G. Willow Wilson: Deceptively Unassuming

For what she's accomplished, G. Willow Wilson ought to be the most cocky, arrogant person in the room, the archetypical superhero fond of snippy remarks. Instead, she's unassuming and kind, and you'd barely notice her if she didn't happen to wear a headscarf. Even her single-colored choice--unlike most Arab Muslims, who favor multi-colored, ornate patterns--is indicative of her desire to blend in. 

At East Bay Booksellers in Oakland, CA

And yet, despite her best efforts, Wilson simply cannot blend in. Following the same path as C.S. Lewis from atheist ("I was desperate for the secular truth that seemed so self-evident to other people.") to religion, she finally found a home in Sunni Islam after a journey taking her from Colorado's Rocky Mountains to Egypt, then Iran, leading to several profound epiphanies, including this one: 

"[W]hen a dictatorship claims absolute authority over an idea--in the case of Iran, Islam, in the case of Egypt, a ham-fisted brand of socialism--frustrated citizens will run to the opposite ideological extreme. [Consequently,] The Islamic Republic was secularizing Iran; in Egypt the short-robed fundamentalists multiplied and multiplied." (The Butterfly Mosque) 

I recently started one of her books, and I'm eager to see what's in store the rest of the way, especially after a passage as perfect as the following: "But I didn't yet have faith in faith--I didn't trust the connections I felt between mountains or memories, and if I had been a little more ambivalent, I could have allowed the Zagros [mountains] to be foreign, and the memory to be coincidence. Fortunately, I didn't." 

Rumble, young woman, rumble

Wilson was in Oakland, California to promote her latest book, The Bird King (2019), about a royal Spanish concubine and a mapmaker able to create maps from imagination, and in doing so, conjure the actual place. Despite her nonfiction and fiction oeuvre, Wilson is more famous for her rendition of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel in the comic book universe. Contrasting her books with her comics, Wilson said comics are challenging because the writing must be more structured and planned so the plot-lines don't conflict with anything or anyone in the shared universe. Surprisingly, despite the level of historical detail required for a novel like The Bird King, she doesn't outline: she writes, and in the process of writing, makes numerous notes to herself in the margins, reminding her to return to a certain passage to complete an idea or not to overlook a character's unique traits. 

Writing about ordinary people in a historical context was difficult--what shoes did Spain's Muslims wear, did they have chimneys?--but Wilson enjoyed the research, inspired by a DNA analysis revealing a tiny bit of Iberian and North African blood in her mostly Italian ancestry. For insights into costumes during the relevant time period, Wilson used Libro de los Juegos (Book of Games) by Alfonso X of Castile, published around 1283. 

She enjoys going on book tours because readers see things authors themselves haven't seen or patterns that can be invisible to the author. Her agent wishes she'd write a multi-volume series like Harry Potter, but she just writes in ways that make sense to her rather than setting out to create a particular comic book universe or "world building." Wilson finished her presentation by reading aloud from the first chapter of The Bird King, which she called "one of the most personal things I've ever written," about "finding love and lost knowledge." 

If you're a fan of unplanned journeys and finding love and knowledge in peaks and valleys, try to see G. Willow Wilson on her current book tour. Look for the woman trying her hardest to blend into the crowd, as if she were hiding a secret--perhaps even a superhero costume underneath her clothes. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019)

Comics: Dennis Hopeless as the Great White Hope

After one too many forced crossovers and marketing gimmicks (another death/resurrection?), I gave up on comic books about fifteen years ago. I know I sound like an irascible curmudgeon--and yes, get off my lawn, please--but I don't understand how video games have become so much better while comic books have declined. Have teenagers' tolerance for low quality products increased, or do they not realize how bad modern comic book writing is? 

We all remember Todd McFarlane's ill-advised switch to writing, and it stood out precisely because it was an unusual, one-off event. Today, comics routinely lack the subtle intellectualism I took for granted growing up. For example, Superman had a villain named Doomsday--as in a Doomsday device--in 1992, so young readers could contemplate difficult questions indirectly and sans black-and-white newspapers. Spiderman's Green Goblin could have been lifted straight from the military's secret experiments, while Tony Stark could be any major defense contractor CEO over the past 50 years (or, in an alternate universe, Elon Musk). Professor Xavier's Cerebro? The NSA's PRISM, of course. The "H" in S.H.I.E.L.D.? It stands for "Homeland." Even "lowbrow" publications like The Punisher provided insights into the mafia through the simply-named Kingpin. 

It wasn't just real-life crossovers that hooked me on comics. As an immigrant, I credit comics for teaching me colloquialisms I might never have learned otherwise. (Heck, I learned yesterday that "bakey" in "wakey wakey, eggs and bakey" means bacon--thanks, All-New X-Men: Inevitable!) 

You can imagine my surprise when I opened a Joker comic at Lee's Comics in Mountain View, California and saw the eponymous character bragging about committing a crime in front of disabled kids--expressly, right there in a speech bubble. The old Joker didn't need such crass dialogue. It was implied he'd try to provoke the Batman however he could. How such unnecessary bluntness--the kind that makes it impossible for readers to view villains as complex alter egos, like Magneto--made it past an editor, I'll never know. Nevertheless, its publication supports my thesis: the adults have left the asylum, and the inmates are in charge. 

Thankfully, I've finally discovered a writer I enjoy in the comics universe: Dennis Hopeless. He's just one man, but his presence gives me hope. I pray Marvel doesn't put him in an alternate universe, kill him, and then resurrect him in "limited run" editions with eighteen different covers. If it happens, though, I won't be surprised. Kids today don't know any other world, one where such gimmicks were isolated incidents rather than constant revenue generators, and where writing met minimum standards. Excelsior, indeed. 

P.S. Yes, I know about Ms. Marvel and Black Panther. It doesn't change my overall thesis: good comic book writing is declining, and a few new characters don't change the trend when so many "new" series are just mashups or rehashes of old characters. Look at the blurb for Rogue & Gambit. Are they trying to tick people off?

P.P.S. Long before school shootings became a regular occurrence in America, The Spectacular Spiderman #71 explored gun violence--in 1982. It was my first introduction to the 2nd Amendment and guns. 

New Interview with Bill Watterson

HERE is the (unfortunately short) interview with Bill Watterson, who created my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes:

By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

Also, the Post Office is releasing a Calvin and Hobbes stamp--I can't wait!

Bonus: as of 2010, Watterson lives in Cleveland. I wonder if he's a LeBron James fan. Actually, Watterson attended Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, and he's been in Ohio ever since.

Here's one interesting fact: Watterson designed grocery advertisements for four years prior to creating Calvin and Hobbes.

And for the self-employed out there: "It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves." (1990 graduation speech at Kenyon College) I guess the days are just packed, huh? :-)