I first saw “Capote in Kansas” (by Ande Parks and Chris Samnee,)  back when the movie “Capote” (which is not related to the graphic novel in any way except that they both deal with the same historical subject,) was about to hit at a bookstore, and I mentally placed it on my list of books to read. Saddly when I went back a couple of weeks later I found that it was no longer on the shelves of my bookstore, and I then soon after I watched the film and was turned off enough by that, that I soon forgot about my search for the graphic novel.

Cover Image

Fast forward a few years to my desire to become a better inker (a work in progress) and so I started to look around at inkers whose work I liked, and one of those was the author of “Capote in Kansas,” Ande Parks. As I was poking around, I stumbled across Mr. Parks blog, and I have been a reader of it for a while now, and then one day it hit me, I realized he was the guy who had written that thing on Capote. I decided to pick it up whenever I next saw it, and was able to get a copy at C2E2, and am I glad I did.

Now I have to confess that I am a fan of Truman Capote, I think he is on of the finest American writers, and I think that he is often not given the respect he deserves, but instead treated as an excentric clown with a funny voice who some how, over happenstance, created a great book. This seemed to be the way the move treated him, and it is often the version of Capote that shows up in biographies of the man. This is NOT what happens with “Capote in Kansas.”

Capote is treated as a real person in this work. His character is a round one, and his motives are complex. Mr. Parks never dwells on the idea that Capote was not serious about what he was doing, and more importantly, he instills a work ethic into his Capote that is often over looked, and he gives real motivation to Capote’s fasination with Perry Smith and his reliance on Harper Lee.

In a truely breathtaking sequance, (made all the more powerful by Chris Samnee’s art, and the choice to make the charaters of young Truman and Harper look like their analogues, Dill and Scout,  form Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”) Mr. Parks explains the sense of abandonment that was a theme throughout Capote’s life, and to see that from an early age he had relied on Lee as a crutch for dealing with his own emotions.

Samnee's Capote

Chris Samnee’s contribution to this work can not be over stated. I quickly fell in love with his line work, and the line choices he made. He does nothing fancy with his layouts, choosing to use strong fundamental storytelling techniques, which is entirely appropriate for the subject matter.

His renditon of Capote is also a welcome change to what we usally get. He draws Capote as a dashing and charming man, who while short, is in no way a characture. He also provides a depth to Capote with the way Samnee has Capote’s figure emote, and with the thoughtfulness he puts into Capote’s eyes, we see a character that is being effected by the events that he is learning about.

It was the effect that the  journey to learn about the murder of the Clutter murder had on Capote that makes “In Cold Blood,” (the book Capote ultimately wrote about the crime,) such a riveting read, yet too often, people in retelling the story, whether in biographies of Capote, or in the movie “Capote,” focus on the feelings that Capote develops for on of the killers, Perry Smith, and ignore the other things that effected Truman as he crafted his book, namely that Capote learned more about the victims, the Clutter family, then any other living person knew, and that this must have taken it’s toll on him as well.

While Mr. Parks and Mr. Samnee don’t ignore the romantic feelings that Truman developed for Perry, they almost put them on the back burner to Capote’s feelings for the Clutters. Our Authors decide to introduce the spirit of Nancy Clutter, the young teenage girl who was killed, by Perry, along with the rest of her family. This introduction could have been handled poorly, but instead of acting as a cheesy hinderance, her spirit becomes the focusing point for the whole graphic novel, and give purpose to Capote.

This graphic novel is one of the best things I have read in the last little while, and I strongly recommend that you find and read a copy.

For real, it’s that good.