Archaeology in the real world
Shovel Bum is an excellent collection of comic strips that portray the daily life of contract archaeology. You won't find these images or stories in the media through which the public typically experiences archaeology. In fact, I doubt the public even realizes that archaeological research in North America is almost exclusively done in this setting -- by Cultural Resource Management (aka CRM) companies who are working ahead of highway construction and other projects on public land. This is a billion-dollar industry that employs the vast majority of archaeologists in North America. What Shovel Bum does so well is to convey the real life, humorous challenges of CRM life-on-the-road. The use of black-on-white sketches inject real humor, and I can't think of a form of media that would make these stories more compelling. This collection of comics will never have the exposure of other graphic illustrations of our discipline (it's currently ranking 1,336,773 in sales at Amazon.com!). Too bad the public will miss out on the real archaeology.
Shovel Bum is an excellent collection of comic strips that portray the daily life of contract archaeology. You won't find these images or stories in the media through which the public typically experiences archaeology. In fact, I doubt the public even realizes that archaeological research in North America is almost exclusively done in this setting -- by Cultural Resource Management (aka CRM) companies who are working ahead of highway construction and other projects on public land. This is a billion-dollar industry that employs the vast majority of archaeologists in North America. What Shovel Bum does so well is to convey the real life, humorous challenges of CRM life-on-the-road. The use of black-on-white sketches inject real humor, and I can't think of a form of media that would make these stories more compelling. This collection of comics will never have the exposure of other graphic illustrations of our discipline (it's currently ranking 1,336,773 in sales at Amazon.com!). Too bad the public will miss out on the real archaeology.
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