Review: The Mire

Live After Death

 

The Mire holds mysteries; skeletons so shrouded and secrets so subtle that when artist, author and auteur Becky Cloonan at last pulls back the pall, she reveals human frailty, its folly and how love endures even after death. The Mire would make Edgar Allan Poe shake with envy and weep with joy.

 

Where Wolves, Cloonan's previous mini-comic, relies on an austere economy of language, she dresses The Mire in a finery of words and letters, vows and curses. There is always someone (or something) with a question to ask, an order to give or a tale to tell. What gets said (and read) allows one more tumbler to fall into place and brings another terrible truth to light. Cloonan's canniness appears in the title; The Mire hangs heavy with consequences and relies on allusion, elusion and illusion to tell a unique tale.      

Cloonan locates The Mire around a simple plot: a knight, Sir Owain, on the eve of battle, tasks his squire, Aiden, to brave the ''withering swamp'' and deliver a letter, post-haste, to Castle Ironwood. A portion of the Poe-ness present in The Mire comes from how Cloonan builds suspense through texts. Like Poe's unnamed narrators who write or receive letters, the act of correspondence animates this story and gives Cloonan the freedom to play with text and image on myriad levels.  

Once Aiden sets out there is a (near) imperceptible change in how the narrative is told. This kind of delicate touch demonstrates Cloonan's command as a storyteller and comic book artist. Either by coincidence, convenience or in deference to her muses -- Cloonan's artfulness pulls off the trifecta -- a particular species of bird appears to act as an avian usher when Aiden enters the swamp. This same bird remains a presence in the story, a feathered Virgil on vigil.

 

Ink defines Becky Cloonan as an artist. The first panel proper (an opening page shows Sir Owain in reverie before his worktable) is of fingers, pen, paper and ink pot -- Cloonan must have smiled when she came up with that idea. Hair and bare branches, armor and eye sockets, cloaks and bed curtains, all appear rich, deep and dark, ink is Cloonan's true signature; a landscape of silhouettes and soulful lines.

 

Cloonan drapes The Mire in curtains. Characters act as showmen pulling back blinds and parting canvas walls to reveal an in-between world, half-open and half-obscured -- a setting, again, where Roderick Usher or Ligeia would feel at home. Cloonan's men, women and children all brood beneath a foreground of tousled brows suffuse with secrets. The atmosphere may be furtive, the motifs enigmatic, but at its nucleus, The Mire is a romance and at her heart, Cloonan is a literary and classic romantic.

       

The reader who troubles The Mire wades into moralities murky and consequences clear, a tale both sad and wise and a work of passion, craft and smarts. Becky Cloonan knows how to wound with words and kill with pictures -- a singular talent of pen and prose.

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The Mire, Wolves and something called a Manticore Tote of Holding are all available at http://beckycloonan.bigcartel.com/

Interview with Andy Belanger for Comics Bulletin

Cool Cool Cool 

 

I don't know how 'cool' I am. If you have to ask, right? I don't even know if I know what 'cool' is anymore. I'm a guy in his late (very late) 30's who spends a lot of time staring into the middle-distance as he thinks about what to say about comic books; and I do this for fun. So, consider the source.

Prepare for unsolicited name drop in 3 … 2 … 1 … I got to meet and talk with Stephen King for about 5 minutes at a party about ten years ago. It was awesome. If my twelve-year-old self had known I was going to meet 'the great man' one day, he probably would have thought his mother and father were right and that, in fact, he was reading too many Stephen King stories.

 

Meeting Stephen King was cool.

 

Everybody has a 'when I met so-and-so' story and there are all sorts of flavors of said story, above all, it's a tale by degree, by proximity -- whoever somebody's Stephen King is is personal. The person you met, however, is the tale, not the teller.

 

In trying to convince my wife why I wanted to drive a couple of hours up to Montreal to visit a comic book artist and his comic book artist fiancée, I said something about really liking this guy’s work and that maybe I could get a good story out of it. Well the story is out. I wrote it to challenge myself. I also wrote it because I believe more people need to know about how comic books are made and the talent it takes to invent characters, emotions and whole worlds with only a pen and some ink.

 

I've met some 'cool people' in my life. So believe me when I say: Andy Belanger and Becky Cloonan are cool. Very cool … and generous.

 

Writing is a solo act, but (re)writing, reviewing and reading is a team sport. So single-malt scotches all around for Justin, Daniel and David Fairbanks, the interviews editor at Comics Bulletin, who thrilled me more than he knows by saying he was honored to be one of the first people to read my article.

