The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln by Scott McCloud

McCloud, Scott.
The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln.
La Jolla, California:
Homage Comics, 1998.

What would happen if an assassinated President returned from the dead? What if he tried to reclaim the presidency? What if he wasn’t really the President at all? Scott McCloud ponders such questions in the New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln. While reading about in detention (which he has been sent to for having original thoughts about the Civil War), Byron’s world is thrown a little off when Honest Abe shows up and proceeds to expel his own version of history, one in which fiction is a little more prevalent than fact. After thoroughly confusing the members of detention, Lincoln whisks off to retake Washington in a storm of power and manipulation. It doesn’t sound right to Byron and his friends either, and they quickly set out to discover what’s amiss, and stop America from being overtaken by what is surely an impostor.

Less history lesson or biography and more commentary on modern American complacency and gullibility, McCloud’s adventures are an exercise in how Americans see their past and a new technique (for McCloud) in how to draw graphic comics. The entire novel is done on the computer, giving a different look and feel than McCloud’s previous works. Because it’s a mix of comic characters set against more realistic backgrounds, the reader’s ability to become a part of the comic is fragmented. Because the characters and the setting no longer seem cohesive, the reader is less likely to feel a part of the work, having lost a sense of a possible reality. Though ultimately not very educational or entertaining, the book is still fun and a quick read. A little insight is gained about who Lincoln might have really been and that history is not always the picturesque past we learn about in our grade school classrooms.