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Thursday, 24 April 2025

Beat It, Rufus by Noah Van Sciver Review


Rufus Baxter is a never-was, pathetic moron of a failed rock star. Fed-up with scrounging a living on the music circuit for decades, his drug-addled brain somehow concocts a semi-coherent plan: he’s gonna road trip cross-country to the blighted town of Camden, New Jersey, to finally claim royalties on his ‘80s record, Funky Cool, from his scummy label, Bliggum Records, and retire in style. Will he get what he deserves - and what was the fate of his two bandmates all those years ago?


Noah Van Sciver does a rock music version of Fante Bukowski with Beat It, Rufus: like Fante, Rufus is a deluded, adolescent-minded clown who continues to pursue his questionable art, despite years of indifference from audiences everywhere, because it’s all he can do. Unlike Fante Bukowski though, Beat It, Rufus isn’t quite so brilliant - though it’s not a bad comic either.

Van Sciver’s niche is this kind of bottom rung of society-type character and the book has its moments particularly early on in showing us Rufus’ terrible life which were compelling. But the story isn’t as consistently funny or entertaining as Fante Bukowski - or as fresh either, with other stories of musical embarrassments, like This is Spinal Tap, Flight of the Conchords and David Brent: Life on the Road, out there that are funnier and more inspired.

The jokes are kinda one-note after a spell, the set pieces not as interesting - the reunion with the “love of his life” in Indiana was ok but most everything else that happened on Rufus’ wretched road trip was fairly meh. Van Sciver’s art is consistently great though and helps to sell some of the jokes, especially the cat allergy one.

Beat It, Rufus is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy Noah Van Sciver’s comics - it’s an ok book. But he’s also done a better version of this story elsewhere and, if you haven’t read them, his Fante Bukowski trilogy is a hoot and vastly more fun than this one.

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