African Diaspora at Internet Archive: Stagger Lee

One of the stories in Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me! Narrative Poetry From the Black Oral Tradition from earlier this week is Stackolee, also known as Stagger Lee, so I wanted to share this book today: Stagger Lee by Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix. It's a graphic novel!

Here's how it all begins:

You can get an overview of the legend of Stagger Lee at Wikipedia, and this graphic novel also has some portraits at the end of the book about the historical figures that gave rise to this long-lived folk legend.

If you want to read the versions (7 of them!) in Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me!, here's that link: Stackolee. He also has a different toast too: Stacklee in Hell!

And that legend about Stackolee in hell shows up in the graphic novel too:

Part of the graphic novel tells how Howard Odum collected the Stagger Lee songs back in the day, so I promise to do a post about Howard Odum tomorrow! 

Meanwhile, if you are fan of graphic novels, this is the book for you; it's full of great takes visually along with all kinds of narrative takes on the multiplicity of the Stagger Lee legend!

Stagger Lee

by Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix