Not Holding out for a Hero

Montage Art, books, diverse creations 56 Lonesome No Longer 57 Empathy and Imagination 58 Open Book 59 Chapter & Verse 60 Off the Shelf 61 Mathematics from the Inside Out Chiang’s Wonder Woman uses iconic skills—like de!ecting arrows and bullets with her bracelets—alongside new, Not Holding divine, allies, like Hermes (above), Artemis (left), and Out for a Hero Hesphaestus (opposite page). you really savor each issue when A comics artist tries his hand at a new story. you got it,” he recalls. The wait, he adds, “made it this very mys- by )*+%"& '(,-.' terious thing that you could never have all at once. You only got a !"# $%"&'( ’96 can still name the over in the back seat on a family road trip to piece of it at a time, which just made you first four comics he ever read— Florida. Back then, he could get his hands on a bigger addict.” Uncanny X-Men, Alpha Flight, Cloak only a few issues at a time, even at 60 cents As a comic-book artist—drawing for DC C & Dagger, and Fantastic Four—the apiece; the nine-year-old was “on a limited Comics for more than a decade, before go- adventures of caped crusaders and mutant budget,” and distribution was spotty. ing freelance—Chiang is now the dealer, teens which, in the summer of 1983, he pored “The hunt to find the next one made at a time when everything about con- 54 S.+/.01.2 - O$/*1.2 2015 Images by Cliff Chiang Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE The artist in his Brooklyn studio; a page from Paper Girls, which he and Brian K. Vaughan describe as “Stand by Me meets War of the Worlds” sumption has and her infant. Surrounded by allies and changed. Read- foes from Greek myths, Wonder Woman ang muses. “It can’t be as wordy as prose.” ership has ex- became the new God of War. In his view, there’s a poetry to the interde- pa n d e d a n d The Princess of Amazons still went pendence of words and pictures in com- intensified: fans without pants. But Chiang worked to ics, and to how panel breaks govern the can get new is- avoid what he calls a “cheesecake” aes- emotional beats; they can feel leaden and sues and entire thetic. He drew her as thick-limbed and predictable when transferred to the silver back catalogs broad-shouldered, with olive skin and a screen. “There are times when rhythm and digitally, with- strong jaw. Although her outfit was cut pacing are such a part of it, but at the same out ever leaving like a bathing suit, it had the hard gleam time it’s so—still,” he explains. “And you the couch; the of body armor. Where past cover images lose that in the cinema, because of the rush books are stud- tended to depict the character in the grip forward into the next frame.” ied in the ivory of the monster of the month, Chiang liked Chiang and Vaughan have reunited for a tower, and the to show Wonder Woman in action, not new series called Paper Girls, at the publisher movies crash imperiled. She stood at least a head taller Image, where creators own the books and through the than everyone around her. She had the so- characters they work on (unlike at DC and multiplexes nonstop (and in IMAX-3D). It lidity of a refrigerator. Marvel). Drawing a wholly original comic was during this cultural moment, in 2011, Working in a studio in Brooklyn, which is new territory for Chiang, who admits, “It that he and writer Brian Azzarello took on he shares with two other artists and his was a challenge to rethink a lot of the habits the series for which Chiang is best known: wife, Jenny Lee, a film editor and producer, I’d gained from doing superhero stu! over Wonde r Woman . Chiang drafts digitally and inks by hand. the years.” World-building and character Their 35-issue run largely skirted the His style is strikingly crisp and open. “A design are unconstrained by fan expecta- comic’s historic gender politics (rooted lot of comics art looks too precious,” he tion. The work feels intensely personal. in twentieth-century American feminism, says—as if it’s been fussed over by “some- Set in 1988 outside Cleveland, Paper Girls and kinkily fascinated with strength and one with a pen, hunched over a page, put- stars a quartet of everyday 12-year-olds submission, as recounted by Kemper pro- ting more lines down without any regard who deliver the news each morning, and fessor of American history Jill Lepore in to whether they mean anything.” Even in stumble on a supernatural mystery. “A her 2014 book on creator William Moulton his early jobs, as