#Paul Bunyan: The Invention Of An American Legend

[fantomcomics]

What's Out This Week? 8/9

The Summer is winding down, but the comics are still hotttt

Akane-banashi GN Vol 1 - Yuki Suenaga & Takamasa Moue

Akane unintentionally stirs up the specter of scandal when she's discovered taking informal lessons from her father's former teacher, Shiguma Arakawa. But she's about to make even bigger waves, because her first step in climbing the ranks of rakugo performer from zenza opening act to shin'uchi headliner is exchanging her secret lessons for formal training. And she'll still have to finish high school and navigate her relationship with Shiguma's existing apprentices, all while learning that becoming a stellar rakugo performer takes much more than just being good at performing!

The Ambassadors GN Vol 1 - Mark Millar & Frank Quitely

You've cracked the superhuman mystery and can give superpowers to six different people around the world. Who do you choose? The world's greatest and most ambitious superhero comic needs the world's greatest comic book artists. FRANK QUITELY, TRAVIS CHAREST, OLIVIER COIPEL, and an international line-up of superstars step forward to introduce an all-new cast of characters from MARK MILLAR's latest Netflix sensation.

Comic Books Kill #1 - Shane Berryhill & Hoyt Silva

NONSTOP. NYC. 1939. Comics creator Jack Levi places his life and career on the line when he begins an affair with the femme fatale lover of his mafia boss publisher. Comic Books Kill! is a crime noir tale of myths, mistresses, and mobsters sure to thrill fans of Kirby, Brubaker, and Phillips.

Damn Them All TP Vol 1 - Simon Spurrier & Charlie Adlard

After the death of Ellie's uncle Alfie, an infamous magician and occult detective, the 72 devils of the Ars Goetia are mysteriously freed from their infernal realm. It's now up to her to track down each of these demons and damn them right back to Hell... using holy water, conjuration, or just her trusty, rusty claw hammer.

Meanwhile Dora, a detective traumatized by the same events as Ellie, is suspicious of the untimely death of Alfie. As new terrors unfold, the two witness strange changes to the political landscape of Britain: a gibbering madness infecting the population. Alfie's meddling made more than just the mortal realm a nightmare, so it's up to Bloody El to set things right... with only eternity at stake.

The Enfield Gang Massacre #1 (of 6) - Chris Condon & Jacob Phillips

The THAT TEXAS BLOOD duo returns to Ambrose County, Texas with an all-new MINISERIES set 150 years in the past!

Gunslinging action meets dark frontier drama in this original Western thriller, as Montgomery Enfield and his gang of outlaws find themselves in the crosshairs of an aging Texas Ranger and a newborn county that's hungry for law.

Finders Creatures GN Vol 1 - P. Knuckle Jones

Meet detective-in-training Finder and her friends as they try to figure out why everyone in Belly Acre Bog has disappeared in this hilarious mystery graphic novel! Finder the tree frog absolutely loves solving mysteries. So when all the animals in Belly Acre Bog mysteriously disappear overnight, Finder and her friends Chopper and Keeper are toad-ally on the case. But when Seymour Warts, the world's greatest detective and Finder's hero, arrives on the scene and begins his own investigation, the young creature finders soon realize that this mystery could be even bigger than their little bog!

Ghost Book GN - Remy Lai

Twelve years ago, the boy and the girl lived. But one was supposed to die. July Chen sees ghosts. But her dad insists ghosts aren't real. So she pretends they don't exist. Which is incredibly difficult during Hungry Ghost month, when the Gates of the Underworld open and ghosts run amok in the living world. When July saves a boy ghost from being devoured by a hungry ghost, he becomes her first ever friend. Except William is not a ghost. He's a wandering soul wavering between life and death. As the new friends set off to return William to his body, they unearth a ghastly truth-for William to live, July must die. Inspired by Chinese mythology, this dark yet hopeful tale about friendship, sacrifice, and the unseen ghost world is a dazzling heir to Studio Ghibli classics.

Hexware TP Vol 1 - Tim Seeley, Zulema Lavina & Mirka Andolfo

Why sell your soul...when you can buy a new one?

In a corporate-ruled city where class inequality is greater than ever, a desperate, lonely populace is drawn to neo-spiritualism and hedge magic. When their teenage daughter is murdered, the Marks family is left asking the gods what they did to deserve this. But their android maid, Which-Where, has a different approach. Perhaps if she asked the devil...

