Portraits from Life

by David Collier

At last, David Collier's most popular and well-received work, his comic book biographies, is being collected together in one complete book! "Portraits From Life" presents Collier's fascinating look at the lives of six individuals, from "Grey Owl" (recently made into a Hollywood film) to the recent "David Milgaard" story, about a man wrongfully accused of a brutal rape and murder. "The Ethel Catherwood Story", about an eccentric early 20th century Olympic champion; "Humphry Osmond", a compelling look at the man who coined the term "psychedelic"; and, finally, a look at the early exploits of Richard Collier, the artist's grandfather.
Find out why R. Crumb and Chris Ware consider Collier among the most interesting cartoonists working today!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, History, Biography

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

although sort of Crumb-esque in execution (not a bad thing!) this is really original and fantastic stuff. i'm a sucker for little quirky stories like this. my personal fave is the story about a Ethel Catherwood, a female high-jumper from Saskatchewan in the 1920's. it's worth the price of admission alone.

[Titus · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this comic, David Collier applies a kind of Crumb-influenced underground comix style to short stories that mix personal memoir with biographies of notable-but-not-that-famous individuals. For example, he combines a biography of conservationist and outdoorsman Archibald Belaney – better known as Grey Owl – with an account of his own misadventures in the Canadian wilderness, and he juxtaposes the story of David Milgaard – falsely imprisoned for murder in 1969 – with his own experiences in Saskatoon, where the murder in question occurred. The stories here are consistently interesting, and the approach is enjoyable. It didn't blow me away, but I don't really have any criticisms worth mentioning.

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of Grey Owl, a British man who pretended to be Métis, is pretty interesting. He became a popular author but was immediately ousted after his death - so his legacy was a writer is overlooked. But really, I just don’t know how interesting this is. Passing as Métis to a bunch of White people couldn’t have been that difficult back then.

The other stories? Man, David Collier just goes down some odd uninteresting tangents.

[Michael Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories. Visual style reminiscent of Crumb.