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Beat It, Rufus
Rufus Baxter is an aging, professionally unemployed loser, desperately — delusionally — hanging on to his 1980s hair metal fantasies of headlining arenas, despite so much evidence to the contrary (like audience members ducking when he tosses promo t-shirts at an open-mic night). The rest of his bandmates in Funky Cool died decades ago in a horrible plane crash on the cusp of their first big break. When he gets kicked out of the Denver storage unit he’s been illegally sleeping in, his only prospect is a last-second wedding gig the very next day — in Wyoming. A hop in his car, and possibly a peyote button or two, sends Baxter on a psychedelic and existential road trip through his past, and forces him to confront every bad decision he’s made along the way.Beat It, Rufus is very much a kindred spirit with Van Sciver’s Fante Bukowski series, a comedic character study both played for laughs but also infused with a surprising gravitas that has you rooting for Rufus despite having every reason not to. Van Sciver’s comedic and graphic talents are in peak form in this original graphic novel, his follow-up to the award winning and critically acclaimed graphic bio, Joseph Smith and the Mormons.
Kindle Edition
First published March 11, 2025
66 people want to read
About the author
Noah Van Sciver
90 books209 followers[copied from: http://nvansciver.wordpress.com/about/]
I am THE one and only Noah Van Sciver, cartoonist/comic strip artist and illustrator. I’m best known for my alternative comic book series Blammo and my weekly comic strip 4 Questions which appears every week in the alternative newspaper Westword. My work has appeared in The Best American comics 2011, Mad magazine, Sunstone, The Comics Journal, MOME and numerous comics anthologies. I’m currently hard at work on my first graphic novel The Hypo which will be published by Fantagraphics books upon its completion. I’m a cancer and I hate seafood, and adventure.
I am THE one and only Noah Van Sciver, cartoonist/comic strip artist and illustrator. I’m best known for my alternative comic book series Blammo and my weekly comic strip 4 Questions which appears every week in the alternative newspaper Westword. My work has appeared in The Best American comics 2011, Mad magazine, Sunstone, The Comics Journal, MOME and numerous comics anthologies. I’m currently hard at work on my first graphic novel The Hypo which will be published by Fantagraphics books upon its completion. I’m a cancer and I hate seafood, and adventure.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 7, 2025
Noah Van Sciver serves up a tortured artist who is an even bigger jackass than Fante Bukowski. Musician Rufus Baxter is on his last legs; he's an aging substance abuser who can barely book a gig that covers gas money. Delusional and fueled by rage, he takes a cross-country road trip to collect some money he thinks he's owed from an old record deal, the seed money for a fresh start from all his problems.
Angry old white guy has mandatory generic traveling hijinks, meeting quirky and colorful strangers and revisiting people he has done wrong. He even borrows Johnny Cash's night in Nickajack Cave.
This retread has nothing fresh or amusing enough to recommend it, and the loathsome protagonist is a chore to endure.
Angry old white guy has mandatory generic traveling hijinks, meeting quirky and colorful strangers and revisiting people he has done wrong. He even borrows Johnny Cash's night in Nickajack Cave.
This retread has nothing fresh or amusing enough to recommend it, and the loathsome protagonist is a chore to endure.
April 23, 2025
Beat It, Rufus is a cross-country road trip story centered on a washed up rocker trying to reclaim some royalties on an '80s record that he believes is being withheld by his former record label. Having been kicked out of his storage unit for having tried to live there, Rufus Baxter caves on his gig of doing a wedding performance in Wyoming and hightails it for Camden where the shady label, Bliggums Records, is located. Along the way Rufus undergoes ruminations of sorts involving old flames and former bandmates, in one might consider to be a character study of a washed up musician.
Not a particularly unique angle - even of Noah Van Sciver, given the evident similarities to his previously published work, Fante Bukowski. Still, Beat It, Rufus is a funny, rousing road trip styled story complete with Van Sciver's charming art and witty barbs.
Not a particularly unique angle - even of Noah Van Sciver, given the evident similarities to his previously published work, Fante Bukowski. Still, Beat It, Rufus is a funny, rousing road trip styled story complete with Van Sciver's charming art and witty barbs.
April 13, 2025
No one does self-deprecating humor better than Noah Van Sciver. So satisfying!
August 28, 2025
It’s easy to judge Van Sciver characters- and doing so is right- they are just the worst people. They don’t murder or commit horrible crimes but spending any amount of time near their orbit will almost certainly make your life worse. It’s powerful.
I really enjoy the scenes that place us in each midwestern city or town- T Mobiles, churches, people muttering in the crosswalk. Really good story about a really shit dude.
I really enjoy the scenes that place us in each midwestern city or town- T Mobiles, churches, people muttering in the crosswalk. Really good story about a really shit dude.
October 3, 2025
Man, Covid must have done a real number on NVS.
Fante Bukowski is one of my favorite comics, so naturally I was extremely excited to read Beat It Rufus. Unfortunately it didn’t land in the same stratosphere as my expectations.
First off the humor didn’t hit a single time. I didn’t even smirk at anything. What use is a comedy book that doesn’t bring you joy?
Another issue is his dialogue choices. Plenty of these cringe modern day terms. Such as cisnet white male, nonbinary, and mentioned Covid. Everything I’m just tired of being bombarded with.
I’d skip this one and check out Fante Bukowski or Paul Bunyan instead.
Fante Bukowski is one of my favorite comics, so naturally I was extremely excited to read Beat It Rufus. Unfortunately it didn’t land in the same stratosphere as my expectations.
First off the humor didn’t hit a single time. I didn’t even smirk at anything. What use is a comedy book that doesn’t bring you joy?
Another issue is his dialogue choices. Plenty of these cringe modern day terms. Such as cisnet white male, nonbinary, and mentioned Covid. Everything I’m just tired of being bombarded with.
I’d skip this one and check out Fante Bukowski or Paul Bunyan instead.
June 17, 2025
Very bojack in its once-successful-now-down-on-his-luck protagonist struggling to redeem himself from his shitty past and peppered with a mix of self-deprecating humor and navel gazery. I enjoy Van Sciver, and I really like his art, but this one felt a little half-cocked. Sort of like a collection of b-sides meant for Fante Bukowski but reworked to be about the music world. Lots of low-hanging jokes that didn't connect for me, but Rufus saying that he could probably claim to be bisexual was pretty funny.
June 1, 2025
Van Sciver has like three major modes; memoir - which has produced some truly touchy stories, biography, and down-and-out comedy - of which Beat It, Rufus is one. I’ve always liked his memoir and biographical work best. But there is no denying Van Sciver can craft a fantastic joke. You don’t often laugh out loud reading anything comic, but with I laughed several times during Beat It. There isn’t a ton of new ground here, a lot of it feels like his other comedic work. But it is still really fun.
March 20, 2025
Noah Van Sciver returns, with another graphic novel about a has-been-never-was ne’er-do-well, this time about a rock guitarist named Rufus. For a taste of the life of a glorified rock star, Rufus will betray any friend or lover, sure as he is that adulation of him is only right, proper, and fated. Well, maybe not fated, which is what galls Rufus, his delusion-steeped anger propelling him through years of sleeping rough, hoping and assuming that his break is just around the corner.
We catch him towards the end of his life’s trajectory, homeless and with only a few bucks left. The story ends on an ambiguous note—will Rufus turn his life around or will he once again betray a friendship for selfish ends? Non-superhero comics are rife with artist/writers who have the art of self-abasement down, a self-abasement projected onto loser characters with zero social skills, zero conflict resolution skills, inability to sustain long-term relationships, including employment. Here, I’m thinking of artists such as Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Peter Bagge, as well as Van Sciver. The irony, of course, is that these artists, unlike their protagonists, have developed successful careers, but they can’t figure out how to get their protagonists there, too, in a way that feels authentic.
My sense is that Van Sciver, unlike the other artists mentioned, is a natural optimist who would prefer that his characters do well and find some semblance of contentment. After all, he also includes in Beat It, Rufus a former lover of Rufus’s, named Becky, whose embrace of Christianity is generous hearted rather than obnoxiously self-righteous. Becky does Rufus some good turns, despite his earlier abandonment of her. Van Sciver gives her a husband who suffers from burns across his entire body, requiring constant care from her. That he is bandaged from head to toe like a mummy is the one comic element given her situation, but the care Becky gives her mummy-like husband is presented so matter-of-factly that we feel for her a sympathy that dulls the edge of any uncertainty toward her readers might have created by the sincerity of her faith.
That level of complexity Van Sciver gives Becky he withholds from Rufus, which requires an ambiguity Van Sciver may not continue to pursue. Instead, I think underlying Van Sciver’s storytelling skills is a narrative sensibility more akin to writers like William Maxwell and Sherwood Anderson and their understated descriptions of everyday life (not that I would call Anderson an optimist). In the meantime, Beat It, Rufus is an enjoyable step in Van Sciver’s development as a storyteller.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
We catch him towards the end of his life’s trajectory, homeless and with only a few bucks left. The story ends on an ambiguous note—will Rufus turn his life around or will he once again betray a friendship for selfish ends? Non-superhero comics are rife with artist/writers who have the art of self-abasement down, a self-abasement projected onto loser characters with zero social skills, zero conflict resolution skills, inability to sustain long-term relationships, including employment. Here, I’m thinking of artists such as Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Peter Bagge, as well as Van Sciver. The irony, of course, is that these artists, unlike their protagonists, have developed successful careers, but they can’t figure out how to get their protagonists there, too, in a way that feels authentic.
My sense is that Van Sciver, unlike the other artists mentioned, is a natural optimist who would prefer that his characters do well and find some semblance of contentment. After all, he also includes in Beat It, Rufus a former lover of Rufus’s, named Becky, whose embrace of Christianity is generous hearted rather than obnoxiously self-righteous. Becky does Rufus some good turns, despite his earlier abandonment of her. Van Sciver gives her a husband who suffers from burns across his entire body, requiring constant care from her. That he is bandaged from head to toe like a mummy is the one comic element given her situation, but the care Becky gives her mummy-like husband is presented so matter-of-factly that we feel for her a sympathy that dulls the edge of any uncertainty toward her readers might have created by the sincerity of her faith.
That level of complexity Van Sciver gives Becky he withholds from Rufus, which requires an ambiguity Van Sciver may not continue to pursue. Instead, I think underlying Van Sciver’s storytelling skills is a narrative sensibility more akin to writers like William Maxwell and Sherwood Anderson and their understated descriptions of everyday life (not that I would call Anderson an optimist). In the meantime, Beat It, Rufus is an enjoyable step in Van Sciver’s development as a storyteller.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
April 18, 2025
Rufus Baxter is a never-was, pathetic moron of a failed rock star. Fed-up with scrounging a living on the music circuit for decades, his drug-addled brain somehow concocts a semi-coherent plan: he’s gonna road trip cross-country to the blighted town of Camden, New Jersey, to finally claim royalties on his ‘80s record, Funky Cool, from his scummy label, Bliggum Records, and retire in style. Will he get what he deserves - and what was the fate of his two bandmates all those years ago?
Noah Van Sciver does a rock music version of Fante Bukowski with Beat It, Rufus: like Fante, Rufus is a deluded, adolescent-minded clown who continues to pursue his questionable art, despite years of indifference from audiences everywhere, because it’s all he can do. Unlike Fante Bukowski though, Beat It, Rufus isn’t quite so brilliant - though it’s not a bad comic either.
Van Sciver’s niche is this kind of bottom rung of society-type character and the book has its moments particularly early on in showing us Rufus’ terrible life which were compelling. But the story isn’t as consistently funny or entertaining as Fante Bukowski - or as fresh either, with other stories of musical embarrassments, like This is Spinal Tap, Flight of the Conchords and David Brent: Life on the Road, out there that are funnier and more inspired.
The jokes are kinda one-note after a spell, the set pieces not as interesting - the reunion with the “love of his life” in Indiana was ok but most everything else that happened on Rufus’ wretched road trip was fairly meh. Van Sciver’s art is consistently great though and helps to sell some of the jokes, especially the cat allergy one.
Beat It, Rufus is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy Noah Van Sciver’s comics - it’s an ok book. But he’s also done a better version of this story elsewhere and, if you haven’t read them, his Fante Bukowski trilogy is a hoot and vastly more fun than this one.
Noah Van Sciver does a rock music version of Fante Bukowski with Beat It, Rufus: like Fante, Rufus is a deluded, adolescent-minded clown who continues to pursue his questionable art, despite years of indifference from audiences everywhere, because it’s all he can do. Unlike Fante Bukowski though, Beat It, Rufus isn’t quite so brilliant - though it’s not a bad comic either.
Van Sciver’s niche is this kind of bottom rung of society-type character and the book has its moments particularly early on in showing us Rufus’ terrible life which were compelling. But the story isn’t as consistently funny or entertaining as Fante Bukowski - or as fresh either, with other stories of musical embarrassments, like This is Spinal Tap, Flight of the Conchords and David Brent: Life on the Road, out there that are funnier and more inspired.
The jokes are kinda one-note after a spell, the set pieces not as interesting - the reunion with the “love of his life” in Indiana was ok but most everything else that happened on Rufus’ wretched road trip was fairly meh. Van Sciver’s art is consistently great though and helps to sell some of the jokes, especially the cat allergy one.
Beat It, Rufus is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy Noah Van Sciver’s comics - it’s an ok book. But he’s also done a better version of this story elsewhere and, if you haven’t read them, his Fante Bukowski trilogy is a hoot and vastly more fun than this one.
June 7, 2025
Beat It, Rufus (2025) by Noah Van Sciver opens on the title page with advice for the reader to play some Van Halen, which I did. The book is like a musician’s counterpart to Van Sciver’s hilarious loser writer Fante Bukoski. Self-deluded, without talent, aging, broke, Fante is a big drinker, while Rufus who is also all those things above, does drugs, mostly. He was part of a hair metal rock group in the eighties, Funky Cool, that produced one album with a shady producer who didn’t promote the record. It sold no copies and they made no money, obviously.
Now Rufus is on a quest to find the producer--road trip book!--and get the money he isn’t owed, falling apart steadily every step of the way. He loses his money, his car, and so on. He wants to apologize to everyone he let down, he considers quitting his quest, but he meets up with an old girlfriend, meets up with an old band member he (for some reason) thought died in a plane crash with the rest of his band members, but who is making money producing commercial jingles. Rufus still believes, though, that he can become great, or at least become a better person. But what are the odds? Nah, stay on the path to total destruction!!
Cringingly amusing, as with Fante Bukowski, though I liked that one better. Though this is in its way a funny tribute to every garage band dreamer, thrashing away on the guitar and screaming his lungs out as his eardrums burst from metal turned up to eleven.
Oh, there’s mention of an actual, amusing instrument from the nineties, a keytar, in the book:
https://www.google.com/search?q=keyta...
Now Rufus is on a quest to find the producer--road trip book!--and get the money he isn’t owed, falling apart steadily every step of the way. He loses his money, his car, and so on. He wants to apologize to everyone he let down, he considers quitting his quest, but he meets up with an old girlfriend, meets up with an old band member he (for some reason) thought died in a plane crash with the rest of his band members, but who is making money producing commercial jingles. Rufus still believes, though, that he can become great, or at least become a better person. But what are the odds? Nah, stay on the path to total destruction!!
Cringingly amusing, as with Fante Bukowski, though I liked that one better. Though this is in its way a funny tribute to every garage band dreamer, thrashing away on the guitar and screaming his lungs out as his eardrums burst from metal turned up to eleven.
Oh, there’s mention of an actual, amusing instrument from the nineties, a keytar, in the book:
https://www.google.com/search?q=keyta...
July 29, 2025
Rufus Baxter is way, way past his best. He’s never shaken the meer brush of success he experienced back in the 1980s with his rock band, and remains convinced of a stature he’s simply never achieved. Bad decisions have followed bad decisions, and now he’s reaching the end of the end of the road. But there might just be one last hope to lift himself out of the pit he’s dug himself. If he doesn’t mess that up too.
This is the antithesis of Private Eye’s Celeb. The musician that never made it. He’s not very nice, he’s self-centred, unaware, and self-destructive, and yet, somehow, you don’t hate him. Van Sciver’s great at these nuanced studies, poking fun and finding humour with a subtle touch. Rufus is not without hope, and he’s not entirely the orchestrator of his own demise, but he certainly doesn’t help himself.
He’s a brilliant character study, and as he stumbles from one crisis to the next you hope for some sort of redemption despite knowing just how unlikely that will be. Not just superb cartooning, but excellent writing as well. Highly recommended.
This is the antithesis of Private Eye’s Celeb. The musician that never made it. He’s not very nice, he’s self-centred, unaware, and self-destructive, and yet, somehow, you don’t hate him. Van Sciver’s great at these nuanced studies, poking fun and finding humour with a subtle touch. Rufus is not without hope, and he’s not entirely the orchestrator of his own demise, but he certainly doesn’t help himself.
He’s a brilliant character study, and as he stumbles from one crisis to the next you hope for some sort of redemption despite knowing just how unlikely that will be. Not just superb cartooning, but excellent writing as well. Highly recommended.
Read
August 23, 2025I dig movies and books that challenge audiences to engage with unlikable protagonists. It's the artistic equivalent of watching dudes one-up each other with bench presses at the gym. "Your protagonist cheats on his wife? Well, watch mine kick a dog!"
Nobody kicks a dog in Noah Van Sciver's BEAT IT RUFUS. However, the graphic novel does still push the limits on how unlikable a character can be - both emotionally and physically repellent in the case of Rufus, a defanged rock and roller circling the last remnants of his career. Van Sciver shows a deeper understanding of empathy and humanity than his brother Ethan, GREEN LANTERN artist and right-wing YouTuber.
The graphic novel is one man's journey to try to become a better person, or at least salvage his dreams of fame and fortune. But sometimes success and morals aren't compatible, and Rufus must decide what he's willing to prioritize in his efforts to crawl out of the garbage his life has become.
If you're a fan of Daniel Clowes or Alex Robinson, check out this very funny funny book.
Just be warned: here by assholes.
Nobody kicks a dog in Noah Van Sciver's BEAT IT RUFUS. However, the graphic novel does still push the limits on how unlikable a character can be - both emotionally and physically repellent in the case of Rufus, a defanged rock and roller circling the last remnants of his career. Van Sciver shows a deeper understanding of empathy and humanity than his brother Ethan, GREEN LANTERN artist and right-wing YouTuber.
The graphic novel is one man's journey to try to become a better person, or at least salvage his dreams of fame and fortune. But sometimes success and morals aren't compatible, and Rufus must decide what he's willing to prioritize in his efforts to crawl out of the garbage his life has become.
If you're a fan of Daniel Clowes or Alex Robinson, check out this very funny funny book.
Just be warned: here by assholes.
December 1, 2025
I read this on the couch with a head cold during my son’s nap. It’s been a pretty tough couple of weeks around here, and reading about Rufus actually made me feel better about my own situation.
Noah Van Sciver’s work here is really strong, the colors look great and his drawing style is as good as anything he’s done. But the story and subject matter do feel, as others have said, like they’re treading similar ground to Fante Bukowski. And while Noah is very funny and there are some great jokes in here, the book also feels a little sad and meandering, not unlike its protagonist.