Now, to pay the price, a machine with the soul of a teenage girl must hunt down souls who have escaped from hell. But on the way, she and her only friend, Ren, discover a vast conspiracy threatening to burn the last civilization to the ground. Can Which-Where keep her soul with her humanity on the line?

Mech Cadets #1 (of 6) - Greg Pak, Takeshi Miyazawa & Ian Herring

General Park-head of Sky Corps Academy-must assemble a team of heroes to protect humankind from alien invasions, and Stanford Yu, Maya Sanchez, Frank Olivetti, and Park's own daughter Olivia may have been pulled into the role by fate... as they are Earth's best hope.

But there is more to their relationships with the symbiotic, sentient giant Robos they pilot... and the alien threat of The Sharg is far more epic and widespread than any could imagine!

While Mech Cadets makes a fresh debut for new readers and viewers, long-time fans can delight in having more adventures after the long awaited collection of Mech Cadets Book One!

Oblivion Song Compendium TP - Robert Kirkman, Lorenzo De Felici, & Annalisa Leoni

The entire series, collected in a single volume for the first time!

A decade ago, 300,000 citizens of Philadelphia were suddenly lost in Oblivion. The government made every attempt to recover them, but after many years, they gave up. Nathan Cole...won't. He makes daily trips, risking his life to try and rescue those still living in the apocalyptic hellscape of Oblivion. But maybe...Nathan is looking for something else? Why can't he resist the siren call of the Oblivion Song?

Paul Bunyan: The Invention Of An American Legend GN - Noah Van Sciver & Marlena Myles

Did you know that a mainstay of American folk culture was in fact created as an advertising ploy? Few people realize that Paul Bunyan, the legendary lumberjack, and his blue ox are the product of corporate marketing by a highly industrialized industry. Cartoonist Noah Van Sciver shows us the myth creation as real life marketing man extraordinaire W.B. Laughead spins ever more wondrous tall tales. Van Sciver's story is bracketed by rich contributions from contemporary Native artists and storytellers with a very different connection to the land that the Bunyan myths often conceal. Readers will see how a lumberjack hero, a quintessential American fantasy, captures the imagination but also serves to paper over the seizure of homeland from First Peoples and the laying bare of America's northern forests. It's a tall tale with deep roots... in profit-making!

Plush TP - Doug Wagner, Daniel Hillyard & Rico Renzi

Serial-killing, cannibalistic furries! PLASTIC and VINYL creators DOUG WAGNER & DANIEL HILLYARD are back. This time, they've recruited colorist extraordinaire RICO RENZI for their disturbing "neon-horror" spin on fursuit psychopaths and bizarre love. In PLUSH, Devin Fulcher is coerced into attending his first furry convention. When he accidentally happens upon a group of furries devouring a human, the insanity begins. Do they just want Devin for dinner...or something much more wicked?

Skeleanor The Decomposer HC - Emily Ettlinger

An instantly charming and vivid chapter-book graphic novel, starring a music-obsessed skeleton, Skeleanor, and her quest to find her sound (and her confidence) by debut creator Emily Ettlinger. Skeleanor loves music more than life itself. There's just one problem: She has a bit more rattle than rhythm at the moment. No matter what type of instrument she plays-from the fiddle to the xylobone-she always seems to scare the people of Little Casketon away. But with the Little Casketon Summershine festival coming up, and the town band missing a player, maybe Skeleanor (along with the help of her best friend, Batima) could show people her skills and finally take center stage.

Summer Ghost The Complete Collection GN - Otsuichi, Yoshi Inomi & loundraw

Based on the critically acclaimed animated short film about three high schoolers' supernatural coming-of-age! There's an urban legend that claims the ghost of a young woman will appear if you set off fireworks in a certain abandoned airport. Three high school students are united by their shared desire to meet this ghost-and each of them is close to death. What happens when they come together one fateful summer night as the boundary between life and death grows thin?

The Summer Hikaru Died GN Vol 1 - Mokumokuren

Two boys lived in a village: Yoshiki and Hikaru. The two did everything together...until the day Hikaru was encompassed by a mysterious light. That was when everything changed-Hikaru most of all. Yoshiki still wishes from the bottom of his heart to always stay by his side...but is there even a Hikaru left to be with?

