Sea of Spheres - Choose Your Weapons Wisely

 

All things come to an end, which is why it's bittersweet for me to bring you the final (for now) story in my Sea of Spheres series. So far we've seen stories from the point of view of those within the various factions and societies across the elevated sea, but in this final tale we get to witness it from the perspective of an outsider

With amazing art once again by Windlass, I bring you the conclusive Choose Your Weapons Wisely.

Grigda Longstride has been running and fighting for a long time, first from her home world of magic and myths, then from the gothic city of Haemoheim, besieged by war machines and fighter jets. As Grigda seeks to cut and run once more, a chance encounter leads her to travel to the mysterious and physics-defying Sea of Spheres, where everything she though she knew about survival would quickly be put to the test.

(more info below)

Obscure Comic of the Month - Squire

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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Squire by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas - 2022 Quill Tree Books

Contains Spoilers

There's been a topic of conversation floating around recently putting forth the idea that stories with a 'message' are somehow compromised by their decision to prioritise some kind of 'personal opinion' over the 'telling of the story.' Now, anyone who has at least paid half attention to what they were told in literature class can tell you how silly of an idea that this is, but it is increasingly depressing to see how many people are parroting such nonsense.

The idea that 'the story' and 'the message' are two separate entities that can clash makes about as much sense as implying that 'the mechanics' and 'the movement' of a vehicle have no impact on each other. While, yes, it is possible for stories to tell broader tales with no great high minded purpose, even something as simple as 'this is funny' or 'this is exciting' still constitutes a 'message' and intent.

Really, I shouldn't have to waste my time going over this, but I felt it a particularly pertinent point to begin on given I'm about to cover Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas' Squire, a fun, simple adventure story with a capital M message.

Squire tells the story of Aiza, a young girl who lives on the fringes of the Bayt-Sajji empire and a member of the Ornu people, a colonised minority within the empire. As an Ornu, Aiza is a second-class citizen and is forced to hide her identity due to being treated as a potential insurrectionist, guilty until proven innocent. Aiza seeks to become a squire and later knight within the empire's ranks in the hopes of gaining full citizenship and proving to the greater populace that her people can be loyal subjects.

Aiza's attempts, however, soon prove to be in vain, as no matter how hard she tries she realises that she alone cannot gain acceptance for her people within the eye of an empire that calls for blind obedience. That no matter how far she goes to try and show that the Ornu can assimilate her masters will be more than happy to demand she take up arms against her own people.

Reading that short plot description you can see already that Squire is no entirely constructed fictional world, as if such a thing could exist. There are probably more than a dozen historical and contemporary conflicts that you could map Aiza's dilemma on to. Given that Alfageeh and Shammas come from Jordanian and Palestinian backgrounds, respectively, you can probably reason out yourself what history the story has been inspired by.

If all this is making Squire sound like a dour treatise on the nature of colonialism then fear not, because it's quite the opposite. The story is light, breezy and fun, with optimistic but well rounded characters. The story falls pretty heavily on the idealistic side, a much needed take given our current propensity for cynicism right now. It's a rip roaring adventure full of excitement and heart. You could easily consume it in one sitting, cover to cover.

Alfageeh's artwork brings a magnetic, animated style to the proceedings. There's a feeling of constant motion to the panels that emphasises Aiza's energy and optimism. As she refuses to be beaten down by the world, refuses to give up, we believe it because of the energy and dynamism Alfageeh give to her movements. Add to that the use of several real world locations as inspiration for settings of the comic, and it almost feels as through the panels are moving in front of us.

This is not to say that Squire takes it's own subject matter lightly, however. As mentioned, Shammas has put great deal of intent into the words and world in which we see this plot through. By choosing to set the story within a constructed, fictional conflict, the story takes on a more universal context. The injustices that Aiza faces mirror a great many injustices across the world, and her refusal to back down and be beaten into cynicism has likewise a universal appeal.

