Observations from the Balcony

One of the best crime fiction stories last year was a……comic?!?!?!?!

Yep that’s right you heard me.

Indian Country collects the first five issues and Casino Boogie has the next 6.

Synopsis

Fifteen years ago, Dashiell “Dash” Bad Horse ran away from a life of abject poverty and utter hopelessness on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation searching for something better. Now he’s come back home to find nothing much has changed on “The Rez” — short of a glimmering new casino, and a once-proud people overcome by drugs and organized crime.

At the center of the storm is Tribal leader Lincoln Red Crow, a former “Red Power” activist turned burgeoning crime boss who figures that after 100 years of the Lakota being robbed and murdered by the white man, its time to return the favor — the grand opening of the multimillion-dollar Crazy Horse Casino.

Scalped is a great crime fiction story told in a medium that many crime fiction fans may not typically read, comics. They will unfortunately have missed out on what, when all is said and done, might just come out of left field to be one of best crime fiction novels of the year. But its much more then just a crime fiction story, it’s a bit of a hybrid that combines elements of action and crime stories bundled up neatly together with strong noir elements.

The action is unmistakable from the opening bar fight, where we first meet Bad Horse, when, right before the action starts, he proclaims “Whicha you motherfuckers is gonna be the first to cry to Jesus.” From that point on fights will be started, weapons will be pulled, buns will blaze and the action will be relentless. The crime elements will feel familiar to some but only at the most superficial levels as it will only take a light scratch to reveal the depths of these characters that are anything but simple clichés. From the simple synopsis of the story these two elements can be surmised but the pervasive noir story was a pleasant surprise. Bad Horse may be a tough guy but we quickly understand that he is an every-man that we can relate to in a lot of ways. He finds himself compelled, by forces largely beyond his control, to enter into a situation where he becomes little more then a pawn. With all these outside forces working against him the urge for his individuality to assert itself becomes stronger and stronger; but as these forces become practically insurmountable this simple task becomes harder and harder. Before long a complex mousetrap has been set for Bad Horse.

Readers entering this vivid and gripping world will be introduced to some of the most complex characters, loyalties and relationships in recent years. Not only are they created with three dimensions but their personalities, and again their relationships, have multi facets. There is a lot of depth and material to be explored here. Bad Horse has a confusing sense of identity. An activist mother with strong ideals and beliefs raised him. But then he left everything behind, now all these years later he is both insider and outsider. Bad Horse, of all the characters here, might just be the most lost, not knowing, at times, even which way is up. His mother Gina, trying always to stay true to her youthful ideals has become an anachronistic annoyance on The Rez, causing a lot of problems for the new power structure. She runs into problems trying to recruit member for the cause from the younger generation, who would much rather use a gun to win. Does Gina love her son more, or the cause? Then there is Lincoln Red Crow. What happens to a Red Power activist to make him betray the cause? Has he betrayed the cause? Or, is he furthering it by gaining some measure of economic power for his people? As these complex characters and their complex relationships, histories and loyalties intertwine it will become hard to know whom to root for, whom to root against and who will survive.

In Casino Boogie Red Crow becomes further a Shakespearean figure carrying the weight on his shoulders, the weight of identity, the weight of history and the weight of power. He is compelling, interesting and dare I say that he is a tragic figure; I do have to wonder if his days are numbered. Gina Bad Horse decade’s later still carries the wounds of one moment in time, when two federal agents were killed, and still can’t reconcile the embodiment of ‘the end justifies the means’ that everyone and everything around her has become. She will be a catalyst for explosive change. For Catcher, the alcoholic medicine man, it remains to be seen if he is strong enough to handle what he sees, and more importantly, what he will do. He is the wildcard. Interestingly it’s in Diesel, a white man who claims a 1/16th Kickapoo heritage and self identifies as an Indian, that we get an interesting study in identity politics. He is fervent in his belief of the purity of his heritage but revels in the stereotypical trappings of the race. He is a caricature but a dangerous and violent one. He is a steam roller plowing through everything so his role remains unclear. Dino Poor Bear, who we saw in the first volume, comes from a once powerful family, and is ambitious but a dreamer. His story will be an interesting one, to see if he becomes a pawn moved by greater forces or accumulates some power and changes the configuration of the board. His is a character to watch.

Through all of these characters, and this story, a lot of tough questions about America, race, class, vice, identity, history, cultural identity, loyalty, youthful ideals and their potential corruption will be asked. Some answers will be given but none of the questions and their potential answers are easy or neat and pretty.

Scalped will take us from the top of the power structure all the way down to the kid who mops the floor of the casino and everyone in between. We will go from fifty-five years ago to the present. We will go to the spirit world and come back changed.

This is a book that both entertains and makes you think.

Tags: comics, friday books, jason aaron, scalped

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.