Back in 2015, when I was chewing over an exhausting congratulatory message for Alex Niño's then-75th birthday, cleverly disguised as an article for a German newspaper and to be later refurbished when working as a Comics Journal scribe on saluting his 80th birthday, I became convinced that there wouldn't be more new material from the absolute master of the form that the Filipino artist was and still is. To use a phrase lifted from countless letters to the editor in comics published during the 1970s and 1980s, books from the former Big Two where Niño was so prominent: “Boy, was I wrong.”
For several reasons, Alex Niño is not unknown to comics readers like me who grew up in 1970s Germany. The DC mystery books in which he worked, next to other Pinoy creators like Alfredo Alcala or Gerry Talaoc, were translated for a German comics anthology christened Horror, while an early progenitor of Heavy Metal magazine–running under the moniker Star Fantasy and reprinting majority U.S. material–decided to publish several episodes of Doug Moench's adaption of Theodore Sturgeon's SF novel More Than Human, illustrated by Niño. But sadly, the complete story never saw conclusion, due to the way-too-early demise of Star Fantasy in 1979, after just two years.
Lasting much longer, one of the last vital signs from the Luzon-born cartoonist, though officially already in retirement, was “Winter's End,” a sketch markers orgy in 2013's Batman: Black and White #2, created together with the then-inevitable Jeff Lemire, after Niño's manically drawn miniseries Dead Ahead for Image finalized in 2010 after three issues.
The sketch markers turned out a new manifestation of Niño, laying the conceptual foundation for his work in the now small press-published Alandal, based on an idea by writer and filmmaker J. Philip Ignacio, who met the cartoonist in 2013 while doing research for a documentary at San Diego's Comic-Con. Oddly enough, at the end of 2023 it was published in Germany, and no longer did I need to wait for an affordable English-language edition. There is one now, though, available through the Philippines or as an import, as there is also a Tagalog translation still waiting to be launched on its home ground. There the komik furthermore made the Philippine's International Comics Festival selection, as well as becoming the winner of the 2022 National Children's Book Awards (Best Reads), and the 2023 National Book Awards for Best Graphic Novel in English. But as you might know, postage rates have climbed to dizzying heights during the last decade, with those from the Philippines to Europe now insanely high.
Another reason for releasing the book over here might be due to Niño leaving his footprints in Germany earlier, though that doesn't explain why there ain't any edition available from an American publisher. I mean, the man's residing in San Francisco, a U.S. citizen since 1974; beyond that, he produced the majority of his work for the likes of Warren, Marvel, DC, even Disney's motion picture subsidiary.
Alandal tells us about the Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines, set at the end of the 18th century and staged in the intertwined Bayeux Tapestry style Niño partially used in Dead Ahead, but with extreme stylistically diversions ranging from Vincent van Gogh mannerisms to propaganda art, negative space compositions cutting blazing brightness out from dark matter like the bright future suggested by said agitprop, or the luminous effect every now and then provided by Van Gogh - but in black & white, mind you! All this is thrown around and mashed up in absolutely mind-blowing ways, up with the artist's earliest influences coming out of Art Nouveau; mainly Heinrich Kley's works for Jugend, which means one more connection to the Fatherland.
The story centers around a 12-year old girl, Sabina, daughter to the traitor Sevillano Rodriguez, a murderer involved in shady business dealings and probably a loving father–imagine some sort of Errol Flynn here–because just as Niño, they don't make 'em like this anymore. And if you smell a salty sea breeze rising courtesy of Captain Fear, which Niño co-created with Robert Kanigher in 1973 for DC's Adventure Comics, your nose didn't fail you; its remarkable expressionistic break outs enjoy some reprisal, as does the swashbuckling.
The captivating skills in combat possessed by Rodriguez were seemingly passed to his offspring, as well as those of her mother, killed in combat by her husband. Hence Sabina's easy mastery of martial arts taught to her, a total commitment borne across literally consecutive strips: a seemingly endless flow of drawings interwoven.
Starting out with Sabina and her father escaping to an island (after several misdeeds by the latter), this Filipino Bildungsroman tracks the upbringing of our heroine into a masked sword fighter, cape and cowl taken from the bloodied hands of her father, who's trying to make up for the evil deeds he's done in the past. A dead pig for a banquet, provided by drug smuggling corsairs, is clearly a tip of the hat to Dead Ahead–its gruesome motif even became a Graphitti shirt–as are the rude morals inherent to life between high and low tide.
In addition to this, some light is thrown on the conflict between Muslims and Catholics on the archipelago, unresolved to this day, so that you realize how offensive serving the wrong food to the right people can turn out wayward. But the most impressive and hallucinatory manifestation of colonial rule over decades in the South East Pacific is depicted by showing the young Alandal/Sabina envisioning iron ships from America as harbingers of fire and destruction. They shouldn't be there in Sabina's vision, because the story is set in 1762, and so they remain as a paradox; but what an effective one! Their actual arrival happened on May 1st, 1898. By the way, the 1st of May is also the birthday of Alex Niño.
The artist, now in the midst of his 80s, ha said he wanted to leave behind the most sustainable impression of his art skills possible, by coming back out of retirement this one last time. While he has accomplished this mission more than successfully, he also hasn't shied away from honoring a deceased colleague and friend of his: cartoonist Gerry Alanguilan of Elmer fame, who died in 2019 and had been a part of the creation of this book, together with his wife Ilyn Florese. A beautiful portrait of Alanguilan drawn by Niño graces the appendix of this highly recommendable book - and what makes it so special is that it's not only a monument to his life's work and the difficult history of his homeland, but also one for a soul brother.
The post Alandal appeared first on The Comics Journal.
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