3 Review(s)

Did you know that a mainstay of American folk culture was, in fact, created as an advertising ploy? Few people realise that Paul Bunyan, the legendary lumberjack, and his blue ox are the product of corporate marketing by a highly industrialised industry. In this beautifully designed book, 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!