 

Here's the article: http://comicsbulletin.com/interviews/4982/a-series-of-moments-a-conversation-about-creating-comics-with-andy-belanger-and-becky-cloonan/

Here's where you can give Andy some cash: http://andybelanger.bigcartel.com/

And don't forget the charming Becky Cloonan, she needs cash too: http://estrigious.com/becky/

 

 

Conan The Barbarian #7

Latitudes and Departures

There's an importance to being earnest; a gravity to identity. You can take the northern boy out of Cimmeria or the ''desert flower'' out of Shem, but 'place' burrows deep, it gets in under the fingernails -- local is for life.  

Conan the Barbarian #7 begins a new arc, 'Border Fury.' As has been his want since this series began, writer Brian Wood teases the reader with a prelude of the overture to come: Bêlit is blind, temporarily, and she and Conan have gone north to Cimmeria. Seems that while Conan was out stealing horses, bedding a pirate Queen and being a party to a ruse, some sociopath began to run amok in Cimmeria razing, pillaging and killing the in the name of Conan -- it's identity theft for the Hyborian Age.

When Conan and Bêlit had their meet cute in issue #2, Bêlit was blind to the cold reality of Cimmeria. For her, the land of Conan's fathers was mere ''myth and children's stories'' until she took ''this hardest of men,'' this man ''cut from stone'' as her lover. Now, her alabaster skin competes with the snows of the north, roles reverse and now the Shemite and not the Cimmerian is the stranger in a strange land. If this story took place in the modern age, one imagines Bêlit's tweets would read: Cimmeria, I am in you.

It does not go well for this child of ''arid dunes'' and ''azure skies.'' It is here that a less lazy reviewer would not lean on a cliché that calls Bêlit a 'fish out of water,' or that this latest arc acts as a 'meet the parents' type situation, but there it is. Is it 'too soon' for Cimmeria, for its dark satanic forests and its howling winds; too soon on the tour to play to the hometown crowd? Wood is again at play in the fields of identity as he casts Conan and Bêlit into a plot in which each will learn who the other is both home and away -- in the city and in the country. Bêlit remains the captain and in command. Even sightless, she continues to call the shots. ''Be my eyes,'' she tells Conan. She urges him to trust her. She promises to prove to him ''that this land has not gotten the better of me.'' The setting may change in latitude, in distance, yes, but not in the freedom to choose, to define oneself; as N’Yaga says in the previous issue: ''This is Bêlit.'' This is the importance of being earnest and what Conan must learn as he continues to sail by Bêlit's side.       

Conan the Barbarian #7 marks another return and another departure as artist Becky Cloonan brings her indelible inky mark back to this latest (and perhaps her last) issue. As Wood said in late May, Vasilis Lolos will take over the art for the remainder of this arc[*]. I am no seer, no N’Yaga. I hope, in time, if Crom wills it, Cloonan will return to this story. She (as much as Wood) has created a Conan for the ages and her imagining of Bêlit is the criterion for any artist from now on, for hers is the Ur-Bêlit.

Cloonan creates a real imagined woman who looks and acts as if she indeed does possess ''the blood of ancient kings in her veins.'' The range of emotions that Cloonan draws out of Bêlit is remarkable. From the childlike amazement when Bêlit sees snow for the first time to how she seethes when this daughter of Shem is shamed by Conan's mother and the other women of the village. And then there is that tender moment at the end when Conan tells Bêlit that he can't carry out his task and clear his name (establish his identity) without her. Bêlit's eyes are closed, her hair is entwined with Conan's; her lips -- made crimson by the king of color himself, Dave Stewart -- are the slightest bit apart, the reader knows she is in love and it's the kind of love to kill for and to die for. In this moment Becky Cloonan is peerless.

Issue #7 ends in a dream/nightmare. Unlike previous noctural imagnings (so far, Wood has had Conan dream in each of the first issue in each story arc) Conan was Bêlit-less, now he lies awake with his lover's arm across his chest. Bêlit sleeps earnest and safe in the knowledge of who she is, where she is, and why she is with this barbarian. Here's hoping Becky Cloonan's Bêlit, the Bêlit, will wake again. Perchance to dream …  

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[*] This is confirmed by Assistant Editor, Brendon Wright at the close of the letters column.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #3

The Lay of Conan and Bêlit

  Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast Part 3 is all about the lay. Be it Germanic (and long) like The Song of the Nibelung or short and sweet like the Celtic, French or English equivalents, a lay lasts -- its stamina a result of its inherent potency -- because it sings of love and adventure. People, let's face it, love a good lay. For the final chapter of this first arc, writer Brian Wood, penciler Becky Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart embroider a story that -- 'lay' is also appropriate here (in part) because it is means any movable part of a loom -- like the BayeuxTapestry (another bit of narrative art), contains details only understood when seen as a whole. Come for the lay, stay for the multi-layered thesis on how to mate reputation to identity and subvert the lay-person's expectations.

  Reputation is perception; it presupposes a gap in an outsider's (or other's) knowledge, only experience, belief or faith completes the circuit. One's reputation -- be he from a Northern race like a Cimmerian or from hardy stock found in northwestern Vermont -- can only precede him if it is known, it does not (necessarily) need to be experienced. Without belief, however, one's reputation cannot precede or for that matter, proceed. In issue #2, when Conan announces himself as a Cimmerian, Bêlit is in awe. She is not naïve, naiveté suggests ignorance, no, Bêlit knows of Cimmeria, she's heard the stories, she is a believer, which is why when a 'white warrior with ice-blue eyes' stands astride her deck, 'our daughter of Shem,' knows the word made flesh when she sees it. Belief curbs Bêlit, so too, does it stay the sword of Conan. Many live on reputation alone, but many more have died when their status finds no purchase. For Bêlit and for Conan, reputation is an invitation to identity, self-awareness and experience.
  Bêlit is a seer of sorts[1], she has perspective; she is perception personified. A post-coital Conan is told by Bêlit's first-mate, N'Gora, about how his mistress became a leader of men. N'Gora, a (former) captain -- a timber trader by trade -- and his crew were being pursued day and night by raiders when, ''Bêlit appeared on the third night, alone and in a native craft, offering assistance. She was … compelling.'' When Conan asks what help she could offer, N'Gora responds: ''Perspective. We were blinded and bound by value of our cargo. We were placing that above the lives of the crew.'' After telling Conan of the burning, pillaging, and looting that took place once Bêlit was in command (apparently perspective is relative), N'Gora ends his history lesson with the words of an adherent: ''She liberated us. She delivered us.'' No wonder the crew considers her a goddess.
  The scene between N'Gora and Conan takes place directly after Bêlit and Conan have, as Bêlit says,
''become as one.'' The placement of these two scenes echoes a similar coupling in issue #1 when Conan first learns of Bêlit's reputation from another sailor, Tito, the (former) captain of the Argus. At that time Bêlit was a fiction reputed to be fact. She appears to Conan in a dream, she is his projection, false, imaginary; reputation precedes experience. In issue #3, the story takes the exact opposite course; experience (in this case, sex) precedes real knowledge of a person. Bêlit becomes physical, flesh and blood and Conan sees her naked and as she is, fully-formed, a truth transformed from fiction. It's after this that N'Gora tells Conan what he knows of Bêlit, a better source, perhaps, and an eyewitness account, yes, but another sailor's story and not (one suspects) the whole truth. After all, a woman must have her secrets. Character exposition is seldom so subtle or economic.
  Conan the Barbarian and The Queen of the Black Coast have long-standing reputations to uphold and expectations to be met. They both bear official licenses, but in the hands of Wood and Cloonan those expectations are subverted. Like Bêlit, Brian Wood knows the reputation of ''the North.'' He knows the identities of these characters and what he is dealing with when it comes to the Cimmerian, in both perception and reputation. He chooses to adapt (to overcome) these expectancies by building them into the architecture of the story. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It's a bit of authorial prestidigitation that speaks to an efficient and elegant way of storytelling, not to mention, damn clever. The reader is complicit in Conan's vision quest to find (and to know) Bêlit, but at this point in the character's development, Conan is also learning what it means to become Conan. As Cloonan's rendering of barbarian-on-queen action shows, neither character is a top or a bottom, but both; it is lovemaking, egalitarian-style. Cloonan matches Wood beat-for-beat. Her composition is always mindful of physical space; panel layouts and framing never call attention to themselves, but always in service to the story. Even when she's making a visual pun (showing swords being stroked and shined prior to the sex scene) it's all done in concert with the pulpiness of the dialogue. It will be interesting to see if James Harren can complement Wood as well as Cloonan has through this first arc. Hareen will be helped (no doubt) by Dave Stewart, who really shows himself off as a painter of light in part three of this story, bathing naked flesh in soft shades of scarlet and the florid flush of pink, washes of passion and the colors of sex.
  Through the first three issues, Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast has established its reputation and forged its identity as an appointment title proving the metal of its creative team. Such is the lay, or as the narrator says, ''Such is the song of Bêlit.''     