As Squire's story continues, we get drawn further into not only the empire's crimes, but also their justifications, and the apparatus in which evil is done and is continued to be done, sometimes by the most well intentioned of people. While the story concludes into a neat and tidy ending, it does not leave the reader with the suggestion that the evils of the world are so easily defeated through a single sword fight. Aiza's story may be over (for now) but her fight is far from done. Yet in spite of such insurmountable odds, her refusal to give up is a victory in and of itself.

Squire is a solid, fun, exciting and at times intense and emotional story that is wrapped entirely around it's message and it is all the stronger for it. Taking out the real world subtext of the story would be like taking the engine out of a car and expecting it to still go. It's a damn shame that we're still having silly arguments about how stories are 'ruined' by 'messages,' but I take heart in knowing that we have works such as Squire to prove that such an attitude is balderdash.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Squire (c) 2022 Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh. Images used under Fair Use.

How COPRA Redefines the Sincerest Form of Flattery - An Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition.

This column normally takes a look at obscure comics. For every every sixth month, instead of taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people talk about.

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COPRA by Michel Fiffe 2012 - Present

Contains minor Spoilers

If you've been into comics for a reasonable amount of time, especially superhero comics, then discovering a story that involves thinly veiled versions of pre-existing characters will come across as nothing new. Heck, it's common knowledge by now that Watchmen, considered by many to be the Citizen Kane of comic books, was originally conceived as involving a bunch of Charlton Comics characters that had been recently acquired by DC before Alan Moore decided to change them in order to tell a more definitive, daring story.

Still, the act of 'poaching' characters from other publishing lines and altering them just enough not to trigger a copyright case is, if not looked down upon, certainly considered less artistically valid than creating a cast of unique characters from whole cloth. In instances where the duplication is more blatant, then the more people view the writer's legitimacy as suspect (See basically anything Rob Liefeld created for his Extreme Comics line.)

In this regard it is somewhat difficult to explain why COPRA is one of the most fantastic, unique and creative comics out there, because, gun to my head, if I had to explain it in one sentence it would be "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off." And to be fair Fiffe has no interest in disguising these inspirations. The story follows a top secret government taskforce led by a stern, stout black woman who's only different from Amanda Waller because she's called Sonia Stone. Deadshot, Deathstroke, Vixen and more, the line that Fiffe is willing to walk at times feels almost arbitrary.

Of course this is all in service on one singular goal; to write the greatest Suicide Squad story that DC Comics would never allow him to write. Unburdened by corporate oversight, publisher targets and the cyclical nature of comic book continuity, Fiffe is limited by only his own imagination, and folks, let him take you down because we're going to...

1987 was the year that John Ostrander's run on Suicide Squad began, and is considered by many to be the definitive take on the characters and setting. Hailed at the time for being dark and uncompromising, and willing to kill off it's characters permanently at a moment's notice, it's a formula that many later revivals have tried and failed to replicate, not least because the series has become somewhat of a Harley Quinn side comic in recent years. DC's own editorial mandates have ensured that the kind of environment that might produce such a comic might never be seen again.

And so, stepping from the shadows like a nebulous government agent, came Michel Fiffe, a renegade who answered to nobody, seeking only to bring back that feeling of John Ostrander's comic from 1984. If you were expecting a simple homage, however, you'd be dead wrong. As dead as many of the unfortunate characters in this very comic.

While COPRA lifts the premise and many of the characters from Suicide Squad this is no simple homage. It is clear from the get go that this universe is much grittier, much bleaker, and much more surreal than that of the mainstream DC line. If I had to compare it to another comic, it actually feels more like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol at times than Ostrander's Suicide Squad.

The very first story involves the shard of ancient power being fought over with an eccentric mass of brain in a jar called Dy Dy and it only gets stranger from there. What I find really interesting about the comic is how it reinterprets the fundamentals of the superhero shared universe into something more frightening and unknowable. Fiffe doesn't just pull characters from the Suicide Squad but also brings in a Dr Strange-like character. Unlike in Marvel Comics, however, where no matter how dangerous the magic we know the good doctor will survive, the magic Vincent deals with constantly feels more threatening and malevolent given that we know his survival isn't guaranteed.

