being; the project has clearly been a labour of love. It is obviously aimed at a very niche market, i. e. fans of Redbone, and since I fall into that category I looked forward to reading it, but came away from the book wanting to love it more than I actually did.There are several reasons for this. First, the story uses a framing device where original member Pat Vegas tells the story of the band to several family members over lunch, including his adult children. This immediately comes across as forced and inauthentic; asking the reader to assume that these kids went through their entire lives without ever knowing what their dad used to do for a living is asking them to suspend their belief just a bit too much. Additionally, having people chatting around the lunch table is hardly the best use of the graphic medium, and leads to too many talking heads.Second, the book goes off point a few times to discuss the Native American civil rights movement of the 1970s. To be honest, I found all very interesting and worthy of its own book, but its link to Redbone is tenuous. Drummer Pete de Poe did attend a former assimilationist school but it was a regular school by the time he went there, and the band were undeniably proud of their heritage, but they were also noticeable by their absence at such high profile protests such as the occupations of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee. As a result, the book lacks cohesion, and it felt like the civil rights aspect was added to increase the page count.The sense of padding is given further weight by point three, that there just isn’t enough incident in the Redbone story to make it stand out. There is an amusing anecdote involving Queen Elizabeth II, and the book could benefit from more peculiar-to-Redbone stories such as this. There is also a brief mention of a schism between Pat and Lolly Vegas over the songwriting credit for “Come and Get Your Love”, and this could have been expanded upon. These aside, we get an over-familiar story: band members pay their dues in unknown bands, they come together, they enjoy a period of success, sales start to decline, band splits up. That’s it. Ethnicity aside, this could be the story of a thousand other bands.Fourth, artist Thibault Balahy manages to make the whole talking heads premise worse by constantly having a character’s face obscured by the back of another character’s head, or by unusual and disconcerting visual devices like having the top half off Speaker A’s face sitting on the bottom half of Speaker B’s face. The art overall is pretty good, but the visual “flourishes” described above happen throughout and are off-putting each time they crop up.Finally, there is a ongoing situation (subplot is too strong a term) where a member of staff at the restaurant our heroes are in is subject to persistent verbal racial abuse, but this fizzles out unsatisfactorily, leaving this reader wondering why it was ever included at all.Again, I applaud the creators for their passion and doff my cap to IDW for their courage in supporting such a niche project. I bought Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band the minute I found out it existed and would really love to be able to award this book the full five stars, but, for the reasons outlined above, I cannot.

The description should have said it was a cartoon book with just 6 pages of text at the back.The book is ok but not what I was expecting to receive I was ready to settle down for a great read but I was very disappointed.

i love this book. im halfway through reading it now and i just got it an hour ago. downside i had to email asl one of your couriers for prime delivery and tell them to deliver it to me not my superintendent or anyone else go halfway up the driveway ,make a u turn , look for my house number and leave, this happens when they change drivers. im paying for prime service. w enough said . i complained it was hand delivered.

It was interesting to learn that this story on a rock band was produced in the form of a comic. For me that was a bonus. It really gave added value to the story developement.The book gave me insight into the world of Native American struggles in this period and the stance that the band took. This aspect of their biography is most worthwhile and IMO important to be disclosed. Before I read this book I knew exactly nothing about the band, except for 'Wounded Knee'. I suspect I'm not alone in this. So also in this respect it's an important book.Apart from that, it's always interesting to read about the ebs and flows of a rockband, with it's revealing internal and outward struggles. If you're interested in the above subjects, get a copy!

If i was just considering the art this book would be five star worthy for sure and honestly is worth getting just for that and for the incredible story at its core wich is incredible and an often ignored bit of american pop culture history...that said, a comic or graphic novel is not just the drawings or the story but the writing as well and thats where this book struggles. It features an unnecessary framing device to tell the bands and brothers story and the dialogue almost always reads as unnatural, the bits that i assume are from interviews tell an incredible tale and the book is well plotted but damn this script could have benefited from a few more passes. All and all its worth the price of admission just be warned you may be mad that it isnt as good as it could be.