The Madness #1 (of 6) - J. Michael Straczynski, Aco, & David Lorenzo

In THE MADNESS, Sarah Ross has been using her power as a thief, stealing from the rich and...well, keeping it. Until the day she stole from the wrong person, a highly placed official who pressures the government to assassinate her. The plot, aided by so-called "good" superheroes sponsored by the government, misses her but wipes out her family. Driven mad by grief, and laser-focused on revenge for the murder of her family, Sarah and a hidden side of her personality - an imaginary friend who may be more real than she believes - goes after these superpowered operatives determined to take her revenge, at any cost.

Us TP - Sara Soler, Silvia Perea Labayen & Joamette Gil

Us is Sara and Diana's love story, as well as the story of Diana's gender transition. Full of humor, heartache, and the everyday triumphs and struggles of identity, this graphic memoir speaks to changing conceptions of the world as well as the self, at the same time revealing that some things don't really have to change.

Vampirella/Dracula RAGE #1 - Christopher Priest, Christian Rosado & Lucio Parrillo

NO MORE MS. NICE VAMPIRE!

They're coming for her baby. They're going to murder him before her eyes. And then she's going to kill every last damn one of them. Picking up where Vampirella: Year One left off! In an unprecedented turn for our titular heroine, Vampirella/Dracula: Rage presents Vampirella as you've never seen her before. Inconsolable grief yields to irreducible rage as Vampirella tracks the cultists who threaten her son across Europe and America, unsettling political and economic alliances and unraveling the global network of the baby's father - Dracula.

In a macabre exchange of norms, it is Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, hunting the elusive Vampiri, trying to save Vampirella from herself - or, more precisely, to save her from becoming like him. To this end, Dracula recruits Victory, once Vampirella's closest friend, to act as his ersatz Renfield while they try (and fail) to anticipate the next moves of a woman whose anger has now completely consumed her.

WYND Book Three: The Throne In The Sky GN - James Tynion IV & Michael Dialynas

The land of Esseriel is a darker and more dangerous place than ever, as tensions between the Human and Faerie realms build to the brink of war. Could Wynd be the only hope for peace?

Danger, betrayal, and even some romance confront our heroes at every turn, while elsewhere, the Duke makes murderous plans of his own. Things seem dire, but help from an unexpected figure might just be the lifeline Wynd and Merien need... even though the final battle draws near.

Whatcha checking out this week, Fantom Fam?

[smashpages]

Out this week: Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend (Toon Books, $11.99):

Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles delve into the real-life history of Paul Bunyan, a supposed legendary character that was actually created as a product of corporate marketing.

See what else is arriving at your local comic shop this week.

[seat-safety-switch]

Have you heard the legend of Paul Bunyan? It’s not the kind of thing that they’d tell you in that fancy college-boy college, no siree. Paul Bunyan was a real American, seventeen feet tall and capable of killing a British soldier just by looking at them real hard. What kind of car did Paul Bunyan drive? A goddamn ox, that’s what. Oxen are like a cow, but all fucked up, as evidenced by the special plural form of their name.

That said, he probably only drove the ox because nobody had yet invented the car. Nobody wants to drive an ox; they get terrible fuel economy and you have to keep feeding them even when you’re not driving them, sort of like keeping oil in a BMW. Henry Ford wouldn’t kill several bystanders test-driving his exotic hot rods for another couple of decades, which meant that Mr. Bunyan was plumb out of luck when it came to automotive enjoyment. I like to think that, if he were alive now, he’d eschew the current trends towards crossovers and crossover-based pickup trucks, and go right for the gusto: the Isuzu NPR.

“Isn’t that a commercial vehicle?” I hear you whine through my kitchen floor furnace grates, and although I am thankful you have stopped crying for food so often, do not mistake our newfound conversational ease for camaraderie of any sort. You will remain chained up down there until Nissan pays the ransom, which is not gonna happen while you’re making all this noise and making me forget to put the note for the aforementioned ransom in the mail.

Yes, the Isuzu NPR is a commercial vehicle. So what? Paul Bunyan’s a lumberjack. He can get his air-brake endorsement no problem, if he needs to. Really, the only obstacle for him would be to cut the roof off the vehicle so he can fit inside it like an enormous Power Wheels, which probably won’t even impact its crash safety all that much.