Additionally, a form of Apokolyps and the mythology of Kirby's New Gods is likewise reinterpreted as a strange and unsettling dimension whose inhabitants are utterly confused and out of their depth once stranded on Earth. Fiffs' take on a superhero universe feels so utterly unique in what it decides to explore, to the degree where I'm not really sure it's accurate to say it actually does takes place in a superhero universe, given the lack of many of its more traditional archetypes. Superpowered universe might be more accurate.

The idea of being surrounded by mystical and para-natural forces that could change an individual's biology at a moment's notice is treated as nothing less than harrowing. The fact that multiple crime syndicates and enemy government forces are made up of unkillable agents and mind controlling parasites is shown as being as horrific as you can imagine. The fact that the forces of good have to resort to the most repulsive methods to hold the world together shows us clearly that they are barely the forces of 'good' at all.

So COPRA continues. Characters die, suffer life altering trauma and carve out lifelong grudges in the wake of failed and barely successful operations. Yet life goes on, and the pain never goes away. COPRA is not a happy comic, though it can be laugh out loud funny in it's comedic moments. Unlike the big two, where a status quo needs to be maintained, COPRA can genuinely explore the consequences of it's arcs. It's why, going back to read it, I'm surprised how plot much unfolds over the course of six volumes.

And I haven't even spoken about the art yet. If what I have written above already has you interested, let me just say what Fiffe achieves in his writing he achieves doubly through his art. I've never seen another comic artist do it quite like Fiffe. He pulls out every visual technique in the book. Panels will duplicate and multiply, or split into mathematical grids. Characters and speech bubbles will warp with every thrown punch or broken wall of reality. Whole swathes of story will be rendered in different shades of single colour, sometimes to represent a mystical forces, sometimes to represent a character's psychological mood.

Let me be utterly clear here. Fiffe's art grabs you by the neck and refuses to let go. His interdimensional forces and eldritch horrors genuinely feel beyond human comprehension in the way he depicts them, the structure and consistency of the pages breaking down in front of our eyes. Yet human frailty and psychological damage is depicted in much the same way. He understands more than anything that art can convey emotions in more ways than just drawing a pained expression on a character's face.

If all that wasn't enough, even the feel of the pages between your fingers is a small part of COPRA's storytelling. Right from the get go Fiffe decided that he wanted the comic published on rough newsprint like the comics of old, even in the collected editions. There's just something about that feel, that coarseness, that feels missing on the shiny laminated pages of contemporary comics. It's why I felt it was a bit of a shame that COPRA lost that once Fiffe scored the deal with Image to get it a greater distribution. Then again, I don't blame him. This is the reality of comics. You gotta' take what you can get.

I hope all of the above helps to emphasise how calling COPRA "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off," does it a disservice even when it's at it's most blatant in it's replication. Just because Guthie is obviously Duchess doesn't make her story any less heart breaking. Just because Castillo is obviously The Punisher as played by Sylvester Stallone doesn't make his fate any less gut wrenching.

What Fiffe achieves goes beyond simple homage. It is comics uncompromised. It is storytelling where the rules can be broken. It's a superpowered nightmare world where no twist, turn or reveal can be predicted, because the boundaries don't exist. It's the artistic equivalent of choking down oysters doused in Tabasco and following them up with harshest of whiskeys. Each turn of the page feels like I'm getting my teeth pulled out and I am desperate for more.

COPRA is probably one of the greatest comics out there right now and I genuinely don't think it's getting the respect it deserves. If you've been burned out by predictability and the lack of experimentation in mainstream comics of late, COPRA is the perfect cure. Michel Fiffe has given us six volumes so far, and I'd happily eat up sixteen more. Read my lips: Make mine COPRA.

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Jack Harvey 2023. COPRA is (c) Michel Fiffe. Images used under Fair Use.

A Perfect World

 We may be winding down the last few months of 2024 but it's always a good time for unsettling stories of existential dread. I'm delighted to bring you this tale with phenomenally suspenseful art by Lexa.

A Perfect World tells the story of Leon, a cynical loner with a distaste for classic tales of good vs evil. Leon's humble life begins to crumble as he starts to discover that the fantastical might not be as fictional as he believes.

(click to enlarge)

I can't say enough good things about Lexa's art on this one, who absolutely knocked it out of the park. I love the dreamlike quality they brought to the story, which is exactly the kind of mood I wanted to bring across in the script.

I highly recommend you check out their other work, which you can find all of the links to here.

Obscure Comic of the Month - X, Y, Z

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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X,Y,Z by Iqbal A. and Aleksandar Bozic - 2018 Mild Frenzy

Contains Mild Spoilers

One of the great things about exhibiting at comic conventions it that if you're lucky you end up with a table adjacent to somebody really interesting. Sometimes they're an artist who's been on the convention circuit for a while, sometimes they're a creator fresh out of art school, sometimes they're the person that ran the Fallout themed 'Ask Caesar' RP Tumblr account back in 2014.

For 2023's Lakes International Comic Art Festival, I was seated next to Iqbal Ali, who I had a great time chatting with as a fellow creator. We traded stories about the woes of getting decent printings while self publishing, working with artists and just getting the work out there. That and dealing with the dodgy condensation under the marquee that we had to deal with.

But never mind how we got along personally. This column isn't for that. This column is about the comics themselves. Iqbal had a lot of decent stuff out there, but it was X,Y,Z that immediately drew my eye. It's stark, moody cover immediately intrigued me, and I was willing to jump right in even before I knew what the premise was.

X,Y, Z tells the story of Abn. An Asian student at an otherwise all white school who, already under immense pressure from the prejudices of his peers and teachers, finds himself drawn into a supernatural mystery surrounding a mysterious book 'How to Disappear Completely.' Soon enough Abn has to contend with the manifestation of unusual powers and the machinations of a nefarious entity that may be a representation of his own secret desires.

Textually X,Y, Z operates on a weirdness level equal to 2001's Donnie Darko (With a touch of 2015's Life is Strange). A socially awkward young man finds himself entangled with powers beyond his comprehension. X,Y, Z's characters have a great amount of depth, even the most antagonistic have at least some degree of sympathy to them, and Abn often finds allies where he once expected to find enemies. There's action, drama, disaster and epiphany. All good stuff in a comic that is direct and to the point.

Bozic's art is suited perfectly to the story, harkening just enough back to the traditional style of old 'school boy' comics from Britain's yesteryear while still giving it a sharp grit to keep you grounded in the story. Simple but palpable expressions help us experience the inner turmoil within the characters, while supernatural entities whizz from panel to panel, drawing our eye from action to action. All in a crisp black and white that gives the story an almost timeless quality.

It's sub-textually that X,Y, Z's greater strengths manifest, however. The meaning of the story is right there in the title. X,Y, Z with three arrows pointing across three different axis. This is representative, of course, of the subjects of maths and physics that Abn studies and also harnesses in his search for a higher purpose, but the three axis also represent his struggle for direction.

All throughout the story Abn is tormented over which direction he wishes to take his life. X, Y or Z. Assimilation, Rejection or Destruction. The staff and students of the school are constantly pushing Abn to change and become one with the crowd. To disregard what makes him him and ultimately become someone else in the name of an easy life. Conversely, the dark force inside of him wants to push Abn on a path of vengeance and accumulated power. To go beyond ambition and give in to anger and aggression.

Abn himself merely wants to, as the book he wields promises, disappear completely, but as these two forces begin to influence his life in greater ways, he realises such an escape is impossible.

Ultimately, the story is about realising that such binary direction is a false conclusion. Abn doesn't have to choose, life isn't about absolutes, and in the end he overcomes the pressures of all three demands to become his own person, driven only by his own decisions and his own road.

