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I’ve decided to change things up from the Chile strip, which -fear not- will be continued shortly, to showcase a new piece I’ve been working on with my good friend and co-conspirator Nikil Saval about the riots that hit New York in May, 1970. Before you ask, yes it is a coincidence that both comics happen around the same time – no idea why I’m drawn to this specific period at the moment. My challenge is to upload a page every other day for the next month, though that could be more or less, depending on what makes it into the final cut (which is still being hastily revised).
Like Chile, this is all based on real events, though I won’t spoil too much by giving you the schpiel now. Sit back and enjoy! Chile pages for the end of the prologue are on their way also, then I’ll post the entire Chile strip in the proper order as a more webreader-friendly issuu file.
The last page of the prologue seals the perhaps predictable fate of Rene Schneider as part of a botched kidnapping attempt. Almost 40 years later there is a case still pending as Schneider’s family attempt to bring Kissinger to justice for his part in Schneider’s murder. Review the court documents here or find a more comprehensive overview here.
Many thanks to Adam Johnson for the pointer about spent Uzi rounds (and everything else!) and a hearty morale-boosting salute to the Stanford Graphic Novel Project Team, who are sweating away on their congolese graphic novel as I tap. The newest edition of my minicomic is almost done now so I’ll post snippets of it soon – and of course, feel free to get your orders in via the store page above!
So much for my regular post promises – but it’s been worth it to focus on the first splash panel in a while. For those new to the site, this is the 2nd page of the prologue, featuring Chilean Army Commander Rene Schneider. As you can tell, things aren’t about to end well.
All sorts of other gigs on at the mo, likc illos for Profile books in the UK and the Stanford Graphic Novel project, now at the 30 inked page mark. In other news, my now ancient piece in Julia Wertz’s missed connection anthology (published by Random House) has finally seen the light of day!
For regular readers of this strip, pretend that the next three pages come before everything else you’ve read. I won’t give the game away about what happens – but the Army General in question is Rene Schneider
so feel free to follow that link and spoil the surprise for yourselves. And welcome to new readers – you’ve joined at the perfect time. I’ll post the correct page order soon once more of the strip is up.
I’m kickstarting the Chile strip again, so here’s where we left off, in the CIA field office in Santiago, Chile. Late Summer, 1970. Office chief Henry Hecksher and Field Agent David Atlee Phillips are discussing what to do next when a telegram arrives from Washington (the words AP reads out are direct quotes taken from the now unclassified files).
I know this throws a spanner in the works with the continuity of my Chile strip, but I’m so excited about it I had to put it up here. It’s the latest piece I’ve done for Bash Magazine on a recent anti-Prop 8 (that’s the recently passed resolution banning same-sex marriage in California) protest I went to in the SF bay area. It was headed by an activist group called The Raging Grannies, who are a lovely bunch of ladies who fight for social justice using street theatre, singing golden oldies and generally causing a fuss. See for yourself – just click here for the rest of the strip, which is hosted on the Bash website. It should hopefully be getting picked up by the folks at Indybay.org, the SF chapter of Indymedia.org.
Apologies for the delay in getting this next page up – as you can see, there’s a lot more going on, panel-wise. This scene shows Hecksher and Atlee Phillips, both CIA operatives based in Santiago, as they report back to Langley/Washington the current plan of action and situation on the ground. Dissatisfaction clearly arose from the diplomatic ‘Track 1’ route that Atlee Phillips mentions here, which refers to the non-confrontational means of preventing Allende’s inauguration as President. DCI Helms, AP’s boss back at the CIA, had proposed this two-track path under the ominous sounding project FUBELT, but as you will see in the next page, a far more harebrained scheme of direct action was already on the cards…
You’ll notice the title has changed too. This is to reflect the change of focus onto what happened before Allende’s inauguration as opposed to the now infamous coup that culminated in his murder.
Start at the beginning of this comic by clicking on the right hand nav bar link.The action has now moved to Chile and the CIA station where Field Agents Henry Hecksher and David Atlee Phillips are directing the CIA’s misinformation campaign against Allende.
