Like in his Johnny Appleseed comic, Noah Van Sciver takes a look at another American legend, Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack that literally shaped the physical geography of America, with his trusty giant blue ox Babe.
Unlike John Chapman (the real person whom Johnny Appleseed was based upon), Paul Bunyan is a completely fictional character. Which obviously would be the case once you start reading the tall tales featuring this kind giant who chopped down entire forests and created lakes with his bare hands!
What you learn from this book is that Bunyan was an effective marketing ploy by industrial loggers like the Red River Lumber Company to put a wholesome and friendly veneer on the US government stealing land from the natives and then having industry destroy irreplaceable “old growth” forests in the pursuit of greed and profit. These facts are underlined not just in the comic itself but in the academic essays that bookend it.
That said, there’s nothing really insidious about the Bunyan story. It’s quaint and folksy but not that interesting in itself, and it’s not like anyone really believes it to be true anyway - at least not today (I hope). Of course industrialisation led to environmental damage, it’s the story of the industrial revolution and it’s continuing today.
Is the conceit that lumber companies really expected people to believe this hokum in lieu of things that are widely known like the exploitation of indigenous people and the destruction of the natural world? Maybe people were that naive 100 years ago but, even in an age where an absurd number of people think the world is flat, I doubt anyone today would think a giant shaped the American landscape, with zero evidence to back it up!
Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend is fine - it’s not that compelling a read but informative nevertheless. Short and sweet, Noah Van Sciver tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the character, along with the context of real history, in this comic.
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