Vera Bushwack

by Sig Burwash

Overview

The wondrous rustic landscape of Nova Scotia bursts from the page in Vera Bushwack, where reality gladly gives way to fantastical flights of fancy before gently coming back down to earth. A chainsaw fires up and Drew’s vision blurs. Their body vibrates alive with the whrrr of the engine, the whiff of gas. Drew dissolves as their alter-ego, Vera Bushwack, takes charge. Assless-chaps-wearing, unflinching Vera slashes through thick trunks, felling trees righteously from the back of a majestic steed. Vera’s here to help, of course. Drew needs to clear the land for their future cabin in the woods. And if it weren’t for Vera’s brazenness, Drew may, ironically, fall reliant on others to learn self-reliance. Nevertheless, men enter Drew’s orbit, all too eager to explain how things work—an aggravating occurrence that comes crashing into Drew as dependably as the nearby ocean waves. Joy, anger, grief, and self-acceptance ripple through these pages with Sig Burwash’s hilariously expressive pencil drawings and flair for buoyant watercolors. Approaching something like liberation, our protagonist comes to terms with past traumas, boundaries, and the many expressions of themself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770467620
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	06/11/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	65 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sig Burwash is a visual artist whose practice includes watercolour, collage, ceramics, animation, illustration, and comics. Their work is both imaginative and rooted in their lived experience, including cabin building, forest stewarding, motorcycling and crewing on fishing vessels. They have participated in residencies internationally and have been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Europe. Burwash attended the Centre for Cartoon Studies to work on their debut graphic novel ‘Vera Bushwack’. Originally from kEluwi'sst- Rossland, British Columbia, they now live in Unama’ki- Cape Breton Island.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2024

Burwash’s confident debut aches with joy and pain. Drew, a tough and suspicious “bushwacker,” is determined to build a cabin in the woods on their own. Flanked by their dog Pony, Drew cuts down trees, salvages wood from an abandoned house, swims and fishes in the nearby lake, and accepts coffee, chats, and chain saw lessons from a local lumberjack. The experience of sheer physical power—revving the chain saw, straddling a motorcycle, gunning a truck—inspires fantasies that break free of common sense and panel borders. In one, Drew transforms into “Vera Bushwack” and rides rodeo in nothing but fringed backless chaps, wielding power tools over their head. Drew’s phone conversations with their close friend Ronnie and flashbacks to traumatic moments in their pre-wilderness life hint at the motivations behind their pursuit of total freedom—“It can feel impossible to feel safe,” Drew confesses to their lumberjack neighbor at one point—but the book doesn’t push for dramatic disclosures. Instead, Burwash observes Drew’s quest with keen curiosity, detailing each skill learned and portraying each day as a step closer to a goal. Burwash’s fine, clean lines sketch out vibrant characters and loose natural vistas, capturing the texture of dark, buggy nights and mud-streaked afternoons. Readers will relish this fresh and unforced celebration of a wild and precious life. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Vera Bushwack is a perfectly fully formed comics debut, like Athena from the head of Zeus. But that is not entirely true—Sig Burwash’s prowess in illustration and long CV of gallery work precedes them, and that skill transfers so well here. When the rigid panel grid gives way, it is most likely to explode into furious figures on bucking horses, or of quiet emotion enveloped in the protection of nature. And it is a story with a lot of those feelings to sift through, sit with, or chainsaw apart (if you will). I hope it is the first of many books we see from Sig Burwash.” —Kate Beaton

“A gorgeously rendered meditative love story between a human and their dog. An intimate and wild ride through a lush landscape chock full of chainsaws, wild horses, magical dreamscapes, deep friendship, trauma, masturbation, cabin building how tos and assless chaps. What more could you ask for?? I loved spending these pages with Drew and Pony as they build a life and a home together.” —Gaby Hoffmann

“I didn't know how much my heart needed to read a story about a chainsaw-wielding chaps-wearing cabin-building non-binary hero until my eyes found the first pages of this book. A tough on the outside romp through the bush, tree-felling, tool maintenance, rural life, and so-called men's work that reveals a tender story about the insides of loneliness, sexual violence, and building a model for progressive masculinity at the same time as you build yourself a home. You might even learn a few things about framing up that tiny house you've always dreamed about.” —Ivan Coyote

“If it’s possible for a graphic novel to feel ambient (think Kelly Reichardt’s films), that’s happening here. In a story about building a home, expressed through gender and the acquisition of practical skills, Sig Burwash flings big spinning elements of architecture at the viewer like a deep video within the frames. It’s unsettling and lush, their landscapes tingle and the narrator’s cowboy fantasies swirl away from squares and plans into a wet animal realm where all their hopes become one.” —Eileen Myles

“Readers will relish this fresh and unforced celebration of a wild and precious life.” —Publishers Weekly

“The art’s exuberance and sketch-like quality bring to mind webcomics like Nimona or Hark! A Vagrant.” —Booklist

From the Publisher