SpaceGypsies

Cairo
G. Willow Wilson, writer
M.K. Perker, artist
Urban fantasy
November 2007
Vertigo Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1734-1
Format: Trade paperback
accquired: purchased

this review cross-posted from On a Pale Star: A Book Blog for Speculative Fiction

 The blurb, from the back of the book:

A stolen hookah, a spiritual underworld, and a genie on the run change the lives of five strangers forever on the streets of the Middle East’s largest metropolis.

Cairo interweaves the fates of a drug runner, a down-on-his-luck journalist, an American expatriate, a troubled young student, and an Israeli soldier as they race through the bustling present-day Cairo to find an artifact of unimaginable power, one protected by a dignified jinn and sought by a wrathful gangster-magician. But the vastness of Africa’s legendary City of Victory extends into a spiritual realm—the Undernile—and even darker powers lurk there…

The review:

Cairo opens with a man telling a story. I’m a bit of a sucker for storytellers, so honestly, that was all it took to hook me into the graphic novel. Of course, it helps that the story he’s telling starts with “So today, I hit one of those stoned camels with my truck.”

I’ve never thought of camels being stoned before, or of drug runners crashing into them while trying to smuggle drugs into Israel…but now I have, and it makes perfect sense. Cairo is like that; full of situations I haven’t thought of before, but that slot right into reality perfectly, even if it’s jinn and the Undernile we’re talking about.

Ashraf is, I think, the perfect introductory character. He’s a drug runner, unrepentant about it, but knowing he ought to walk away. As he sits smoking with a hookah, telling his mother about his day, you get a feel for his personality, and when the scene pans out and Ashraf gets up to leave and you realize that he’s been talking to her grave, Ashraf suddenly has depth.

The story of his day leads to the next character we meet, an injured Israeli soldier who was found in the desert by a group of Bedouin heading into Cairo. When Tova wakes up in their care, she’s grateful they cared for her. When she realizes where they are headed, her response is an appropriate “fuck.”

Cairo is like this—one person’s story blends with another until we’ve met all five. Kate and Shaheed meet on a plane ride from the U.S. to Cairo; pretty soon we as readers realize that Kate is an idealistic middle-class young woman and it’s not hard to make a leap to “naïve” as she talks to Shaheed. Shaheed, though, is less transparent and it’s not until the narration follows him more closely that you realize that he’s very troubled, indeed.

Soon we find that Ashraf knows a journalist, Ali… and then Ali meets Kate, and Shaheed meets (and gets conned by) Ashraf, who has a run in with Tova. And like that, five disparate characters are connected and Wilson manages to make it feel completely natural. It would’ve been easy for this to feel contrived, so I’m impressed at how well orchestrated this string of meetings was.

The plot is pushed forward by Ashraf’s drug-running history coming back to bite him in the butt and a jinni (in, and then not in, a hookah). It’s a fantastic blend of the region’s mythology and religion with modern day Cairo. Shams, the jinn, is not at all the comedic blue guy from a Disney movie. He’s motivated, earnest, and a teacher–an example of a benevolent jinni.

Shams, benevolent being that he is, helps these five—one in particular—reach their potential. At one point in the story, he tells Shaheed that he manipulates probabilities, rather than creating items or events from scratch. With the cast he had to work with, I’m inclined to think that guiding this group might have been a bit like herding cats. They each have free-will, and own their own choices, but with some gentle and un-subtle nudges from Shams, they learn that they can choose differently than they have in the past. The message for readers isn’t subtle, but I think that’s okay. Sometimes we need clue-by-fours to smack us over the head with an idea, particularly a worthy one.

Wilson’s story is beautifully complimented by Perker’s art. The characters and setting are rendered beautifully, the panels accenting and expanding the text to make the entire story rich and nuanced. If you haven’t gathered by now, Cairo is not stereotypical comic book/super hero fair. There are no spandex or leather-encased vigilantes here, just excellently drawn men and women and a jinni who want more from life than what they’ve already experienced.

If you get the chance to read Cairo, do. It’s well worth your time.

Visit the author’s Website. Visit the artist’s Website.

I’ve never had a huge love of comics. I absolutely appreciate the artistry and talent behind them, but comic books and graphic novels rarely engage me like I wish they would.  That said, I *love* comic conventions. The costuming, the art show, the pure raw passion of so many of the attendees — it’s just wonderful! And what’s even better, is that next Friday at C2E2 in Chicago, I’ll have the opportunity to meet the artists of three of the only comics to truly excite me.

Back in 1998, when I was a little babygoth, a comic-loving coworker bought me a comic book. Today’s Tiarala would explain to the clueless Tiarala of Christmas Past that said coworker was flirting, but at the time I just saw it as a sweet little gift from a guy I thought was too cute to possibly like me. Anyway, the gift introduced me to Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl, and I was hooked instantly. The dark humor, the adorable drawings, rich with Burtonesque creepiness but with a style all their own… it all just made me so damn happy. Roman Dirge would go on to be one of the unwell brains behind the genius of Invader Zim, but he had me at Lenore and I became obsessed.

Like what you see? Dirge's illustrated short stories are high-larious too. The Cat with a Really Big Head, and One Other Story that Isn't as Good and Something at the Window is Scratching are freaking briliant.

Jhonen Vasquez's "I Feel Sick" and "Squee" round out the trifecta of my comic book loves.

My college animation projects were all based on clippings from my Lenore books. I made advertising for Lenore books, and even made up a cereal called Noogies & Buggies based on Lenore for a digital art class. (It had little skull-shaped cereal bits and eyeball marshmallows and I would so buy all of it!) I’d kill to be able to find these old pieces, lost forever on Zip disks that played the click of death before I thought to back them up. Also, I still want the Lenore tattoo I contemplated years ago. Maybe Roman would draw me one if I asked nicely. (Probably not, but **swooon*… ahem.)

So while the unwashed masses line up for Dirge and his friend and collaborator Jhonen Vasquez to sign their Invader Zim memorabilia, I’ll be in line with my first Lenore book, sadly wilted from an unfortunate cup-of-water vs. kitten incident, and my Spooky, the Thing What Squeaks toy from Vasquez’s “I Feel Sick” series, also circa late ’90s. Not because I’m cooler than you because I knew of them back then, but because I’m not a huge Zim fan, and when I think of comics, I think of  dark purple nail polish and lipstick (never, never black), clove cigarettes, a boy who liked me and I didn’t know it, and Slave Labor Graphics.

Follow Roman Dirge on Twitter because he’s cooler than you @Taxidermied  

Steampunk is an incredibly popular genre. It’s no wonder that it’s infiltrating the entertainment industry. Comics are big right now too with the release of Captain America and the upcoming Avengers movie. But what do you know about Steampunk comics? Sit back, relax and let Doctor Q tell you about the exciting world of Clockwork Comics.

We’ve looked at the past of the DCU and we’ve seen the road map planned for the Relaunch and how it has been perceived.  Now we look to the future of the DCU, and the manner and method this relaunch has taken. It turns out the heritage of the characters was something the creative teams on the various books have certainly honored, as well as the scope, which is truly massive.

The New 52 spans across the whole universe. With titles like The New Guardians and the various Green Lantern books taking you across the reaches of space, to the earth-bound tales of the heroes and villains of the world we live in. What excited me the most is than MANY of the books depart from superheroes. The New 52 has honored the long standing 75-year legacy of their heritage with supernatural, war, science-fiction, and western comics coming back on the stands.

The New 52 books span throughout not only space but time, as the books tell stories from the New 52’s past, present, and future. Books such as Demon Knights tell of the Medieval world, whereas All Star Western shows you Jonah Hex in the frontier town of Gotham City, long before the Bat took to the belfry. And DC’s favorite heroes from the 31^st Century continue on their tales of the future in Legion of Superheroes and Legion Lost.

But the core of the New 52 is putting a new, modern spin to superheroes. Its flagship title, Justice League, was the first to hit the stands and takes place five years before “present day” and tells of the dawn of the superheroes. As I am reading them now, I am curious as to how these new heroes have continued from their heritage, but have become public in a world of terrorist attacks, 24-news cycle, and the massive interconnection of the internet age. My hope is these characters whose origins are rooted in the mindset of the 30s or 40s, strike a similar cord for today’s youth and attract a whole new readership.

I had the great privilege to talk with one of the current comic industry’s greats – Jimmy Palmiotti. With his work on titles such as Jonah Hex leading up to, and now entering into, the brave new world of the New 52 with All-Star Western – I just had to ask him about his work with this project.

“Readers can expect the same quality storytelling we bring to each project and an array of amazing artists as well. Moritat is the regular artist and the back-stories have a revolving door of super talent as well, they feature some new characters and reintroduce some classic DCU western characters. You can also expect to see us dealing with the history of Gotham within the title and having a blast doing it. The new series has a lot going for it.”

I’m sold. But then again, you can’t go wrong selling the weird west to a steampunk comic nerd. However, as a fan of playing around with timelines, I simply had to ask if there was any information we could glean from the New 52’s time-spanning collection of books, to which he responded:

“I don’t want to give away too much , but we really are experimenting with the format , which means there will be things you have never seen before in that time period.”

Could this mean more of the old Jonah Hex through time again? Good lord I hope not, but I have the utmost faith that with the creative team DC has put in place, this title is sure to really bring back the western to DC’s lineup in a big way. The simple recasting of Hex within Gotham was a brilliant decision, and all those rabid Bat-fans should be picking this book up to get a feel for the New 52’s history of the character that is Gotham City.

While I had the man’s ear for a bit, I asked him about the new day-to-date publishing format DC has in store for their line. His response surprised me.

“Anything that will get comics in people’s hands is great by me. Take a look at this page alone (Linked) this is super exciting to me that people can now get comics of mine from every publisher and get them the same day as they come out. I was on a panel at Baltimore Con and asked the room how many people didn’t have a comic shop within 40 miles of where they live and half the room raised their hands…I was shocked, but I was told by the people there that a lot download their favorite books now and they love it. I have to think something that helps people get the product is a great thing. I think DC is doing a great job with everything going on.”

Shocked is right. I often forget, living in a large city as I do, and being no more than 10 miles from everything you could possibly need, that others have embraced the internet age much more quickly because of their locale. Perhaps history will look back on this time as the Digital Age of Comics? I mean we have the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the “Modern” Age. I’d say this Relaunch could very well be the start of the next big thing.

“My hope is that people continue to embrace some of the new directions, and they spread the word that comics are as fun and exciting as ever,” said Jimmy as a closing thought. And I couldn’t agree more.

I am thrilled to see one of the biggest names in comics take such a huge step in the format, content, and method of one of my most beloved mediums of art. With comics crossing over into cartoons, television, and movies more and more each year – and those other genres have been keeping completely up-to-date with the internet age, it is wonderful to see DC really bring some fresh air into their lineup and make an earnest attempt to attract people into the world of comics that would otherwise have passed it up.

As for its success or failure, time will tell. In the meantime, all 52 of the #1s are now on the newsstands, online, and ready to be purchased, read, and loved. I suggest you check out DC’s Source Blog. It has a breakdown of all 52 titles. Read it, find ones that you think speak to you and pick them up. Because if there was ever a chance to get into comics, now is it. Enjoy!

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2