‘Camp Pock-a-Wocknee and the DYN-O-MITE Summer of ’77’ GN (review)

Written and Illustrated by Eric Glickman
Published by Black Panel Press

1977 should have been a big year for me. I turned 18 years of age at the beginning of the year, saw Star Wars for the first of eight times that year in May, graduated high school in June and, in July, attended the annual New York Comic Art Convention, which was actually held that year in Philadelphia.

The rest of the year, however, is a blank to me now.

The same can’t be said for cartoonist Eric Glickman, creator of the graphic novel Camp Pock-a-Wocknee and the DYN-O-MITE Summer of ’77. The art style and even its basic subject matter may give the idea that Camp Pock-a-Wocknee is a book for kids but no, it is actually an explicit, NSFW, R-rated-style memoir from its author.

And boy, does he remember a lot!

I should point out that I never went to summer camp…or any other camp, for that matter. Closest I came was watching TV’s Camp Runamuck when I was 6 years old. If it was ever even discussed for me, I don’t recall. I did win a free, all expenses paid summer at a popular local camp for something at school one year but tore it up without even telling my parents about it. The very concept of sleeping and showering with other boys, doing crafts, swimming, campfires, singing, etc. scared me more than any Boris Karloff movie ever did!

Reading this book, though, I can’t help but find myself at this late date wondering if perhaps I made a mistake.

Camp Pock-a-Wocknee is a somewhat unique graphic novel in that there is no genuine major conflict. Nothing. It’s the story of a boy having arguably the best summer of his life, awkward though it is at times. There are no monsters, no bullies, no abusive counselors, and the only mysteries to be solved concern girls and growing up.

Camp Pock-a-Wocknee is also very specifically a Jewish summer camp, and that plays into the relationships of the characters in numerous ways, with the counselors even shouting out in Hebrew at times. My Jewish wife translated for me before I realized the book would usually translate them, too, a page or so later. It’s pointed out that those who felt like outsiders the rest of the year, always felt at home at the camp. They belonged.

Unlike myself, my lovely spouse did attend summer camp growing up and she loved it. She has numerous group photos, is still in touch with friends she met there long decades ago, and remembers dozens of songs they would sing around the campfire whilst roasting marshmallows to cinders.

Glickman gives us some songs, too, as we roar through his all-too short personal summer of love to its inevitable conclusion. I’m not certain how it’s possible to pick up so strongly on someone else’s personal nostalgia but “Glick” embeds it so deeply in this book, that by its end, I wanted to be not just at a summer camp, but there, with him and his friends, at Camp Pock-a-Wocknee, in the summer of 1977. Dyn-O-Mite, indeed!

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