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Category Archives: History

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #215: Turning Against

15 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, History

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #215 by Drew Barth

Turning Against

I’ve written in the past about how comics can help to illuminate some more obscure moments (to a western audience’s understanding) in history. Much of the time, these accounts can help to draw readers in with compelling visuals that create immediate connections to the people being talked about or help to immerse their audience in the moment. And that’s what these graphic novels should be doing: illuminating and immersing. And that’s exactly what Andrea Ferraris’ graphic novel, The Battle of Churubusco, does so well as he shows us a soldier’s view of one of the more devastating battles of the Mexican-American War.

Ferraris begins this story in media res, after the titular battle, with characters we’ll come to know well, all culminating in finding the body of the story’s focus. Gaetano Rizzo, a Sicilian immigrant, based on a real soldier, has troubling dreams. He’s seeing a wolf with peculiar eyes and is being chased by voices he can’t understand or recognize. The captain of his small band is intrigued by his dreams, believing they may be able to lead them in the direction of the San Patricio Battalion—a group of deserters made up of immigrants from the US army who joined Mexico’s side in the Mexican-American War—which has eluded him for some time. Rizzo, however, is one of those immigrant soldiers, one promised citizenship and land so long as he fights in this war. After his group raids and kills a home filled with a farmer, his dogs, a child, and a few Mexican soldiers, Rizzo’s conscience can no longer take the violence he has to be accomplice to.

The rendering of this story is where much of its impact comes from. Ferraris utilizes a distinct charcoal style that continually straddles the line between impressionistic and stylized realism. His landscapes, particularly in the story’s opening, take on this vast, sweeping feeling even while much of the page is covered in a dark charcoal haze. But that haze mainly hangs over the aftermath of violence—either the titular battle or Rizzo’s own scuffle with another soldier. And their faces, one almost obscured with his charcoal stubble, provides an essential contrast to the world surrounding them. And this is only broken with the stark white clarity we see as the story moves forward and into the San Patricio’s hidden plateau. Ferraris’ eye continually points us toward the feeling of the moment more than anything.

There’s only so much history that can fit into a single volume and it’s comics like The Battle of Churubusco that help to fill in some gaps. While Rizzo is only based on a soldier in this battle, his story is not unique as the San Patricio Battalion was made up of Irish, Italian, German, Spanish, and Polish immigrants who realized the US’s war was only an exercise in cruelty. But it was that cruelty that would eventually lead to their demise as the battle ended bloodily and the war ended under a year later.

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Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.

Episode 566: Ciera Horton McElroy!

04 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, History

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Episode 566 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

This week, I speak with Ciera Horton McElroy about following through with long form fiction and her extraordinary debut, Atomic Family.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers


TDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

If you are an amazon customer, one way to support this show is to begin shopping with this affiliate link, so that the podcast is granted a small commission on anything you purchase at no additional cost to yourself.

_______

Episode 566 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #212: Lasting Impact

22 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Biography, Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, Graphic Novels, History

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #212 by Drew Barth

Lasting Impact

How many times have we heard the phrase “the battle of the century” in any context from sports to cooking to music only to be disappointed?

Because, if we’re talking about history, it’s hard not to think of Jack Johnson’s most famous bout. The first black man to ever hold the world heavyweight boxing championship made Teddy Roosevelt wanted to ban boxing altogether. Johnson defended his title against the proclaimed “great white hope” Jeff Jeffries, that took the mantle of the Battle of the Century. That fight centers Yousseff Daoudi and Adrian Matejka’s graphic novel on Johnson’s life, Last on His Feet.

Using the Battle of the Century as a frame, Daoudi and Matejka explore the life, career, and death of Jack Johnson—from brief glimpses of his early life to having to fight blindfolded for food to his first success in the ring and to the last days of his life telling his story as a sideshow curiosity. They hold nothing back in terms of the racism and prejudice he faced at every turn of his life during each event they highlight. Either from Jeffries’ supporters screaming at him before their fight or the US government trumping up charges against him for “violating” the Mann Act, Johnson had to endure more than most due to his skin color and public status. After so long, his story isn’t even about beating Jeffries—that’s a foregone conclusion—it’s about surviving everything that would come after his victory. Johnson was one of the best in the ring—his speed and skill was overwhelming—but he can’t dodge a low-blow from a country that wants him down.  As much as he would tire his opponents out in the ring, playing defensive until they couldn’t stop his retaliation, a government can’t be clinched.

The non-linear structure of Last on His Feet is what really makes this graphic novel stand out. We begin with Johnson in his later years, as a storytelling in a traveling act, opening with the morning of the Battle of the Century. From there, we follow the chronology of the rounds but skip from one moment of his life to another—in one instance the phrase “sometimes the time between a thrown jab and the impact feels like an eternity…” cements this as from that jab being thrown to its impact in the story covers years of his life after the fight. It’s an incredibly clever device that helps to ground us in the moment of the fight, but lets the story beyond the fight breathe.

Daoudi and Matejka have crafted one of the most important historic graphic novels of the decade with Last on His Feet. It is a full exploration of how graphic narratives can tell stories and illuminate some of the often forgotten parts of history. It’s an exploration of Jack Johnson’s life as much as it’s an exploration of how to tell such a varied and complicated history.

Get excited. Get on your feet. 

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Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #210: Rush of Blood

08 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, History

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #210 by Drew Barth

Rush of Blood

Greed can make us all monstrous. Sometimes this is more literal than not. Greed can start to strip away chunks of humanity like trying to dig gold out of your skin. Anyone in the Yukon Territory during the gold rush at the turn of the last century could attest to that, provided they hadn’t already passed from exposure, violence, or old age. But then that’s what a series like This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills by Si Spurrier, Nathan Gooden, Addison Duke, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou can show us despite the passage of time—even if their telling exaggerates some of those more monstrous qualities.

The Rush centers on Nettie Bridger and her search for her missing son, Caleb. Her husband had taken their boy into the gold rush to find their fortune and reappeared some time later without him, raving about the cold and his lack of luck. This only spurs Nettie forward to find her missing, diving deep into the Yukon Territory and to the tiny village of Brokehoof. It’s there she encounters The Pale, a man with a hole for a face that stops anyone from leaving Brokehoof’s gold mining valley, as well as the bitter cold that traps people in the village just as much as The Pale’s bullets. But the story of Brokenhoof unfolds around Nettie as she digs for more information on her son—from the land claim made in his father’s name to his disappearance from the village to the funeral that was supposedly held for him. The homestead claim of Brokenhoof keeps the more monstrous at bay, but the fever for gold festers throughout the village while burying the secrets of Caleb’s disappearance.

Spurrier, Goode, Duke, and Otsmane-Elhaou give us the monstrous in an uncompromising way. For the most part, every person in Brokehoof harbors something within them—be it the fever for gold or the greed that drives them to kill without compromise—except Nettie. Her thoughts and mission are singular: find her son. In a way, this protects her from the more monstrous aspects of Brokehoof and the gold that has drawn so many people there, but it also leaves her open to the more physical monstrosities of the valley. The Pale itself looms on the edge of the valley as a constant threat while a massive, decrepit moose invades Nettie’s dreams and obscures her visions of Caleb’s final moments. There is a deep vein of rot throughout Brokehoof that permeates everyone’s lives, some more than others.

The Rush is one of those short series that Si Spurrier is known for—a quick blast of six to ten issues that makes a reader sit and think about what they know about comic storytelling. It’s the slow unfolding of information and the percolating drama book-ended by a singular character that drives the narrative like an engine that has become his staple. And with Goode, Duke, and Otsmane-Elhaou, it’s the kind of series that feels like a classic with the rest of his work. 

Get excited. Get monstrous.

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Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #203

15 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, History

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Tags

Gospel, Holley McKend, Will Morris

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #203 by Drew Barth

A Kind of Truth

Some comics get meta. How many time has Grant Morrison appeared in one of their stories at this point? Injecting a bit of our reality into the universe of a comic is a fun way to approach character interactions. Some meta narrative strains go deeper. When the characters in the book start telling a story within a story, we spiral right down in Will Morris and Holley McKend’s Gospel. 

Gospel opens straight-forwardly with a continuation of the cover’s narrative as a giant boar chases Matilde of Rumpstead through her village during the time of King Henry VIII. She dodges children and rushes through markets before the boar crashes into and collapses a small trade building. As the chase continues, Matilde impales the boar on her sword from above.

Here the story zooms out to show the man telling this story. Another man tells the tale of Matilde of Rumpstead’s encounter with a much smaller boar and the subsequent destruction of a potter’s home as she chases the boar from house to street before it escapes without ever being touched. And the story zooms out again to a more modern setting as Mr. Fisher tells this story of a story to Gita Karan, a civil servant checking on if Mr. Fisher needs some kind of guardianship.

As a first issue, Gospel strikes that delicate balance between revealing too much about its story and the story of the story that we’re diving through. Morris and McKend’s craft nesting narratives, every part entwining with another. Pitt, the storyteller for Matilde that Mr. Fisher tells us about, has to contend with these stories becoming too real as the actual Devil appears on a hillside. These layers call into question exactly what Pitt is seeing and if the story Mr. Fisher is telling is even real.

Sixteenth century stories never feel quite real despite the historical records and accounts that we have. How many of these stories are historically true and how many are mythologizing a moment of national pride that persists for centuries? In Gospel, so much depends on who’s telling the story.

Get excited. Get historical.

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Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.

Episode 553: Robert Pinsky!

26 Saturday Nov 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, History, Memoir, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 553 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s program, I talk to Robert Pinsky about his playful, exquisite, earthy, reverence memoir about his relationship to Long Branch and the rest of New Jersey too.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers


TDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.


If you are an amazon customer, one way to support this show is to begin shopping with this affiliate link, so that the podcast is granted a small commission on anything you purchase at no additional cost to yourself.

_______

Episode 553 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 540: Mark Braude!

10 Saturday Sep 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Biography, Episode, History

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 540 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

__________

This week, I talk with historian and biographer Mark Braude about artist, model, and cabaret singer Kiki Man Ray and the art life in Paris in the 1920s.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers

TDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

__________

Episode 540 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 501: Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar!

11 Saturday Dec 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Feminism, History, Literary Criticism, Philosophy, politics

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Episode 501 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

On today’s show, legendary scholars Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar discuss the history of feminism and women’s studies, and the turns of current events that make activism more necessary than ever.

Sandra M. Gilbert

Susan Gubar

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

ScribophileTDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Go here to sign a petition to save Purdue’s creative writing program.

Today’s interview was done in cooperation with Miami Book Fair.


Episode 501 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 483: Tim Parks!

31 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, History

≈ 1 Comment

Episode 483 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s show, I interview a writer I’m obsessed with, the prose writer Tim Parks.

We talk about walking and its relationship to composition, plus the historical vision of Garibaldi, and the provoking contradictions of historical record.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile

  • TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

    Episode 483 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 475: Kathleen Rooney!

05 Saturday Jun 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, History

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 475 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s show, I talk to the novelist Kathleen Rooney about finding the spark to begin stories, the shape for long-form narratives, and the whimsy to make discoveries along the way.

Photo by Beth Rooney.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile

  • TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Episode 475 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

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