POPPREVIEW: IN THE HANDS OF BOYS
By Melody Nadia Shickley

IN THE HANDS OF BOYS # 1 of 2
By Melody Nadia Shickley
6.9"x10.187"
$9.95 U.S.
Black and white paperback
ISBN 0-9777113-0-7
ISBN13 978-0-9777113-0-7
DIAMOND ORDER CODE: APR06 3260

My mother, Janet Tangirala, has spoken French to me since I was three. For a long time she would talk to me using the secret language in front of people, alienating them. She is not French, her parents were missionaries there, but she considered herself to be. She was sent to the US at the dawn of her adulthood. She immediately conceived me and I think I became the first person in America to give her a sense of home. I could speak her language or at least understand her. But I'm not French either, I'm American, whether I like it or not. The idea to make her story into a comic was just an extension of my desire to translate for my mother. I needed a way to splash into making comics and I wasn't ready to write yet, so I took [her] fable and decided it needed to be grey.

My mother wanted Anna to be cool, a hip, young teacher with evidence of her travels adorning her home. But when I read the story she seemed lonely, her house seemed utilitarian, like my mother's. The Baltimore City paper said they loved her 'flowing locks'. I certainly love drawing hair - do people look at my drawings and know I am female simply from the manner in which I draw hair? I hope not. I think everyone has a certain favourite thing to draw.

Radojko is a survivor. He has seen things that are harrowing, things that I have not seen, and that is a danger when writing a story. I wanted him to seem both terrified and kind of bored with his new environment. A good tension was needed and fear and boredom are things that seem to be in opposition but can go together - the fear is deep but the volume is on low and the boredom masks it.

The Dearborns, Lynn's family, are the stereotypical old-money scenario, I didn't feel the need to describe them much - we all know what old money is. Dark back room deals, cigars and diamonds, but Lynn is no Paris Hilton. We have a remarkably down-to-earth girl who dies before we know who she is.

The title "In the Hands of Boys" was taken from the great WWI poet Wilfred Owen's poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth." My mother had read the poem to me over the phone and when I finally sat down much later to create the outer identity of the comic I fatefully misquoted it. It goes "Not in The hands of boys but in their eyes shall shine The holy glimmers of goodbyes." When I realized the mistake I resolved to take it as preordained and set all discussion of the title aside. Chance would decide. The title alludes to war, it's effects, and the universal influence it has. And of course, it brings up the main aspect of war, the loss of innocence.
Check out the following excerpt from the book, featuring pages 13 to 17.

IN THE HANDS OF BOYS is scheduled for June 2006 release.

 

Melody Nadia Shickley received the Xeric grant to self publish her comic "In the Hands of Boys" and was a contributor to the online anthology "Young Bottoms In Love" with her illustration of the stories "The Coupling" and "The Flames of Passion." She is currently living in LA and working on the second half of "In the Hands of Boys" and a new project to be announced soon. You can visit her website at www.melodyshickley.com or contact her at melodynadia@graffiti.net.


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