Crowthorn: A Village Built by Orphans
Rob’s back with another of his comics without word bubbles, which is a terrible way to describe his historical travelogue comics, but it is also technically accurate. This time around he took a walking tour around Crowthorn, which is near Bolton in the UK (I’m shamelessly stealing that from Rob’s description), and like in his previous travelogue comic, Rob provides the history of the area during his tour. It’s fascinating and more than a little grim; the subtitle of the comic is literal. But in a “for the best of intentions” sort of way, if that helps? The full story is in here, obviously, but for review purposes I’ll do my best to sum up a bit. Rob goes into detail about the man who purchased the property back in the 1800s and how it eventually got settled in 1872, by a married couple and 24 orphan children. This man (Alfred Mager) didn’t see a reason to hire people to do the work that the children could do, so they worked under some brutal conditions for years to clear out and then build up the area. There was at least one mutiny due to the working conditions, but the general “tough love” idea of the place was to give these kids practical skills that they could use in the real world when they grew up. Was that a balance that we’d have today? Exactly like this, absolutely not. Anyway, the school was eventually opened, improvements were made throughout the years, and there are many more details that I see no reason to spoil for anybody actually interested in the history. It’s a completely different place now, as Rob’s walking tour thoroughly illustrates. I don’t know if this is the general direction that Rob’s comics are going these days or if it’s just A direction, but both of these comics have been fascinating, and that’s coming from someone with no idea of the layout of the area and very little idea of the history. I hope he’s selling these things locally so people can learn more about their history, in convenient comics form. $10 (ish?)
