Love Me Please!
The Story of Janis Joplin
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
A biography in comics of the amazing rock singer Janis Joplin with the highlights of her journey from childhood after the Second World War to her abrupt death in late 1970. It is one of the most fabulous musical adventures in America of the second half of the twentieth century, yet it lasted only five years. How did a very young, messed up woman, a drug addict filled with doubt, become a planetary icon of rock music in a few years? Thanks to a worldwide movement of emancipation which would consecrate for a long time the ideals and modes of alternative lifestyles from counterculture to the flower power generation, Janis, the ugly duckling, gave free rein to her impulses. Fed by the thirst for freedom of the Beat Generation and the desire for emancipation expressed by American youth in the early 1960s, Janis Joplin left for San Francisco, the epicenter of cultural innovation. There, she abandoned herself to all impulses, overcoming without hesitation all the taboos of the time: bisexuality, alcohol, and drugs, doing so not only with delight, but with the taste for excess which came naturally from her spontaneous character.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Solid art and thorough research make for a serviceable but unexceptional rock biography, ticking off the key points in Janis Joplin's life, from her youth in the sleepy town of Port Arthur, Tex., to her escape into the San Francisco hippie scene, to her sudden, tragically brief ascent to rock stardom. Joplin's mood swings are on display from her early life; and as she dives into 1960s counterculture, her appetite for booze, drugs, sex, and excitement (she hustles pool and picks fights with Hell's Angels) is depicted as sometimes liberating, but more often desperate and dangerous. The only constant is her musical talent, which awes her fellow musicians even as she struggles to find success. Christopher's art glows when the Summer of Love hits full bloom, with collage-style psychedelic excess, but in other sections the art can be workmanlike. Finet's script strains to contain Joplin's turbulent life into one volume, with abrupt jumps (her entire European tour is covered in a single two-page spread). The intensity of Joplin's music and spirit sporadically shine through, but the book's central theme—her search for love in all the wrong places—remains underdeveloped. This import provides a starter summary, but Joplin's larger-than-life talent demands a bigger venue.
