Sorry, I didn't know who this man was. [Bix by Scott Chantler]

Reading Scott Chantler's Bix is like watching an art film. Almost as if it were a silent film, Bix skillfully portrays through a series of illustrations, mostly without text. Text essentially appears once, at a moment of potential life changes. The choice of when to inserting text at that point was interesting, because it takes you out of the silent flow. And yet you understand that this is a very serious moment in the story being told, a moment when things could have been monumentally different.

An artistic interpretation of the life of Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke, a musician who I'd not (knowingly) been aware of before this read, Bix flows with an emotional gravitas that is surprising. The life of many musicians, and many jazz musicians, have ended tragically, with the easy culprit being a lifestyle of addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Apparently that was the life of Bix. But the tragedy, as portrayed here, is not his slow decline, but his isolation from would be family and friends, the depression that consumed him, and the lack of fulfillment through his endeavors, despite his obvious and underappreciated talent.

I'm giving this book 5 stars. It was a quick read that carried with it a heavy import. A stylized biography in graphic novel form, Scott Chantler's Bix has many potential audiences. I was a fan.