History Gets Inked

Turning Points: Sons Of Liberty

by Marshall Poe, Illustrated by Leland Purvis

I know what you are thinking--a history comic book? But we live in a world where major motion pictures—such as 300, Sin City and Road to Perdition--are based on graphic novels. The comic book story, once belittled and maligned, has become mainstream, and I believe firmly in embracing any medium that can awaken minds to the story of America’s founding. So I was quite delighted to find the graphic novel Turning Points: The Sons of Liberty and had great hopes for it. The novel is a bit of a mixed bag.  There are strong black and white illustrations by the talented Leland Purvis. There is a fine story, but author Marshall Poe’s work does have some glaring historic inaccuracies that bring the overall quality of the book down. Even some of the dialog, which seems to be written specifically to help us understand the history, is inaccurate and misleading. The characters are not deep, but are well defined, and work to draw us into life in pre-revolution Boston.

     Since the late 1950’s and 60’s, authors have tried to write Revolutionary war stories that feature a rebellious son and an overly controlling father. The idea of having this metaphorical revolution play out against the backdrop of the real Revolution is too tempting for Poe, and he falls right into that trap. In truth, however, the Revolutionaries were not rebellious teens; sons were not likely to be disobedient and political opinions within a home were usually very uniform. Another weak point is that there is no sense of the passage of time in the story, but the same criticism can be made of movies like The Patriot.

    Overall, the Sons of Liberty is good work, and my review of it is probably overly critical because my hopes for it were too high. It is not a great book nor great history (especially for adults), but it is a decent access point to get younger readers (Ages 8-13) interested in the Revolution.

     Take Notice:  If you are an author who wants to write a great graphic novel of the Revolution, we are still waiting for you.

Turning Points: Sons of Liberty by Marshall Poe, Illustrated by Leland Purvis Published by Simon & Schuster