Beat It, Rufus
Cartoonist: Noah Van Sciver
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Publication Date: March 2025
Throughout his career, Noah Van Sciver has distinguished himself through storytelling acumen and as a keen examiner of human frailty. His ability to reveal the humanity within seemingly reprehensible characters characterizes his work—and marks his artistic development. The titular protagonist of the Fante Bukowski series, a lout by any other name, is surprisingly tender and empathetic, despite yelling at passersby to read his (not so good) poetry.
This commitment to finding the agreeable within the objectionable represents a challenge to the author as an exercise and a compelling task for the reader to recognize themselves in those they might otherwise write off as weird or too fringe. And because Van Sciver’s storytelling approach rejects simplistic moral binaries in favor of nuanced psychological portraiture, he invites readers to consider how universal emotional and existential concerns manifest even in socially questionable contexts.
This is all pretext to discuss Van Sciver’s latest graphic novel Beat It, Rufus, another solid entry in his expansive canon. It’s a comic that follows some familiar narrative territory while also a profound meditation on failure, self-deception, and the relentless passage of time. And certainly, Rufus’s story is marked by the tragedy of time. We first meet Rufus performing for detached or bemused audiences in small dives, where his dated style and persona are received with confusion rather than enthusiasm.
Though his former bandmates died decades ago and despite the lackluster venues, Rufus trudges on to pursue his rock star dreams (and uncollected royalties) as if it’s still the headbanging ‘80s. Despite repeated failures and a lifestyle that has left him professionally unemployed, Rufus maintains a delusional optimism about his prospects
This comic skillfully subverts the classic redemption story best exemplified by Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge. Rufus is his own Scrooge when he declares, “I can always start over. I can change course. Ever heard of Ebenezer Scrooge?” But whereas his book counterpart had supernatural direction to lead him down the road to redemption, Rufus is left to navigate a psychedelic dream world filled with visual allusions and the weight of his own failures, mired in an existential purgatory where achievement is forever denied him. This reversal of the typical redemption cliche offers an interesting tension that drives the work beyond simple mockery into a deeper investigation of human limitation. Unlike Scrooge, who was treated to clear moral guidance by ghostly apparitions, Rufus receives no such guidance. His is not a journey of radiant rebirth but one of poignant decay: personal, artistic, or cultural. Van Sciver resists being maudlin, instead opting to create a character study that questions our cultural fascination with reinvention and second chances.
The artistic presentation of “Beat It, Rufus” showcases peak Van Sciver. His intricate cartooning, which gets more nuanced and precise with each book, presents a rich textural quality that reflects the protagonist’s [psychological journey, with each panel reflecting Rufus’ layered, tumultuous, and burdened past. Noah’s coloring style is strikingly apparent, employing a lively color scheme that adapts to Rufus’s emotional fluctuations—transitioning from subdued tones in clear moments to intense, vibrant colors of a demonic hellscape during his more erratic phases.
The visual allusions are apparent but never copycat. If Van Sciver’s research into existential horror calls to mind underground comix, he eschews gory excess for a more restrained, refined approach that has become his signature. From horror to slack-jawed despair, Rufus’s face is sketched in loose accuracy (no oxymoron there), effectively capturing the character’s interior turmoil without descending into caricature. This more complex presentation allows for a more seriously flawed, three-dimensional character from Rufus rather than a strictly symbolic one for angst, giving some sense of correctness and recognizability to the book’s emotional core.
Also of note is Van Sciver’s hand-lettering. Far from being merely functional, the text becomes an extension of Rufus’s unraveling psyche—jittery during outbursts, subdued in moments of defeat. This attention to typographic detail creates a visual rhythm that enhances the emotional impact of each scene, binding art and narrative into a seamless whole.
Beyond its character study, Beat It, Rufus engages with broader cultural obsolescence/irrelevance themes and artistic inertia. Rufus is not merely a failed musician but a synecdoche of a bygone era: the guitar slinger unable or unwilling to adapt to changing tastes. The consequences of his struggle certainly reflect a larger cultural tendency to mythologize past greatness rather than confront present reality, which is a particularly resonant theme in an age obsessed with nostalgia and revival.
After his rigorously researched historical treatise Joseph Smith and the Mormons, Van Sciver’s return to comedy proves him a versatile artist and storyteller. The intimate, small-scale nature of Rufus permits him to distill thick existential issues into intensely personal narratives, creating a story that is unique to his own life and universally applicable. “Beat It, Rufus” is a natural extension of subject matter from Van Sciver’s Fante Bukowski, both works addressing delusion and frustration over unrealized artistic hopes.
In Rufus, Van Sciver has, not so surprisingly, created a character of surprising depth and complexity: an aging hair metal dreamer whose stubborn refusal to abandon his long-dead aspirations is simultaneously hysterical, harrowing, and deeply human.
Unlike Dickens’ neatly tied-up morality stories, Van Sciver does not provide simple solutions or uplifting endings. He challenges readers to embrace the discomfort, to linger in Rufus’s misguided beliefs and shortcomings, and to confront something that feels all too relatable. This rejection of simplistic sentiment, combined with an earnest empathy for human vulnerability, elevates Beat It, Rufus beyond mere entertainment. It compels readers to face harsh realities about life and the comforting fictions of transformation that we often cling to.
Get your copy of Beat It, Rufus now via Fantagraphics
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