Coming Home to Roost

My girlfriend (and later wife) was studying abroad during college in India and met an artist named Tejas. His father was a professor at the university our school was associated with in Pune, two hours outside of Mumbai. My girl sent me some of his drawings and shared with me his love of sequential art and comics, but also his annoyance that virtually no comics outside of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman were available.

I asked for his address and made my way from our bucolic college town back to my brother's place and my dusty boxes of early '90s comics and started sifting. I grabbed twenty or thirty books and started typing up explanations about the minor companies, the context of the artists, the art, the time period before the fall in the mid '90s, the trends during the time...I enjoyed the hell out of sharing the knowledge and history.

That was in early 2004.

My girl (now wife) let me know that she found the artist on LinkedIn and sent him a note, trying to refresh his memory of the trip fifteen ears before. He responded within a day, finding amusement in her attempts to refresh his memory: of course he remembered her, how could he forget? he said. Have you see the comic I made, he asked.

Um, no?

Don't worry, it's in the mail, he said.

And then it arrived.

Tejas wrote, drew, and watercolor painted a very expressive noir-ish private eye graphic novel based on a character he created while in graphic design school in 2006, a few years after getting the package of comics I sent him.

I enjoyed it very much, and especially the ability of the story to work for me, a westerner, but also a story that hit cultural mores that would make sense for to an Indian.

Thanks Tejas! And thanks for the kind note of recollection.

New Voices

As a homer for Valiant, I support things I like as Art while recognizing the good a company can do for the media of sequential art in who creates the stories. As a teacher in a rough neighborhood in South LA, I am keenly aware of social inequities that many of my students encounter daily.

One of my favorite characters in the Valiant stable is Amanda McKee, AKA Livewire, a techno-path, or, a powerful telepathic being who can remotely control any electronic device.

The series starts up after the events of a cross-company major event that saw Livewire use her powers to shut down the entire United States. Planes crashed and people died in other ways, and Livewire became Public Enemy No. 1. She loses her powers by the end of the first issue, and regains them after a few issues.

Anyway, I always offered Valiant the benefit of the doubt when it came to why an awesome black woman hadn't helmed her own title---that The Story didn't lead to a Livewire title yet and not because a black woman could carry a title.

Now that have a black woman leading a title written by, in a shocking twist of events, a black woman. Score one for equity in sequential art and Valiant.

Here are the first four issues with the pre-order covers that my LCS orders for me:

Go Vita Ayala!

Days of Hate Finishes

The speculative fiction story about an armed insurrection within the United States has finished up.

Called Days of Hate, the story was created by Ales Kot and Daniel Zezelj, two Slavic dudes who grew up separately during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and watched how normal society can break down into sectarian warfare and ethnic cleansing.

They've mentioned that they were beginning to see the same rumblings here in the US, and were inspired to create.

The story follows four characters, two of which are a seemingly estranged lesbian couple. One is being routinely interrogated by a smarmy, Trumpian acolyte, slick-haired and oozing evil like a fifties-era movie-Nazi. The other half of the lesbian couple is busy in the underground, setting bombs and blowing up fascist meetings. Her partner is a non-white dude, apart from his family, whom he misses badly.

The first six chapter were split up from the second six by a few months.

When I saw a preview of issue 1's cover, I immediately recognized Daniel Zezelj's work. I became a fan of his back when Starve was released. I'm not exactly sure what it is about his compositions, but I dig it.

There is a level of comeuppance near the end and a murky future going forward, and the point is made: the kinds of feelings and statements that lead down the road to sectarian warfare and ethnic cleansing can only be faced and addressed by sane and sober people with differences talking about those differences.

It's good and a cultural marker, like its spiritual sibling, Calexit.

The Things That Get Made

On a winter break trip to my LCS I found the following collection:

The artist Carlos Ezquerra was the original artist for Judge Dredd, which was created a few years after this, from 1977.

Yes, that's correct, El Mestizo, a boy born enslaved, one parent black, one Mexican, only to return to the States to play Yojimbo with the Union and the Confederacy, is the creation of a pair of Englishmen.

Reading it is weird as well, since at that time in the UK the dialogue and copy is all printed instead of handwritten.

I'll return to comment more once I've finished it. It's an interesting look at "America and American," and very like the Italian comic Tex in that way.

Ninjak's Second Ongoing Series Finishes

Ninjak's second iteration with the revamped Valiant, Ninja-K, has finished up, as their Livewire title gears up for release.

Here are the four separate ongoing titles that have featured Ninjak over the years, dating back to 1993/4:

The second was conceived after the sell-off to Acclaim, and is actually better than we fans generally give it credit. Maybe it should be called something else entirely and not be considered when speaking about Ninjak (which is how the practice is now).

Anyway, here's one espionage-comic fan pouring out a little for a homey.

UPDATE: Ninjak returns in July 2019 in what appears to be titled "Killers."

Nice

Farel Dalrymple's Prequel Mini-Series Finishes

I picked up in its entirety Farel Dalrymple's prequel to his GN "The Wrenchies" called Proxima Centauri:

Through the six issue mini-series, we follow the main character Sherwood as he tries to escape an inter-dimensional ship and return to his brother and the school/organization that trains these young children/warriors for the fights they'll be engaging in in their future and their world.

To say that this series is cohesive, or makes a ton of sense, or makes sense in some way, would be stretching the definition of the word. The art is interesting if not spectacular, but I could see some fans call it spectacular.

I was sold on the idea that it was "psychedelic," but after reading it I feel like the term has been applied for lack of a better one.

I try to find stories that are weird and out there for their own sake, and this fits, but it also doesn't strike me as one that should be handed over to the fans-of-weird-shit-but-not-always-on-the-lookout-for-comics in my life. I was hoping it would fill that category, but I found it somewhat unfulfilling.

Regular fans of sequential art in the superhero vein certainly won't be interested in the title, and I'm sure Farel and Image know as much. Weirdos like me who are game for weirdness and ideas labeled as "psychedelic" probably either loved it for found it unsatisfying for a litany of reasons. Fans of the art style or of Dalrymple's work itself, would surely be fans of this mini-series.

I didn't dislike it, specifically, but I didn't fully love it either. Just like a weak or mediocre mushroom trip.

Dialogue-less from France

I picked up a discounted graphic novel at my LCS the other day:

It was marked at $4.99, when the cover price was twenty bucks more. It takes place in a dystopian future society in which there are two competing corporate overlord companies that make life rather lame for the denizens. Or so it seems.

On the cover in this preceding picture is a briefcase that, when opens, houses another dimensional realm, like more of the ship of the aliens that crash land in the opening scene. It is decided that it should be used by the blue company/overlord against the red/black company/overlord.

The scenes play out in an episodic form until you can tell that they are all related.

Another very creative element is that there is nor dialogue in this graphic novel: the story unfolds in action only, and that underscores that it was written by Frenchmen Lucas Varela.

It was a gem discovery, for sure.