Shovel Bum, the 'Zine

Trent de Boer. 2004. Shovel Bum: Comix of Archaeological Field Life. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, California.

Trent (T-Bone) de Boer's comic book for Altamira Press called Shovel Bum is a terrific introduction to the grimy world of the archaeological field technician. The shovel bum travels the world working for pretty low wages on all kinds of archaeological sites in all kinds of weather and all kinds of conditions. A shovel bum's life is an exciting, dull, difficult, hot, cold, dangerous, precarious, thrilling existence. Shovel bums often travel with their own field kit, and these days, included with that trowel jammed into a back pocket is a copy of de Boer's fanzine called Shovel Bum. Begun in 1997 as a way to explain how the job works, Shovel Bum the 'zine has developed a small but very dedicated following of fans.

Published yearly, the 'zine regularly looks at working conditions and bad hotels and nightmare bosses and crazy professors and those terrific, loyal but strange working stiffs they call pit partners. There are recipes for pickled eggs, poems for the working man and woman, letters and stories from the readership, reviews of field cars, and above all, many many tips for the suffering scientist in the field. One invaluable tip: always bring the versatile neckerchief. Ford Prefect was wrong: a neckerchief is much more useful than a towel.

Altamira's book is a collection of the first few years of Shovel Bum, and it includes a wide range of comic panel drawings from various contributors such as Troy Lovata, Betsy de Boer, Geof Prairie, California Doo-Rag, and others; and drawings from giddy graphics to an ecstatic drawing of T-Bone himself recalling the wonders of a perfectly pickled egg.

There's only one flaw with this collection; and that's the serious article at the end by contributor Troy Lovata, placing Shovel Bum within a theoretical context that just makes me want to yank out my hair at the roots. There are serious issues at stake, no doubt, and I certainly think Lovata is right in that "Quality story-telling...is a powerful step in public communication"; but there are also other venues where this might be better placed. And the book speaks for itself just fine---my advice is, give that a pass and go back to the more entertaining bits. Shovel Bum must be an invaluable source of amusement and advice for the working gal and guy. Wish I'd had it when I was in the field. You can subscribe to Shovel Bum by going to Trent's web site (http://www.shovelbum.com, apparently now defunct) Shovel Bum.com.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.