Though exerting a profound influence in hindsight, the then-groundbreaking Stray Toasters by Bill Sienkiewicz nowadays offers some belligerent flaws, mostly owed to certain frameworks getting reassessed, i.e., victimized women no longer serve as plot devices. Also unhelpful: trying too hard to be art, unmatched though the epic Epic miniseries' landscape-changing visuals remain, from its continuation/conviction of Barron Storey stylistics to mannerisms restating the heroic grandeur of art nouveau in Sienkiewicz's own phrasing.
Therein an impressive development of Sienkiewicz's skills occurred, culminating in the panel below of a little boy in a kitchen dragging a dog on a leash behind him, except it's a toaster and its wiring.
Such child's plays' roots can be found first and foremost in Marvel's Moon Knight #26 (Vol. 1), from December 1982. “Hit It!,” the Doug Moench co-authored main feature–and if you so will, assisted by Christie Scheele, conducting the tale's colors, whilst Joe Rosen puts Moench's words into lettering–shows a heavily Neal Adams-influenced Wild Bill earning his moniker by counteracting learned lessons with kid-like drawings done in a post-painterly abstraction of scrawliness.
The result is a story about a violent man physically abused as a child that starts out with impressions of jazz musicians, suggesting a visual environment of improvised techniques - or at least making them look that way. And, in the bitter end, Moon Knight fails to protect the 'innocent' man, as far as such terminology might cover a guy forced into violence by events that shaped his childhood and keep escaping his control like notes in a jam.
What we do to our children is a seed that is planted; conveyed through the stylistic gimmick of revealing juvenile and young adult perspectives on things through one of the earliest taught means of expression.
Letizia Cadonici, Italian draughtswoman, responsible for the interiors of Ablaze's Children of the Black Sun, has internalized such knowledge and uses it to some great effect–while also hearkening back to the 12-panel grids which strayed around in comics before–in a story conceived with writer Dario Sicchio, who reportedly came up with the idea of using infant art to tell the story. Letters by "Ingegni" attack in formation.
Predominantly colored by Francesco Segala as pale as the martyred son of a God in question, the story centers around the manifestations of a black sun - or, “Sole nero,” as the original Italian fumetto was christened. This symbol, often used by far-right, white supremist groups–and supposedly by accident by a staff member of Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign–is formed out of 12 sig runes; or, alternatively, three swastikas on top of each other.
The aforementioned paleness of many of the characters may not be the result of Aryan heritage, though, but instead an inborn sickness. Here, *next door* means believing in chemtrails, striving for God's light in one's self by devouring light bulbs, and blaming the media afterwards in lieu of putting your own house in order. Even worse, a grade school teacher named Mrs. Autumn is demanding four written pages of homework, and therefore ain't willing to accept other forms of expression. Dialogue such as “But there are drawings, Mrs. Teacher,” still hurts like the first time you were told in class that your comics suck.
And while we're talking autumn, this comic's twilight~ey season's falling leaves appear like Aidan Koch personally made them rain down, in a setting where everything else is held together by sparse lines: an elementary essence in danger of being blown apart by a gust of wind at any possible moment. The coloring largely follows this calculated minimalism, offering mostly no more than two tones, if even. Not to mention those shadows thrown almost everywhere.
There seems to be a heavily influence of famous illustrators detectable in Cadonici's art; I mainly think of Al Hirschfeld here, straight in a line of kinship with what Steffi Schütze did for Daredevil #11 on her variant cover for Avengers Art Appreciation month in 2012.
There are many horrors to peel out of that constant solar eclipse in the making. The story tells of the dawning of a new breed in the wake of a day-long manifestation of the black sun, twice during the time span of a few years, leading to mayhem and murder everywhere, no holds barred. Vanishing as abruptly as it appeared, the black sun influenced the birth of children with supernatural powers. There is no scientific explanation for such phenomena at all, and the coming of another sun's rising cannot be proven, though it is constantly feared. A continually spreading climate of discomfort would make a third coming almost obsolete: mankind might eliminate itself already in advance.
But maybe that new generation fares better than expected. Resurrecting a stabbed dog by placing sacred saliva, i.e. spitting in its mouth, is a deed to be widely appreciated - well, until your favorite pet rots away while walking down the road. But is keeping people imprisoned in a well of cold water a welcome act, too?
Well~being it is not, as predicted by a cave-dwelling prophet in a parable - declaring that those special children metaphorically will turn out as cuckoo's eggs, with the black sun working as placeholder for a bird invading other sitter's nests, to let them take care of the brood until it's time to return to mum, ready for action.
Inspiringly educative and small drawings surround the prophet's cuckoo tale, part of a well-constructed visual concept integrating onomatopoeia along the nuchal line of cracking cervical vertebra: the result of the prophet's ever-expanding mind whilst simultaneously contracting his muscles, breaking his bones. Just as much the next woman, I love me some qualified anatomy lessons every now and then.
Furthermore on the anatomical theme, in the series' fourth installment a baby's birth is brought after one of the sun's sons, Ivan, performs cunnilingus on a fellow black sun daughter, Ophelia, swallowing a black sun-shaped hull just as it leaves the girl's vulva. The most remarkable thing here is, technically, it makes both featured sexes breeders while representing the underlying theme of diversity.
A few pages after this has happened, the feared third sunrise is about to occur, leaving the readership with an almost blacked-out final page staging panels full of jet-black clouds in front of dark red skies with a succinctly dropped “to be continued.”
If a sequel will happen to this clever conglomerate, picking its ingredients from “wherever particular people congregate,” who am I to know? But rest assured, Letizia Cadonici's exceptional artwork finds its continuation in the two-part intermission “Alabaster” to the similarly-themed House of Slaughter #16/17 at BOOM! Studios - and, just in time for the holidays, she also contributed to a Creepshow Holiday Special earlier this month. So have a merry creepmas, everyone! There is a child about to be born!
