What would it be like to live in a world where superheroes actually existed? What would it be like if a supervillain could come hurtling out of the sky at any moment? And would everyone be in favor of superpowered humans taking the law into their own hands? Several have tried answering these questions, but few have done as well in such a short space as Dara Naraghi does in BIG CITY BLUES. If this is the sort of quality work we can expect from indie books nowadays, I may swear off the Big Two altogether.
Mind you, the concept behind BIG CITY BLUES isn't a completely new one - many comics writers, Brian Michael Bendis and Jaime Hernandez most notable among them, have tried to show what life in the superhero world is like for the non-superhero. But Naraghi keeps his focus solely on the "civilian," if you will, and by using generic, unnamed superheroes to populate his world, the "real" people take on a far greater role than in the work of other writers mining this vein. The fact that Naraghi has assembled such a strong cadre of fine young artists to help tell his stories doesn't hurt, either.
In "Intersections," illustrated by the strong team of Dan Barlow and Dennis Murphy, an aspiring filmmaker named Miguel tries to capture some footage of a battle between one generic hero and one generic villain, completely unaware that their battle has caused a woman to be late for a promising job interview and has caused Miguel's homeless friend Manny to be...well, late. We've seen stories about a hero's carelessness resulting in the death of an innocent bystander before, but at some point the story either turns into one about the hero's need to compensate for that loss or a relative of said bystander becoming a supervillain for revenge. Naraghi leaves his story breathlessly hanging in mid-air, thereby making a larger point: the actions of a superhero have repercussions, good and bad, and not ones which said hero will always see. Besides, when we're dealing with real people, who cares what the hero thinks, anyway? The human story beneath is far more interesting, and that's the story Naraghi tells, and tells well.
"Protect and Serve," illustrated by the promising Adrian Barbu, takes that human story a step further by showing that even "costumed vigilantes" can make mistakes. While two cops debate the role of vigilantes in the city, one such Punisher-type decides to dispense justice upon two young black men who have just come out of a jewelry store - unaware that one of them has just brought a ring there for his fiancé. This is the most haunting story in the collection, and Barbu's artwork makes it all the more so.
"Public Image," ably illustrated by Steve Black, takes a somewhat different approach to the influence of this world's heroes on its populace. Here, Naraghi gives us an everyday diner scene and shows us how the lives of a couple of teenaged boys and a young lesbian who's just been left by her lover are affected, all indirectly, by the intervention of the same superheroine. To one of the boys, she's simply a hot woman to be objectified in the same way as J-Lo or Britney Spears; to the owner of the diner who befriends the young jilted woman, she's the representation of the adage (and the fact) that hope springs eternal. While the first two stories are more direct in their thematic thrust, this one plays out far more subtly, reminding one of the best work of Adrian Tomine or Los Bros Hernandez.
"Plans and Perceptions," a piece well illustrated by Rudy Lacovara, is the only story in the volume that falls a bit short of the mark. Not only can we see it coming when the man who has been speaking out against superheroes at the beginning of the story has his child rescued by one of those very same heroes, it's hard to have much sympathy for the young PR woman whose world is "shattered" when the hero she's representing pulls out of his contract. Still, three out of four is a great batting average in anyone's book, and even this story provides sufficient interest beyond the excellent artwork.
While I'm more than willing to highly recommend the work of these talented Columbus-based comics creators, I'm not as juiced to recommend all of the Columbus-based bands on the companion soundtrack CD. Of the four bands represented here, only the songs by No Soul Jones and eightmmstar really reflect the spirit of the stories Naraghi presents here, making this a "soundtrack" in the loosest possible sense. Wigglepussy Indiana's work is a bit too erratic, and The Randys are almost too laid back. By contrast, the other two bands have given me a couple of brand new favorite songs - No Soul Jones' "Friday Night Curse," which fits the story "Public Image" like a hand in a glove, and eightmmstar's "wonder," which provides "Protect and Serve" with the melancholy soundtrack it deserves. The music may not be to all tastes, but the comic certainly will be, and I'm sure we'll be seeing the names of Naraghi and his artists up there with Bendis, Hernandez, and Tomine any day now.
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