Book Review: Godspeed: A Kurt Cobain Graphic Novel by Barnaby Legg and Jim McCarthy

I’ve been a Nirvana fan for about five, maybe six years. I was born in 1992 but I can’t pretend I identify with the alternative metal, grunge, post-grunge movement. I can barely call myself a Nineties kid at all when it comes to cultural identification. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate Cobain in my own way. And while I know some details about his life and tragic death, I’m not clumsy or naïve enough to interpret a comic book expression of his journey as his Word-of-God biography.

Let’s get it right off the bat that I don’t believe this graphic novel is completely true. But it’s a subjective artistic interpretation of another’s man life and the perspective it offers is still valuable. Legg and McCarthy are talented writers. They capture the burgeoning confusion and displacement of a preadolescent Kurt, the angst and depression of a teenage Cobain, and the chaos and pandemonium of the rock star he eventually becomes. Flameboy’s artwork here is gritty and messy, full of hard lines and sharp colors, bringing out something essentially Nineties in flavor and tone.

There is a scene in the novel that I found rather touching. It was where he had achieved everything he had ever dreamed of in his youth, where his accomplishments had become a reality, and he at last decided to let go of this dream, and let others follow. It’s a heartbreaking scene that doesn’t need melodrama or painstaking detail to be succinctly true. This novel can be true without being accurate.