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[1] The actual shaman (a Fedallah that Bêlit has kept tucked away) that appears in issue #3 provides much when it comes to sight. Perhaps, someone with the foresight and time to investigate this character's appearance will unlock that tale, for it is a deep well indeed.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #2

Myth Metes Myth

  In its first two issues, Conan the Barbarian's Queen of the Black Coast flirts with questions of identity, perception and muscle. Conan is an established character, literally, a known commodity. In the hands of writer Brian Wood and artist Becky Cloonan, however, this iteration of Conan appears more lithe, impressionable and subversive. It's the subversion that this creative team has brought to Conan that makes him more approachable, less legendary and heroic, cocksure, sure, but at the same time, new. Ah, youth. The ostensible queen, Bêlit, on the other hand, materializes in dreams; she is a fiction, a myth, an unknown. Bêlit is notorious among sailors and traders who work the waters of the Western Ocean along the coastline of Kush; her infamy earned as much by her presence as by her absence -- the fear, the mystery, she elicits is a product (a commodity), an agency of her own scarcity.  In both the characters of Bêlit and Conan, Wood, Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart manage to pour new wine from old vessels.

  Two words bookend the battle-soaked bravado that comprises the bulk of Conan the Barbarian #2: ''Bêlit'' and ''queen.'' The former, a shout, ''Bêlit!'' emanates off-stage (page?) from an unseen caller.  The latter is the final word in issue’s ultimate sentence spoken to Conan by Bêlit herself, ''Make me your queen.'' Each sentence conveys an artful ambiguity and leaves both intent and meaning unmoored. The shout of Bêlit's name beckons, a call to arms that echoes across the waters of the Black Coast. Its intent, however, lies in question: is its tone one of fealty, as a subject to a queen, or is it a statement, a challenge to authority? Both?  Cloonan and Wood want it both ways and are unwilling to fix meaning upon these shifting seas of character development, settling only, for now, on an inclination, and invitation, to subversion.

  The opening page of issue #2 subverts the narrative before it's begun; a timeless moment that suits interpretation in order to undermine explanation. Bêlit toes the deck of her ship with authority and nerve, ''Do you believe you've beaten me barbarian? My lungs still draw air, my heart still beats, and I retain control of my ship. I am utterly unvanquished. You really must do better.'' Blood runs black, both bodies and boards are spiculated with arrows and spears smeared with gore lay idle, idle, perhaps, as that poetic painted ship upon a painted ocean. There is little information that places the hurly-burly lost or won. The enemy has been met, but Bêlit's words lead one to believe that the battle is far from done. Wood's decision to begin the second part of this story in medias res acts as both subversion and a statement about Bêlit as a character. She is, as Wood will later dub Conan: ''battle calm,'' a subversive phrase if ever there was one. This is a woman, a captain that lives beyond her legend. Cloonan and Stewart craft Bêlit as less vampiric than in the first issue, but no less wild-eyed, no less defiant.  She could still stand to spend some time in the sun -- her prison pallor a wash of off-whites and subtle purples.  Her color aside, this is a woman who runs hot, without restraints of any kind and one who commands unbidden. If so, why then, at the very end, does she say, ''Make me your queen.''? 

  Before making her closing statement, Bêlit asks Conan: ''Who are you?'', a question of both identity (what's your name?) and intent (what do you want?). Her question comes as the deck of her ship (the Tigress) drinks the blood of her crew, Conan stands defiant, triumphant, as moments before, Wood writes, Conan ''cleft,''  ''smashed,'' ''severed'' and ''ripped'' each and every one of his attackers. His response to his interlocutor's question is as straightforward as was his attack: ''My name is Conan. I am a Cimmerian.'' What Bêlit hears in Conan's response serves as the impetus to her final line, but the meaning, the intent, lies hidden. The omniscient narrator explains that, ''to one like the pirate queen of Shem Cimmeria is the land of myth and children's stories.'' It would appear that when myth meets myth and identity is born; life borne on black waves.
  Apropos of title (heraldry), of this tale if nothing else, why does Bêlit -- who is already known to Conan (and others) as ''Queen of Black of the Black Coast'' -- need to make such a request or issue such a command to be made a Queen in the first place? Conan wears no arms bears no crown, he states only who he is and where he comes from and neither he nor his words bear title or claim. So why those four words: ''Make me your queen.'' Subversion takes many forms -- ditto shortsightedness -- Bêlit like callow Conan (to this point in the tale) remains more myth than truth. Placing meaning in either character (or their words) is perhaps premature when neither character has fully formed. Authority is unchanged and unchallenged (look at the look on Conan's face in that last panel).  There are no Kings in this story and only one Queen and each character must now participate in a bit of role play before identities can be determined. Conan the Barbarian #2 signals that the dream is over, myth has met myth and been found … perfect.