X,Y, Z is an absorbing comic with a sharp script and sharper pace. It handles it's subject matter with a maturity that doesn't easily give in to nihilism, and it's themes are both specific and universal. I had a great time with it.

Iqbal Ali is going to be at Harrogate Thought Bubble next month, so if you're passing by be sure to check him out. I highly recommend X, Y, Z and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

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Jack Harvey 2023. X, Y, Z (c) 2018 Iqbal Ali. Images used under Fair Use.

Bigger Guns

A brand new tale is here to grace your eyeballs, with art by the fantastic Turbomiracle and written by yours truly. Bigger Guns is a story of infernal action and cultural change, where shifting politics of the 1960s didn't just affect the earthly realms, but those beneath them too.

(click to enlarge)

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Turbormiracle who did an incredible job with rendering such detailed scenes like the club interior and the minute to minute action. I've admired their work for a long time, and it's been great to see them illustrate something I've written.

Here's to moving on! 

Obscure Comic of the Month - Acceptable Losses

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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Acceptable Losses by Joe Glass, Danny Flores and Moose Baumann - 2020 Queer Comix

Contains Heavy Spoilers

Last year I spoke very highly of Joe Glass' seminal superhero deconstruction The Miracles, and so today I'm taking a look at one of his smaller works, the self-contained one shot, Acceptable Losses, a comic that is probably easiest to describe as What if Captain America Became The Punisher?

The story of Sam Tyler, AKA superhero super-solider U.S Eagle begins in medias res as he undertakes a mission in the Middle East to eliminate a dangerous terrorist leader. Deliberate parallels to the hunt for Bin Laden are obvious here which we'll dig into more later. Tyler's mission goes awry, however, in part due to his unwillingness to endanger civilians in the crossfire, including a nearby school. Meanwhile mission command, overseen by the all too believable Senator McKeen, has little concern for collateral damage, the titular 'acceptable losses.'

As the terrorist leader looks to slip out of Tyler's grasp, McKeen orders an air strike, seemingly killing the hero alongside innumerable civilians, children included. From this opening sequence it is very clear the type of story that we are in for here, and the perspective in which it views the 'necessity' of the 'war on terror.'

Tyler, of course, didn't die, and the story's focus shifts to cover an extended revenge scene carried out against McKeen interspersed with flashback as Tyler is nursed back to health by the very people that he was deployed to treat as 'enemies of America.' What follow is a gorgeous, if extremely brutal and harrowing, sequence of events which Danny Flores' art and Moose Baumann's colours are expressly suited to. As the story jumps between the dark night of revenge to the comfortable browns of Tyler's recovery, it is almost sub-textually saying that we cannot view geopolitics in simple black and white.

This is easily the darkest of Glass' stories so far, and sits at an interesting point between his more optimistic and celebratory stories from The Pride, to his idealistic but still more grounded and pragmatic work in The Miracles. The story is vicious in it's storytelling, and definitely feels like somewhat of a rebuttal to modern superhero stories being muted and soft in their criticisms of American foreign policy and unquestioned patriotism.

As a one shot the story is sharp and to the point, done in one and complete in it's message. In all respects but one does this work in it's favour, but if I had to levy one criticism at the story it would be that the later reveal that Tyler and his 'inside man' Private Krinsky are in a relationship together, is covered somewhat too briefly, if for no other reason that so many incredibly interesting stories could be spun off from such a twist.

The depiction of a gay Captain America is not something that is particular new (look to Andrew Wheeler's Soldier Sailor for another such example) but the idea of one explored through the Acceptable Losses' grounded and gritty lens would certainly be a unique one. Still, that's far from a deal-breaker, and if anything it feels as though Glass has more of these types of stories in him, it just being a question of when he's ready to write them.

Acceptable Losses is a brutal bullet to the head of a comic that doesn't pull any punches. If you felt like bigger franchise fair has been skirting round the subject of the war on terror for a while now, then this is a fine antidote.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Acceptable Losses (c) 2020 Queer Comix. Images used under Fair Use.