Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: dark horse comics, Jason Wordie, Simon Roy, Tiger Lung

Comics Can Do Anything – Even Tell Us About Paleolithic Carpathian Shamans

Published Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:00:00 -0600

This may well be the strangest title I've ever encountered in a graphic novel, and that even contends with my various forays to indie comic shows like Small Press Expo and Comic Arts Brooklyn. Tiger Lung by Simon Roy and Jason Wordie is a collection of related short stories, the first of which was originally serialized in Dark Horse Presents, and it now appears with 2 more stories and a sketchbook section in a slim, moderately sized and rather attractive hardback at 88 pages released in December 2014.

Yes, it really is called Tiger Lung, which is the shaman-name of the central character. Let me see if I can adequately make a kind of genre distinction here: this isn't a fantasy book about shamans involved in some kind of epic plot, the guise in which magical figures in comics usually appear. This is actually a book that attempts to be reproduce to some degree what life was like for Paleolithic people living on the shores of the Black Sea under the Carpathian Mountains in Europe. Think Clan of the Cave Bear rather than Lord of the Rings. Got it?

And I'm very happy to make this statement as someone who loves history, anthropology, and even the history of magical belief systems: this book is not full of cliched shorthand for primitive cultural practices. This book actually attempts to present historical material in a compelling way featuring the lives of believable characters who nevertheless are very different culturally and in their world view than modern human beings. Now, I actually really love high fantasy stories in comics, many of which create their own fictional ancient cultures or draw on historical elements, I would just like to salute a team who set out to take us closer to history in this way and help us understand our own human past as well.

When you open the book, the blue endpapers show off a painted map of the territories relevant to the stories included, giving the book a guide-like feel as we are ushered into this new time and place. The first story, Under the Ice, gradually reveals the life and times of Tiger Lung, who is going on a perilous journey into the heart of a glacier to look for his lost shaman father. Through flashbacks we see episodes from his life observing shamanic practices, and writers Roy and Wordie have a definitely angle for characterization: Tiger Lung is the problem child who always makes mistakes, never lives up to stern parental expectations, and is fairly hang-dog about it. Though he's referred to as "boy" in the story, he's at least a teenager who, in his society, would have a grown-ups status, however, the term reinforces his mental struggles with identity. It becomes clear that he must address his father's loss and come to terms with what is deemed the most dangerous journey a man can make–into the spirit-haunted glacier–to change the dynamic of his life.

Roy and Wordie leave a lot of mystery in tact when telling their story. We start in the "middle" so to speak, of events, we learn relevant information without too much exposition, and most importantly, when we "see" the world, we see it as these people see it. We see the spirits and dangers that they would have viewed. This takes us back to a time when human beings were more engaged with the natural world and viewed its hostile aspects as self-aware and specific. Here they are embodied by the strange and malevolent powers of the White Chief of Winter who enslaves the dead. One of the book's strangest, but notably unique, visual features is the presentation of spirits beings as having a visible nervous system and organs because the people of this culture believe in multiple souls residing in different parts of one's physiology, each with their own power.

The two additional stories included in Tiger Lung follow their own path in terms of art style and colors, going for a more black and white and grey tone or sepia tint, each bringing a different way of looking at Paleolithic life. The second and third stories in the book are posed as situational mysteries where strange events seem to be occurring and Tiger Lung uses observation, questioning, and his shamanic ability to spirit-walk to get answers. We get a general picture of the dangers these people saw on all sides in life and death and the culturally-sanctioned precautions they took to keep their world in balance. The sketchbook section of the book is actually far more intriguing than even that term might suggest since it contains historical sketches and explanations by Simon Roy about the world of these stories, the choices he made, and how he endeavored to avoid cliches, as mentioned above.

The remarkable thing about Tiger Lung is the way in which things in the narrative remain strange to us as readers and yet Roy and Wordie invite us to be observers and peek behind the curtain on another way of thinking, a way of seeing a world steeped in wonders and terrible mysteries. It certainly shows us once again that comics are suited to any subject matter and can engage the reader in experiencing new perspectives almost as a matter of course through visual narrative.

I also happened to notice when looking around the Internet for info on Tiger Lung that there will be a book launch party held in Vancouver, so if you're in the region on January 23rd, keep an eye out: