FEEDING GROUND _ Back to the Future

Saturday, November 5th was "Flux Capacitor Day," the unofficial (as of yet) annual holiday celebrating Dr. Emmett Brown's innovation of the device that would make time travel possible. Swifty, Chris, and I did a little time traveling of our own recently at New York Comic Con where we had the great fortune of seeing so many old and new friends from our past who came out to support us, sometimes with artistic creations of their own or grown kids we had not yet met.

With the FEEDING GROUND Hardcover out on stores (and on Amazon) and the holidays fast approaching this seemed like a good time to reflect and do a round-up of key links and recent events from our FEEDING GROUND timeline, in reverse. You can see all FG-related blog posts HERE and we'll be detailing a select group below:

OCTOBER 31, 2011

FEEDING GROUND HALLOWEEN PARTY, SALON HECHO, NYC

In many ways for me, this event, organized by Chris, was the bow on my FEEDING GROUND experience. I had recently moved to Nashville and, even more so than at NYCC, this was a gathering of my closest friends who came to party. I was floored to have the modern Mexi-Polka band Rana Santacruz perform (they also scored the FG Trailer) and it made for the perfect so-long-for-now to the book and city of New York. You can see more photos and videos at our FG Facebook Page HERE.

OCTOBER 30, 2011

HALLOWEEN REVIEWS

"Moody, tactical, arrogant and downright chilling—Sénor Blackwell is perhaps one of the greatest villains in recent comics history." - The Comic Book Snob

From the start, reviews let us know we existed and provided a constructive mirror to let us know how our craft and ideas were received. But, this pair of Halloween reviews (from Comic Book.com and The Comic Book Snob) also included us with distinguished company (SEVERED, THE WALKING DEAD, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) that suggested that we've earned our space on the shelf alongside them.

OCTOBER 14-16, 2011

NEW YORK COMIC CON 2011

Did a fairly comprehensive Top 11 List of the Con HERE. Major highlights included signing all of the floppy issues of FEEDING GROUND for a fan (above) and participating on Archaia's HOW TO MAKE A GREAT GRAPHIC NOVEL PANEL. All five of my clips are up on my Youtube channel and you can watch the segment about Pitching, below:

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

FEEDING GROUND HARDCOVER FOR SALE ON AMAZON.COM

No fanfare, it was just there one day after over a year of work, and soon so was our first reader review. Even more than a critic's review, this was interpretation of the story that signaled to me that the book was out of my hands and belonged to the world.

Feeding Ground uniquely captures the spirit of "The American Dream". Historically, the crossings to this land have been fraught with both fear and unfairness. The werewolves of Feeding Ground serve as metaphors, and political reminders, of the "unwelcome mat" that has greeted countless groups of immigrants, who sniffed freedom, only to be turned away from our shores. A must read for those who still believe in the Emma Lazarus inscription at the base of Lady Liberty.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

FOREWORD BY LUIS ALBERTO URREA

Luis literally wrote the book on THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY and his epic non-fiction prose educated us on the desert border; mind, body, and soul. It was an honor that he agreed to write the foreword to our Hardcover and his comments will always be all the affirmation we'll ever need. Be sure to check out both his novels and non-fiction work and you can read the foreword in my original post HERE.

APRIL, 2011

"SOMEBODY NEEDS A HAPPY ENDING"

One person we wanted to give an extra shout out to is our editor Paul Morrissey. On top of the regular proofing and production work of getting the book out the door (along with Archaia house designer Scott Newman) he gave one particular note that changed the trajectory of the final chapter of our book. Basically, a happy ending for at least one of our family members. Even after all of the trials and traps that our family went through, with repercussions resonating across the landscape, Swifty was able a believable note of hope; that our survivors can still step with integrity into an uncertain future.

FEEDING GROUND _ Best Feedback Ever (so far)

One of the great honors in creating FEEDING GROUND has been the reaction we received from author/scholar Luis Alberto Urrea. In "The Devil's Highway: A True Story," Luis literally wrote the book on the too real horrors of the stretch US/Mexico desert that has consumed lives for centuries and continues to serve as a battlefront of modern immigration. He writes non-fiction that reads like epic poetry and presents an even-handed picture of all players in accounts that are harrowing, human, and darkly humorous. The book was a primary source of research in preparing FEEDING GROUND, our myth on the same subject, and it's with pride that we share Luis' Foreword to our Hardcover Collection, below:

FEEDING GROUNDS OF THE ELDER GODS
by Luis Alberto Urrea

As a writer, I am repeatedly confronted with the same question:  What are the most Influential books in your life? I always want to answer:  Armadillo Comix #2 by Jim Franklin.  You see, I came to writing through drawing. As much as my dad hated it, Batman and Hawkman fueled visions that later remained in my prose; unspeakable visions, spoken.  I’d love to see how many of us in the writing trade owe our “cinematic” styles to early comics and graphic novels.

As huge as the craft has become, comic books retain enough outsider, underground cachet to tackle subjects many of us wouldn’t dare touch -- not in polite company, not at Tea Party rallies.  One shouldn’t approach such vile, filthy subject matter as the worth of a human life, the dignity of a human soul, or the value of, as Bob Dylan once sang, “these children that you spit on.”  I’m talkin’ to you, Mr. Politician.

And, here is a series of books that leaps deep into the brilliant heart of darkness: the damned (in every sense) and glorious border.  The place I write about.  The place where I was born.

Swifty Lang and I share an interest in the exquisite horror and beauty of the wastelands through which the undocumented wanderers must struggle.  It is a formidable region of unforgiving landscape and gods who rule with little mercy.  In my book, THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY, I stated that we are all aliens in this landscape, what I call “Desolation.”  For fans of the occult, this comes from The Book of Enoch.  Yeah, the lands wherein the fallen Watchers and their earth spawn, The Nephilim, are chained beneath the burning desert mountains.  They wait to return for their revenge.

How stunned and delighted was I when these amazing comics arrived in my mailbox.  As all great graphic novels do, these books create a literary work of searing poetry and awe.  The art allows us to see things we might not be able to—or want to—imagine for ourselves.  That my work has had even a little to do with the genesis of this epic is as cool as it gets.  I laugh out loud in appreciation when I see the smugglers (Coyotes) and The Devil’s Highway itself, the sly gangsters come alive, as if they had jumped out of my book.  But I don’t laugh because it’s funny.  No. I’m whistling past the graveyard, amigos.  This shit’s scary.

What Feeding Ground has envisioned and what Lang, Lapinski and Mangun have captured, is the eldritch nature of this new myth.  The darkness at the heart of the sun-baked killing fields.  There is something…other about it.  There is something from our deep nightmares lurking there.  Yes, there is a relentless toll of suffering and death to go with the realistic adventure and thrills and violent action. That is a given—every border-book ever written deals with it. However, Border Patrol agents know, DEA agents know, the medicine people of those canyons and dunes know that something…other…lurks.

I’m trying to capture this Lovecraftian feeling in my own work.  Yeah, a little pissed that Swifty et al have done it first, and done it so well. This sensation is what the philosophers call “the sublime” in art.  It is beauty, but it is also terror. It’s a higher horror: a sense of the eternal, the dark, the overwhelming.  This epic is so addictive that it will lure you into a deep redrock canyon where the worst dream awaits.  It’s so bad; it’s so pretty.  It’s a festival of wonder that shows you the true awe of awful death.

   
Luis Alberto Urrea
Chicago, 2011