[librarycomic]

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Scrivner. With art and stories by Marlena Myles, an introduction by Lee Francis IV, a postscript by Deondre Smiles, and a bibliography for further reading. TOON Books, 2023. 9781662665226. 48pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781662665226?partnerid=34778&p_bt

This short graphic novel revels in the tall tales about Bunyan while showing their origin as stories created to justify the clearcutting of indigenous lands all over the U.S. by lumber companies. I found Myles's essay about indigenous stories about wood spirits / Little People particularly compelling, and plan to try to track down a few of those. (Email me if you know books I should look for.)

A Little Emotional by Christopher Eliopoulos. Rocky Pond Books, 2023. 9780593616611. https://www.powells.com/book/-9780593616611?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Eliopoulos's comics are fantastic, and so is this picture book about a young boy whose favorite action figure is missing. His emotions are drawn as creatures (that's anger on the cover before it gets ugly and explodes). Eliopoulos turns it all into a nice lesson on sharing (with one's younger siblings even).

Bad Apple by Huw Lewis Jones and Ben Sanders. Thames & Hudson, 2021. 9780500652435. https://www.powells.com/book/-9780500652435?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Apple is "a nasty piece of fruit." It's true, seriously -- he's a total bastard to other foods and flowers and then he goes too far. Sanders's illustrations, and particularly their colors, are wonderful. (There's even a sequel of sorts, Apple Grumble, in which Granny Smith tries to teach Apple some manners.)

A Place for Pauline story by Anouk Mahiout, illustrations by Marjolaine Perreten. Groundwood Books, 2022. 9781773066097. 48pp. https://www.powells.com/book/-9781773066097?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Pauline is the oldest kid in her family and it feels like she's always in the wrong place at the wrong time. But she finds a hidden, quiet space for herself, but then she gets bored alone and so plans to secretly jump on a boat to France to visit her grandma (also named Pauline). This is another great picture book in comics format, which I believe was originally published as a graphic album for kids in France.

[vulpixbookpix]

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Sciver 3 of 5 stars

I knew Paul Bunyan was made up as a part of some attempt to create "Americana" folklore on par with what European countries had, but I had no idea that Bunyan was created by a timber advertiser to help spin a "positive" light on the destruction of old growth forests. That was interesting to learn. I also enjoyed the text introduction and additional information after the graphic novel part that spoke even more about the Indigenous peoples that were in the heavily wooded areas and how they were removed from the land that they respected.

Will kids read these parts on their own or will they skip right over the information and go straight to the graphic novel part? If they're anything like me when I was as a kid, they'll devour the text and try to go looking for more facts about the Indigenous people in other books.

The graphic novel section was something that I would've skimmed over. I get that more and more kids are reading comics and graphic novels and it's a great way to introduce history to them, but the information at the beginning and the end was more intriguing. The story was of the advertiser who just made up the story of Paul Bunyan when comparing stories of other lumberjacks. He is chastised by others for the destruction of the old forests and for trying to make Paul Bunyan as some wonderful person, which ties in to the pieces by the Indigenous authors surrounding the graphic novel.

I wavered between giving it 3 or 4 stars and, ultimately, I gave it 3 because of the graphic novel part.

[jaygabler]

Like a lot of Minnesota kids, I grew up with books about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. The books told incredible stories of the man who could fell an entire tree with one swing of his ax, and about his bovine companion, whose footprints became the state's 10,000 lakes.

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend tells the story behind those stories of the legendary logger — and it's not pretty.

[stephaniejoanneus]

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles. Toon Books, 2023. 9781662665226 Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4 Format: Hardcover graphic novel Genre:  Historical fiction What did you like about the book? It’s the winter of 1914, and a train chugs across Minnesota. When the train has to stop to clear the tracks, passengers gather…

[winningthesweepstakes]

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend by Noah Van Sciver and Marlena Myles. Toon Books, 2023. 9781662665226 Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4 Format: Hardcover graphic novel Genre:  Historical fiction What did you like about the book? It’s the winter of 1914, and a train chugs across Minnesota. When the train has to stop to clear the tracks, passengers gather…

[bookjubilee]

Book Review: ‘Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend,’ by Noah Van Sciver

bookjubilee.com http://dlvr.it/StBMB9

[haspaulbunyandoneanythingwrong]

Day 7

Legend has it that Paul Bunyan was the greatest lumberjack to ever confront the great American frontier. That a single swing of their ax could clear an entire acre of land. Tragically this legend came to an end with the invention of the chainsaw. Upon which the inventor pitching the tool offered to test its efficiency against Bunyan’s axe. In the end Bunyan lost if only by a hair, and forced themselves into retirement.

