What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1474220
8 WHAT'S UP! JULY 24-30, 2022 FEATURE 'What Follows Is True' Sean Fitzgibbon debuts nonfiction graphic 'novel' BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette I f the phrase "graphic novel" makes you think of elves, anime characters and super-heroes, Sean Fitzgibbon wants to encourage you to adjust your expectations. A Fayetteville artist and recent Artists 360 program recipient, Fitzgibbon has created a "true crime" graphic novel that has just been released — and it's a story that's well known to anyone who has made more than a cursory visit to Eureka Springs. Completed in 1886 at a cost of $294,000, Eureka Springs' Crescent Hotel, located on 27 acres at the north end of West Mountain — "a majestic location overlooking the valley" — was considered "America's most luxurious resort hotel." "Featuring large airy rooms, comfortably furnished, the Crescent Hotel offers the visiting vacationer opulence unmatched in convenience and service," the Eureka Springs Times Echo enthused on May 20, 1886. "Seldom has such a formidable construction undertaking been accomplished with such efficiency," the Times Echo went on. "The magnificent structure was then furnished in the most exquisite manner. It is lighted with Edison lamps, furnished with electric bells, heated with steam and open grates, has a hydraulic elevator, and is truly a showplace of today's conveniences." It was in the 1930s that the history of the Crescent Hotel took the dark turn that fascinates Fitzgibbon. A "former vaudeville magician, turned inventor, turned millionaire business man, turned populist radio host, turned cancer doctor without a day of medical training in his life," Norman G. Baker, who called himself "doctor," lured the dying to the Baker Hospital located at the hotel, promising them he could cure them at his "Castle in the Air." He didn't. "What made Norman Baker's cancer cure charade so despicable is the human cost of his fraud," the Crescent Hotel website opines in its recounting of the history. "Hundreds of people who might have lived if they received legitimate medical care died because they put their trust in his cure." Fitzgibbon, who moved to Fayetteville from Missouri in 2003 to pursue a Master of Fine Art at the University of Arkansas, is now an adjunct art professor at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville and a nationally known artist whose work includes graphic novels. "I have a passion for visual storytelling," he says, focused on "unusual, real places and events. This book will appeal to readers of nonfiction, medical malpractice, ghost stories, mystery and literary horror." The Crescent Hotel was "America's most luxurious resort hotel" when it was completed in 1886. (Courtesy Images/ Copyright Sean Fitzgibbon) It was in the 1930s that the history of the Crescent Hotel took the dark turn that fascinates Fitzgibbon. A "former vaudeville magician, turned inventor, turned millionaire business man, turned populist radio host, turned cancer doctor without a day of medical training in his life," Norman G. Baker, who called himself "doctor," lured the dying to the Baker Hospital located at the hotel, promising them he could cure them at his "Castle in the Air." FAQ Book Launch: 'Crescent Hotel' WHEN — 5-8 p.m. July 29 WHERE — McCoy Gallery at the Community Creative Center in Fayetteville COST — Admission is free; books will be for sale INFO — seanfitzgibbonart.com BONUS — Also featured at the Book Launch will be the works of Chad Maupin, J.L. Morris, John Lucas and Gustav Carlson.