For me, this was a fun diversion, but I’m really keen to see what Noah does next. As much as I enjoyed Joseph Smith and the Mormons, I still feel like he has a true masterpiece in him that hasn’t come out yet. Noah is incredibly talented, still one of the hardest-working and, in some ways, most talented cartoonists we have right now, but I don’t think he’s quite locked into a book or a narrative that really shows everything he can do. I’m hoping he’ll write his Black Hole in the next few years.
Noah Van Sciver’s work here is really strong, the colors look great and his drawing style is as good as anything he’s done. But the story and subject matter do feel, as others have said, like they’re treading similar ground to Fante Bukowski. And while Noah is very funny and there are some great jokes in here, the book also feels a little sad and meandering, not unlike its protagonist.
For me, this was a fun diversion, but I’m really keen to see what Noah does next. As much as I enjoyed Joseph Smith and the Mormons, I still feel like he has a true masterpiece in him that hasn’t come out yet. Noah is incredibly talented, still one of the hardest-working and, in some ways, most talented cartoonists we have right now, but I don’t think he’s quite locked into a book or a narrative that really shows everything he can do. I’m hoping he’ll write his Black Hole in the next few years.
May 30, 2025
Rufus is deluded, destructive to others almost as much as he is to himself, and overall pretty pitiful. Van Sciver shows his talent again once again for making it interesting and hilarious to follow around that sort of obnoxiously selfish misanthrope for a bit, instead of wanting to get away from them ASAP. His cartoonish illustration adds a playful but well-worn decay to every scene.
“I wann help with the revolution! I’m hip! I’m a cool cat! I might even be bisexual. I don’t know. I’m willing to claim so.”
“You know it occurred to me that all my adult life I’ve just been in a slump.”
“I wann help with the revolution! I’m hip! I’m a cool cat! I might even be bisexual. I don’t know. I’m willing to claim so.”
“You know it occurred to me that all my adult life I’ve just been in a slump.”
November 26, 2025
It's a graphic novel! Truly, a novel and it's exactly what I needed.
Rufus is funked up. He can't get over the very minor success he had with his band in his 20s. Now he's middle-aged, living in his car, with nothing to his name. He trips and decides to start a new life, be good and all that. He road trips, sees some old friends, and maybe he'll get back up on his feet.
The style is good, punk, attention-grabbing. The story moves along at a good pace and I dug it.
Rufus is funked up. He can't get over the very minor success he had with his band in his 20s. Now he's middle-aged, living in his car, with nothing to his name. He trips and decides to start a new life, be good and all that. He road trips, sees some old friends, and maybe he'll get back up on his feet.
The style is good, punk, attention-grabbing. The story moves along at a good pace and I dug it.
Read
March 6, 2025Noah's art is masterful and expressive as always, with an elevated alt-comics feel. This graphic novel was about a has-been rock guitarist who is down on his luck. He has some introspection and visits old friends. The story wasn't compelling to me.
August 26, 2025
Exceptionally fun comic about a guy that sucks (one of my favorite types of characters) and his misadventures trying to get owed royalty money after a failed music career. I love the style and the humor. Very effective cartooning.
January 10, 2025
If you like despicable self-obsessed protagonists and that rock-and-roll lifestyle, this is the book for you
August 24, 2025
There are more Rufus’s out there than any of you want to know about. Great Van Sciver addition to the canon
December 5, 2025
Loved it. Rufus is such an irredeemable asshole. It's amusing to watch him do the worst possible thing at every single point in the story. The art is great too.
January 3, 2026
Rufus Baxter is an aging musician who can't seem to give up the version of his life that he wishes he had. In trying to find his next step, he finds himself looking back on his life.
July 7, 2025
Close to 4-stars but I feel like I've read this story before by Noah Van Sciver. It treads similar territory to Fante Bukowski and Saint Cole. This time the down-on-his-luck character is a more generic musician still trying to make it big.
December 1, 2025
This was surprisingly fun. I also enjoy the packaging.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews