The Enchanted Dagger

(I originally posted this one on June 29, 2020.  It first appeared in the summer 2018 issue of the Magic Bullet.  There is reference to Q-Anon up in the corner with Trump, a problem which has continued to fester.  I watched a good Vice expose on it.  Seems to go back to Mike Flynn…)

Okay!  Lets share some art.  Another offering debuted in The Magic Bullet, a local comic newspaper in the DMV, as its called.  And a very rare work in my Big Comic Style.  After some early successes I got totally burnt out on Big Comic Style back in 2005 and only attempted this one in summer 2018 because the Magic Bullet editor Andrew Cohen graciously requested it after seeing one of my earlier print outs.  I had been thinking over the years about how to approach Big Comic Style again.  One big difference is using the computer.  Much faster.  I think I made this piece in two weeks…a week of plotting and then a week of rendering.   All from photos, of course, but I think that fits the mode.  I have a bunch of ideas about Big Comic Style.

The subject of this piece was some aspects of a story idea I had and really wanted to put into some art.  When the Magic Bullet opportunity presented itself I said hey sure I can make something out this idea jumble!  One aspect is my great fascination with 1936 Time Magazine Man of the Year, Haile Selessie, Emperor of Ethiopia and Defender of the Faith, a seemingly principled figure who history and contemporary culture has downplayed.  Also featured is Washington DC punk rock bands Bad Brains and Minor Threat.  So, one of my story elements was that the epic confrontation between Hitler & the Fascists versus Haile Selassie & the Allies left ripple effects through the the psychic underpinnings of the post war era where displays of good versus evil would cyclically break through the firmament.  One such break through, 40 years after WWII, was in the Washington DC hardcore punk scene circa 1980.  Bad Brain’s ecstatic Rastafarian mind set made for some intense and influential music.  Certainly inspired was Minor Threat, whose post modern riff on Bad Brains spiritual uplift, would gain traction and followers despite itself.  Woe!  Through the rift in the ethereal plain, demonic forces spew, growing for the next ripple in time.  Which looks like now!  40 years later and a new Fascist…well…you get the story.  Laser Pyramids.

There’s a lot more to that story!

I still haven’t gotten back to the EDag drawing board…still too tired.  Luckily the next 3 pages are already drawn up, I just need to color them.  So when I do get going again it should be steady.  I have six pages left to draw, a sequence I’ve been excited about.  Once I start posting again I’ll try to keep to the weekly schedule…it will be a good test!