JOSEPH SMITH AND THE MORMONS

A graphic novelist takes a deep dive into the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I was born the eighth of nine children into an LDS family,” writes Van Sciver in the author’s note, going on to describe how his “faith evaporated” even as he still maintained interest in the church since childhood. “I spent years immersed in an independent study on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he writes. “I traveled to historic sites all over the country and read books, went to church, listened to hymns, and wrote and drew like the Devil was chasing me.” This graphic history/biography is intensive with dialogue and text, but it’s particularly eloquent on the wordless pages, which allow Van Sciver’s artistry to shine through. The author ably captures the world in which Joseph Smith and his followers made their way west through the wilderness, facing persecution and charges of perfidy at every turn. (Van Sciver takes Smith and his followers to Missouri, ending well before they continued to Utah after his death.) Though the book will likely displease strict LDS followers, the author insists that he seeks to tell the story “as straightforwardly as I can and to let readers draw their own conclusions.” The book suggests that the young Smith was something of a con man, perhaps from a family of swindlers, well before he allegedly experienced heavenly visions. Van Sciver renders those visions expertly, the illustrations cast in a ghostly blue and white, providing a pleasing contrast with the otherwise full-color narrative. As the author shows, Smith was duplicitous in wooing his wife and keeping from her the sexual dalliances that led to a doctrine of polygamy. Furthermore, his bank cheated depositors, and his deceptions were spread by muckraking newspapers. One page proclaims him, “Swindler, Charlatan, Crook, Fraud,” as if the universe itself were passing judgment.

Beautifully drawn, contentious, and word-heavy, offering everything about early Mormonism that anyone might like to know.