Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf Review

“Required reading for all Americans” says the blurb on the cover - pfft, hardly! An anti-war protest ended badly on May 4, 1970, when National Guardsmen opened fire on American university students using live rounds resulting in four dead and several others injured. Yeah, it’s not right and all that, but - what about that makes this “required reading” for anybody?

It wasn’t the first or last anti-war protest during the Nixon administration (or numerous other administrations), it wasn’t the worst, there’s really no legacy or long-lasting lessons, besides not using live ammo against protestors (which is amazing that that was a lesson that needed to be learned in the first place!), and nobody was ever charged for the deaths.

Like most protests it accomplished nothing - Vietnam continued unabated for another five years afterwards - and police and protestors continue to clash today about anything and everything with similarly brutal results. And, again sorry if this sounds callous but, only four dead - four? Consider current events where, in America at the moment, THOUSANDS of people are dying from COVID-19 every day and the events in this book seem less and less important.

Of the 250 tediously-long pages that comprise this book, almost none of it is particularly engaging or necessary to understanding what happened that day. Ohio’s authoritarian laws and an absurdly overblown response stemming from incompetent (lack of) leadership from the governor on down is why this happened - nothing profound that requires this much explanation or context. The only really gripping part of the book is the event itself right at the end and that’s all the book needed, with maybe just a handful of pages as preamble.

The book also features Derf’s best artwork yet and he’s clearly done his research - everything a person could possibly want to know about this relatively unremarkable event is contained here. But, despite being a big fan of Derf Backderf’s books, I thought this was his worst one yet. Overlong, dull and a thoroughly unremarkable story, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio is required reading for nobody.