Baby’s in Black: The Story of Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the Beatles by Arne Bellstorf (First Second, 2011, 224pp.)
Baby’s in Black is told from the point of view of Astrid Kirchherr, a German photographer who befriended the Beatles in their early years, before they hit it big. The story focuses primarily on the romance between Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe, the “Fifth” Beatles member, while the band was playing in Hamburg in 1960.
I can only approach this graphic novel in review from the angle of someone who likes the music, but isn’t a serious fan. This biography showed me just how little I know about the Beatles (they had a drummer before Ringo? And—holy cow! There was a fifth Beatle?) So, yes, for someone who knows admittedly little about the band, this was completely uninteresting. All the characters look alike. We get no sense of who these people are. In the case of the “romance,” it holds you at a distance. So, while informative, I can only say that it’s completely forgettable as a piece of art. Recommended only to serious fans of the Beatles.
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