Upon asking Bunyan about this part of her legend, she states that the only reason she lost that day was because she ended up being last in line for breakfast and thus hadn’t eaten a full serving that day. She remains confident that if she was allowed one more plate of pancakes that day it wouldn’t have even been a contest.

Misdeeds: 0

[fanarchoslashivist]

You ruined me !!!! (;Д;) I can't read half of the rise of the guardians fics because their obsession are 4th of July anime girl or shape-shifting coyote and you're over here like "here is my oc their a regional interpretation of a local cultural hero that if you Google search the name will give you niche information you didnt learn in history class but broadens your understanding of different folk heroes in America not just white people's." P.s. I love Cantabrica I am torn in my ships.

Noon don't feel torn! Cantabrica is just as important as Jack I promise.

Also I noticed that too, not to rag at all on fellow fic writers but there is a very rich well of cultural icons on par with "Jack Frost" "Father time" and "man in the moon". Some with holidays and festivals, others regional duties. Most pull from religious pools and I do that too but I feel like you can give too much or too little significance if you handle important religious groups as if they are Santa Clause.

I lean heavy on the Indigenous icons because Jack is from America and the people he would interact with would be those icons. Unmade Bed skims along a little deeper then my usual fics by also introducing tensions between Frontier folk heroes, African American folk heroes, and Indigenous icons and folk heroes. I don't create unnamed transformer heroes just for the appeal of a shape-shifting character to match their names. I also try to treat powerful sacred entities with the respect their due. I'm not about to make Nanabush a giant rabbit or, gods forbid, "someone saw Bunnymund and it spiraled from there".

Jack interacts with Winter icons because he is of Winter and is beloved by Mother Nature and Gichi-Biboon, and because of that he has met and knows powerful people through them. If he nows Gichi-Biboon and Flint then he knows Gloskap and Moskim but those icons are (sacred) culture heroes and tricksters too and so Jack interacting with them and Pamola is within reason. Jack meeting Creator Gods who culture heroes themselves have difficulty reaching would not make sense, and admitting that one God created the world validates a religion over another and we already have Bunnymund as having terraformed the planet billions of years ago.

Frontier and Folk legends are easier because anyone whose deeds are raised to mythic standards can be used, and Wild West icons like Calamity Jane are super racist rounding up natives to put on reservations so Jack being seen as a Frontier spirit, a weather spirit, and a folk hero as well as being white passing Lenape and interacting openly with Indigenous heroes of the time such as Lozen, Geronimo, Kintpuash, Tenskwatawa, Buckongahelas, Whisper, and Pîhtokahanapiwiyin would put people like Jane and Bill off, even while some Wild West heroes were abolishionists and get on well with black icons like Br'er Rabbit and John Henry. Which means no gathering can be 100% free of racists because there are abolitionists who hate Natives and Natives who owned slaves and black heroes whose trickster myths involve theft and violence and grey morality, and they all end up getting +1'd no matter how careful you are when hosting a Frontier gathering.

Additionally you have Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan who are myths with little in the way of human ties, and Smokey the Bear with 2 different presumed origin stories. And Bunyan got beaten to death by a fish! Which gave me a great opportunity to remake him as a patron spirit of the saw line for forest fires instead of logging.

I just really don't like when the Guardians are placed on equal or greater level with powerful beings of living thriving cultures. Santa Clause is a magician that delivers toys, creator god he is not.

One of the scenes I didn't include in Unmade Bed was at a typical meet up of the Folk Heroes where it devolves into a shootout involveing Katherine coming upon them and thinking it was a weird "cowboys vs indians" mock battle since they're all immortals and trying to get them to stop and make nice so she can get their help with a search she's on and Victorio interrupting her lecture of "fighting at any provocation" with a "no, we aren't disagreeing over something silly, we are HERE because we were invited and they are SHOOTING us because they want us DESTROYED."