one of several artists with lot of us are maybe a little embarrassed of Marston ’15, LL.B. ’18, Ph.D. ’21). The reboot a hand in Brian K. Vaughan’s Swamp Thing, who we were when we were 12,” reflects gave the iconic character a new origin, as his work stood out for its sleek lines and Chiang. But kids—whatever their fears or the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, and clarity, its subtle confidence. insecurities—are uninhibited. “In a way, a new mission, protecting a single mother “Comics is such a weird artform,” Chi- at that age you’re a much purer character Portrait by Robert Adam Mayer H"#$"#% M"&"'()* 55 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE than you are as an adult. And in drawing town in blue. Nothing’s out of the ordi- a claw, à la Nightmare on Elm Street—when them, it’s a little bit of wish fulfillment. I nary but a comet, slashing pink through who comes to the rescue but a trio of want to draw these characters the way the sky. Pedaling through the suburbs, girls? “Cool costume,” one of them taunts. they think they are.” a girl is stopped by a group of teenage They wear leg warmers, Doc Martens, and In the preview for Paper Girls #1, it’s Hal- guys, masked for a night of no good. They steely expressions, but there’s not a cape loween, and a pre-dawn glow washes the close in menacingly—their ringleader has in sight. says of the group, “because nobody has to be the third wheel for very long.”) Growing up, O’Connor was exposed early to Americana stars from Dolly Par- ton to mandolinist Chris Thile, who col- laborated with his father, the virtuosic violinist and fiddler Mark O’Connor. He started teaching himself the mandolin at age 13, and at 23 pursued singing through a regimen of vocal exercises gleaned from books—seeking partly, he says, to dif- ferentiate his career from his father’s. O’Connor, his bandmates agree, is naturally “intense,” a trait that dovetails with Forrest O’Connor (at left), his entrepreneurial streak: after gradu- Kate Lee, and Jim Shirey BINGER E ation he co-founded Concert Window, WAYNE an online platform that enables bands to livestream their shows, and considered at- tending Harvard Business School. Much Lonesome No Longer of the managerial work involved with promoting Wisewater comes naturally A Nashville folk trio with Harvard roots to him, and he often drives the group’s re- cording and video projects. +**,-,"-.()& ,/* 0#1+%, the and Station Inn. Surprisingly in the age Shirey, in contrast, loved writing and per- musicians of the contemporary folk of Spotify, half their income comes from forming music—he sang in church choirs trio Wisewater bought time, tuning in-person CD sales of their five-song EP, growing up, and joined the Kuumba Sing- S up for their next song. Fiddle ready, titled, fittingly, The Demonstration. ers at Harvard—but pursued teaching after Kate Lee turned to Forrest O’Connor ’10, “All the Pacific Northwest crowds are college. He was about to start a master’s who was intently focused on his mandolin; really great,” O’Connor reports. “The Mid- in education when he got the call asking if Jim Shirey ’11 stood by, on guitar. “Forrest, west is…tough. The Northeast can be pret- he would join Wisewater, in August 2014. do you have the story about—” ty hit or miss. We’ve really liked playing Though he asked for 48 hours to decide, “I “Do I have the story?” O’Connor repeated in the South a lot—it’s been great, really thought about it for good-naturedly, eyes and ears on his task. receptive.” But in their home city of Nash- about six minutes and “Sorry, that was really awkward…” Lee ville—country music’s company town— called back and said I’d Visit harvardmag.com/ started again, her delivery jokingly stagey: where O’Connor and Lee first connected do it.” He bought a one- extras to hear a song from Wisewater’s first “Forrest, tell us the story about the creeks in 2013, it’s hard to be heard, he says: “Ev- way ticket to Nashville, album. we saw in Alabama!” erybody and their mother is playing.” and the trio rehearsed During their performance in late April Uniting the couple of O’Connor and for four days (in what a friend later de- at Club Passim (the historic venue that Lee with the duo of O’Connor and Shirey, scribed as “a musical cage match”) before once hosted Joan Baez and Bob Dylan), the Wisewater can also trace its roots to Cam- hitting the road in Lee’s Dodge Caravan.

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