Author's Note: If it is true that one never forgets one's first time -- precisely which first time, perhaps, should be left to the imagination -- than this series, Conan the Barbarian, will always hold a place in both my heart and mind. I was so impressed by the story Wood, Cloonan and Stewart were setting out to tell in issue #1 that I was compelled to write down my thoughts and then share them with the world -- at least that portion of the world that reads this blog, a dedicated and intelligent lot, no doubt. My goal is to write about each edition in this series (a proposed twenty-five issue arc) with a focus on identity. Who are these characters, Conan and Bêlit, and how they understand each other through the filter of their own identity, the self. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it is in this case, than I am very much 'borrowing' this idea from Justin Giampaoli's ''Brian WoodProject.'' I can only hope to match Mr. Giampaoli in dedication and artfulness for he has cornered the market on scope and wisdom when it comes to the work of writer Brian Wood. 

Review: Conan The Barbarian #1

Faces

A very famous play begins with the question, ‘who’s there?’  No matter if the question is asked by a watchman upon the ramparts of Elsinore castle or by a merchant captain sailing for Kush … the intent is all the same. Brian Wood’s script for Conan the Barbarian #1 does not open with the same two word phrase as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but it might as well because Wood and Shakespeare are both interested in the same thing: identity.

Trying to breathe new life into a long-running character – an officially licensed product, no less – is bloody business. Wood escapes the slings and arrows of fanboys and newbies alike by letting his story unfold in a practical albeit adventurous manner.
How much is of Wood’s design and how much is the source material matters little; it works. The reader is, literally, along for the ride as the titular barbarian makes a mad dash for the coast and then it’s a hop, skip, and a jump to freedom. When our hero lands on his feet like the matinee idol he is, he’s asked: ‘who invited you aboard.’ Who indeed? Wood creates a clever symmetry for the reader and the character is aliteral jumping on point. Brilliant.

Behind every great man is an even greater woman. For Conan it’s the pirate queen Bêlit. For Wood, it’s artist Becky Cloonan who brings the barbarian to bear with straight-lines and an angular cockiness softened by a goofy smile that betrays his youth and his, ahem, experience with the fairer sex. This Conan is a romantic. For this story to succeed the reader has to believe that this ‘warrior from the north’ is capable of more than lust, Conan must love.
Who is Bêlit? Bêlit is a fiction, a sailor’s story told on an inky night – as to be expected and no less appreciated; Dave Stewart’s colors are exquisite – over a bottle of something by the ship’s captain to Conan. One man’s ‘scourge and a plague upon the open seas’ is another man’s ‘winged warrior goddess of the north,’ a harbinger ‘of pain and pleasure.’ Conan is kinky. Wood chooses, wisely, to let an omniscient narrator explain not what Conan is told, but his interpretation of what he hears. When drawing a line between truth and fiction, perception and reality it comes down to interpretation. Not a bad topic to tackle when one is writing an adaptation of a sacred text. Cloonan shines with her interpretation Conan’s dream-girl drawing her as an anemic sex-kitten Goth goddess. This is Conan’s fantasy, after all, we’re just along for the ride.

This being the first issue in a proposed twenty-five issue arc, I’ll be interested to see how Wood and Cloonan flesh out Bêlit. I’m wondering if the Bêlit that graces Cloonan’s variant cover – less zaftig vampire and more graceful and confident than comely – is more of the final design for the character. If I have one disappointment it’s that for all the ‘hair like liquid ebony’ and ‘milky skin,’ Bêlit is nothing more than a barbarian’s wet dream. In a very literal dream sequence, Conan dives into a pastel sea only to be dragged to the bottom by the blood-red lipped, alabaster succubus of his dreams. Conan then wakes up foggy and fogged-in on the deck of the ship. As he comes to his senses he sees Bêlit, for real this time, and sounds the alarm. The dream sequence and the cliffhanger ending are placed back-to-back which is problematic because it is both confusing (probably the point) and it plays as too rote even for a pulpy adventure story. Then again, perhaps, it’s a warning to every barbarian (man?) about having one’s fantasy girl brought to life. Bêlit belies identification, for now. As the series sails along, I'll be very interested in how Wood, Cloonan, and Stewart answer the question, 'who's there.' This is going to be an epic for the ages, be it Hyborian or any other.