But if Katherine had met Jack in the past she would have noticed his mirror image to Nightlight, so I took it out. Still I'd love to work with more Indigenous folk heroes if it means more people Google and learn about them. Leaders who raised rebellions and defended their people and inspired others, religious leaders, respected elders, they are far more deserving of a place in my writing then trying to invent someone for some holiday.

[apenitentialprayer]

The Communal and Fragmentary Nature of Lumberjack Folklore

Bunyan tales did not last very long in oral form. They began to be told in lumber camps about 1885 and had largely died out by the 1920s. [...] But during the heyday of the lumber industry between 1885 and 1910, Bunyan tales were a unique, if small, feature of logging culture. There was no canon of Bunyan stories, however; in oral form, they were not a stable collection like the Arthurian legends or the Arabian Nights tales. Generations of African American or Ojibwe families may have carefully preserved traditional tales about Brer Rabbit or Nanabohzo, but Paul Bunyan was not the hero of any stable narratives until he was fixed on paper. Instead, nearly all evidence indicates loggers’ spoken references to Bunyan were fragmentary, impromptu, and created on the fly in a collaboration between the speaker and his audience. Parrish Lovejoy, who collected “an inexhaustible fund” of Bunyan tales from loggers from 1900 to 1920, explained, “The best audience included a few greenhorns [new recruits], easy to string, who might be betrayed into asking guileless questions and who would be likely to accept or miss at least a few of the richer inventions.” [...] Lovejoy’s claim that Bunyan was rarely the center of a well-rounded, widely repeated story was confirmed by William Laughead, who worked in Minnesota and California logging camps between 1900 and 1908. He told an interviewer, “I never heard anyone in the camps or anywhere else mention Paul Bunyan in a narrative form, that is, start to tell you a story about something Paul did . . . Any crews that I ever came in contact with in the woods, or any place else, wouldn’t let any one man monopolize the conversation very long . . . He didn’t just sit there and put in the evening just talking and everybody else in camp listening to him.” [...] As Laughead indicated, narrators often deliberately left opportunities open for companions to step in and elaborate: “The stories are likely to contain occasional loose ends,” Lovejoy informed Constance Rourke, “which appear from the fact that situations are described which their authors piously hope will be challenged, thus allowing a notable chance for expansion and further invention. If these openings are disregarded, the story stands as is, and passes into currency unless some later story-teller elaborates it further.

Michael Edmonds (Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan, pages 55, 56, 58, 59-60)

[ayellowbirds]

Fakelore: when we lie about lying

Bear in mind hat it’s been like eight years since i did my anthropology studies, so i might be off on some details, but there’s this phenomenon in the study of folkore and mythology where a story that was originally presented as being kind of genuine and organic is determined to have been manufactured for the purpose of seeming like home-grown tall tales, urban legends, and old wive’s tales. 

The classic example is Paul Bunyan—while plenty of Americans have grown up on stories of a gigantic lumberjack and his big blue ox, there’s evidence (and endless arguments about the legitimacy and meaning of the evidence) that the versions of the stories most of us are familiar with were created as marketing by the lumber industry. There may have been a legitimate tradition of Paul Bunyan stories being told around campfires by loggers, but it seems that those would have been stories about a man of more mortal stature.

Similarly, heavy doubt is cast on Pittsburgh’s own big man, Joe Magarac, a steel-worker made of steel. A 1931 magazine article (predating Superman by a good seven years) claimed to relate stories told to the author by immigrant steel workers—“Magarac” is Serbo-Croatian for “donkey” or “jackass”. But nobody investigating the matter ever dug up any evidence of a tradition of Joe Magarac stories predating the article’s publication.

Which brings me to my latest disappointment: while researching folkloric monsters, cryptids, and urban legends of certain states, i started looking into stories of The Awful. “The Awful” is the name given to a monster of Vermont folklore that mutual @arquus-malvaceae​ once called “the Jersey Devil’s cousin”, a griffin-like terror with vast grey wings that was rumored to have carried off at least one human infant.

The Awful has a great name, and its descriptions are just vague enough to fire the imagination and ensure that other “witnesses” might come forward reporting other sightings that add more strange qualities. I was excited to learn more about an obscure, distinctive monster on par with the Snallygaster or the Hodag, or even the Snawfus.

But then i noticed something really off about the descriptions I was finding of The Awful.

They kept referencing HP Lovecraft as having collected descriptions of the monster. I started to wonder if The Awful was in fact a creation of Lovecraft himself. But the awful old racist with whom I share a birthday was not known for doing cultural investigations of this sort; his xenophobia wouldn’t allow it. And there were things about the quotes attributed to him that didn’t seem to match the character of his writing. And the uncovering of Lovecraft’s writings on the subject were attributed to another HP, HP Albarelli Jr. It all seemed suspicious.

So I picked out a snippet of one quotation, wrapped it snugly in quotation marks, and did a Google search on the matter.

And thus, I found a transcription of a speech by author Joseph A. Citro that seemed to settle the matter.

On October 6, 2006 The County Courier — a small Vermont newspaper out of Enosburg Falls — published an article by journalist H.P. Albarelli Jr.

As far as I have been able to determine, his article contains the first reference ever to The Awful.

His article is presented as fact.

He begins, “In 1925, renowned horror writer H.P. Lovecraft secretly traveled to Richford and Berkshire [Vermont] to investigate a strange phenomenon that was occurring in the two towns. Lovecraft had been visiting friends in southern Vermont when he first learned about odd sightings [of the Awful] in Richford.” End quote.

...extensive research on Mr. Lovecraft fails to reveal that he had any friends in Vermont in 1925.

It is documented, however, that HPL and his friend Paul Cook of Athol, Massachusetts came to Vermont to visit the poet Arthur Goodenough of Guilford in August of 1927.

Then, in March 1928, he published an essay about his trip called Vermont: A First Impression.

...with all my suspicions in tact, I contacted Mr. Albarelli himself. Essentially, I wanted to know two things:

Number one: Is there a legitimate Vermont tradition of “Awful” sightings?

And second is there proof that H.P Lovecraft really ventured into northern Vermont in 1925?

Now I don’t want to say Mr. Albarelli was evasive. I will say that Mr. Albarelli seemed as if he was being evasive.

He gave me the following information via email.

1. He had purchased an 1888 building up in Richford. For years the building's top floor was used as the local Masonic Temple. (Oh, a Masonic tie-in. This is getting more interesting.)

2. There he found some interesting items, including several handwritten journals. In one he found a mention of “The Awful”. He didn’t tell me whose journals they were.

3. He also found some original letters, all unpublished as far as he knows.

4. One of the letters, presumably penned by H.P. Lovecraft, supposedly validates his trip to Richford and his interest in The Awful. Mr. Albarelli says the letter is from Mr. Lovecraft to a Franklin Country Minister and doctor, a friend of one of HPL’s southern Vermont friends. Hw wouldn’t name the doctor, the minister, or the friend, but Mr. Albarelli assured me the Lovecraft letter is quite genuine.

So, what we have is someone in 2006 publishing something that not only claims to relate the existence of a folkloric tradition of cryptid sightings—in a state with no shortage of other monsters and legendary critters!—that nobody else had documented. 

And he claims that an author notably associated with made-up legends had recorded these stories, but had only preserved them in some rare letters that no other scholarship had uncovered. Lovecraft was a prolific letter-writer, and the man would write reams on just about anything that interested or inspired him, and tell anyone and everyone he was in contact with. He adored sharing his inspiration (and anglophilic, xenophobic, anti-seafood rants) with all his friends and professional contacts.

And nobody else ever got a letter mentioning this creature that Albarelli claims was a major inspiration for Lovecraft’s writing? Renowned Lovecraftian researcher ST Joshi didn’t dig anything up?

Forget suspicious, it was as flimsy as Lovecraft’s declaration that his wife didn’t count as Jewish anymore because she’d married into his family.

But the problem with stuff like this is  that we now have a source claiming that this was real. Or at least, that it was a real legend, which is kind of like saying it was a genuine illusion, a legitimate phantasm. And Albarelli’s text has been widely quoted, paraphrased, and re-written by people taking it at face value.

And the more that happens, the more this story someone invented to satisfy some kind of agenda, the more i wonder...

...at what point does fakelore turn into folklore?

And how long will it be before someone you know claims their cousin’s friend saw The Awful?