By Fire

By Fire: The Jackob Hutter Story is the second part of a duology concentrating on the early Anabaptist movements and mostly taking place immediately after its predecessor By Water: The Felix Manz Story. This volume tells a story both more personal and more political than its predecessor, alternating the personal narrative of Jackob Hutter going from a failed rebel to a nonviolent martyr with scenes of King Ferdinand I that show the background of his war against the Ottoman Empire that motivated his persecution of the Anabaptists.

The scenes with King Ferdinand fall slightly flat but are very informative, and they help to underline strong anti-establishment and countercultural nature of the Anabaptists that the authors obviously wish to emphasize in this volume, even more than they did in By Water (I think Hutter’s Fidel-like green shirt and beret in some early scenes may have been accidental, but the execution of Thomas More, author of Utopia, is included in the timeline appendix despite doubtful bearing on events of the story). This book also foregrounds the role of women in the early Anabaptist movement, through the figure of Ursula who connects the two books, and of Katharina, convert and eventual wife of Hutter.

This book is certainly on the Anabaptist’s side. The soldiers of King Ferdinand are sneering and ugly, the brief period of peace in Moravia is conveyed with six pages of village idyll, and the foreshadowing of Hutter’s martyrdom is spread thickly though the story. However, it also shows clearly the deep research that went into the composition, going out of its way to give a careful listing of what details are actually known about the events and people in the appendices, as well as including several primary source documents in part or in full.

Sanka Banergee’s art has the same expressive but slightly odd-looking faces and sometimes rich, sometimes muddled watercolor work that was seen in By Water. In this volume she makes somewhat stronger use of symbolism, often by foregrounding art or architecture within a scene. Both of these volumes have perhaps worked better as heavily illustrated books than a strict comic, since Banergee’s watercolors lend themselves to amazing larger landscapes and symbolic scenes, but do less well as small panels.

Ultimately, both volumes are highly informative works on a quite obscure cultural moment, as well as being visually rich works in the somewhat dry genre of nonfiction comics. They are valuables as works of scholarship, but perhaps more valuable as works of love for a historical moment and its people’s radical counterculture.

I got an ARC of this book.

This was a quick read and the trend of having more legible lettering continued! I am so glad there was an effort to make it so the words were clear and not overly stylized like earlier titles by this publisher. It worked better and I got so much more of the story.

The story was very linear and I was still at times lost. I was not familiar with this part of the reformation movement, so I didn't have that background to help guide my reading. I think there needed to be a bit more meat or help for the reader who is not familiar with the story to fully engage.

The art was wonderful. Characters were clear. The expressions they had were strong. I have to say some of the choices were just breath taking.

I really enjoyed this. I had tried reading the letters of Jakob Hutter but the language was hard to understand and I didn't understand the historical context. This graphic novel made it easy to understand. I was able to see in color what was going on. I understood the issue with Anabaptists and teh chaos. This was well put together and is an easy way to people about historical figures.