Tuesday Comic Review: Chango

Okay... now on to the next one:

Looks ominous.

Chango

Written by Cesar Feliciano and Ben Goldsmith
Art by Cesar Feliciano
Color by Jasen Smith
Lettering by Justin Birch

Contact them HERE.

Music and comics.

The cross-artistic connection made between music and comic books is always a problematic one. It's a real challenge to get the 'spirit' of a musical piece or a singer/player to translate effectively into a sequential, still narrative. Many have tried to varying degrees of success: Jem and the Holograms, KISS, a Kickstarter that recently funded about starting a band before the end of the world! --Mayfield Eight too.

Yet for all that enthusiasm in making a comic that's about music I find there's a lot of hurdles for the reader to cross. You literally have to take a moment out to 'put' the music in your head, suspending the reading and scanning art for the 'la la la' stuff.

It's with this heady task that Cesar and Ben try to deal with Chango, a supernatural tale about a demon who emerges after a record is played. Not just any record, but a special one that gets purchased in Jamaica right at Carnival time. The set up is fascinating. A mother (Kelly) and her only son (Reuben), inseparably bound on this journey have the record. Apparently the mother wants to re-connect with her late husband, again, through some mystical incorporeal quality in the music once played.

Things go awry quickly, and we learn that the boy (like Constantine) is cursed with seeing demons everywhere he goes: those bad-thought fears and worry-warts who ride on everyone's shoulders whispering in their ears.

It was an interesting enough premise, but not put to very good use I'm afraid. There's not much purpose or intent behind Reuben's abilities. He and Mom Kelly just wander aimlessly through the years, a chance visit with relatives towards the end of the comic allows a set up for Reuben to confront the head demon. It's all a bit foggy. I'm not sure what their main motivations are.

There was a really interesting part at the end, though, that showed a weird parallel between this stage play and the back and forth with the demons mirrored in kid's costumes. Potentially, the ideas here in Chango are solid, it's just in their execution -the old classic trope 'have something to say' that lets it all down for me.

Lastly, the colors printed extremely dark. For a story that takes place in sunny parts of the world it seemed a bit contradictory. I'll be eager to see the next Kickstarter for part two of Chango to see if Cesar and Ben perhaps have worked the kinks out and can deliver a bit more solid story.

Next Week's Tuesday review:

I have no idea which one this is. It doesn't even have a return address, so it will be even more interesting!

... but, I must have ordered it one time because I wanted it, so what the heck.

10454 Lomita Ave #B, Felton
United States

FORWARD