Bootblack (New York Triptych) by Mikaël (graphic novel review).
‘Bootblack (New York Triptych)’ is a graphic novel set in 1930s New York and tells the story of a shoeshine boy and his struggles to survive. The tale begins with Altenberg, his first name, fighting in World War II on the German front in 1945, and we learn of his old life through flashbacks. Occasionally, the narrative returns to the war as his journey through the front lines leads to encounters with the past, but mostly it’s set in New York.
It’s 1929, and Altenberg, or Al as he prefers to be called, is a proud American, disgusted with his German immigrant parents. Aged nine, he runs away from home one day but returns at night, unable to survive alone. However, when he comes back, their New York tenement block is on fire, and his parents are dead. Now he has to survive alone. It made me wonder, to be honest, was there really no help at all for an orphan, even in those hard days? At any rate, he teams up with a shoeshine boy, James ‘Shiny’ Rasmussen, and they manage to eke out a living as bootblacks on the streets, after the crash of 1929 during the early years of the Great Depression.
Six years later, Al is old enough to fall in love with Maggie, the grocer’s daughter. Her younger brother, who never talks, hangs around with Al and Shiny. They call him Buster, after Buster Keaton, the silent movie star. The reason for his silence is revealed eventually. Maggie has no intention of getting involved with a poor boy, so Al decides he must make money. Diddle Joe, the pickpocket, has a cunning plan for that. Any more plot details would be spoilers.
The portrayal of Depression-era life in New York seems accurate enough, and the beautiful art with sepia tones conveys it nicely. I wasn’t there, but films like ‘Angels With Dirty Faces’ and ‘Once Upon A Time In America,’ as well as old comic book crime stories by Jack Kirby, who grew up on those mean streets, have made it familiar. There are gang wars between different ethnic groups, and everyone is broke and desperate for dimes, not just dollars.
The gritty, realistic war scenes are excellently done too. It’s a down-to-earth portrayal of times past and an excellent and moving story that would make a good film. Maybe one day it will. Al isn’t an especially likable hero, but given his circumstances, that wouldn’t be possible. Ideally, he would have been bitten by a radioactive cockroach, become Super-Shoeshine Boy, and fought lowlife criminals instead of getting mixed up with them. That’s a proper comic story. However, this one is superb in a different way, and I certainly recommend it.
Eamonn Murphy
January 2024
(pub: NBM, 2022. 128 pages hardback graphic novel. Price: £26.99 (UK) $13.99 (US), ebook: £ 7.88(UK), $ 90.99 (US). ISBN: 978-1-68112-296-0)
check out website: https://nbmpub.com/products/bootblack
