Single Issue Showcase: Scalped #36 and #37 - “A Fine Action of an Honorable and Catholic Spaniard”

The cover of Scalped volume 7, Rez Blues

I suppose it’s cheating to cover two issues for the Single Issue Showcase, but I don’t want to write about one half of a story. Scalped was created by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra and was published by Vertigo from March 2007 to August 2012. It was a stylish neo-noir set on a South Dakota Indian reservation about corrupt Chief Red Crow and the undercover FBI agent trying to take him down while wrestling with his own demons. I finally caught up with it this year and it is one of the best series I’ve read in a very long time. The diversity problems in comics, particularly with Native and indigenous creators and representation, are serious and ongoing. It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that. I would encourage people to seek out comics about Native Americans written by Native Americans and support the work of indigenous creators. I write critical essays about work in the comics medium of interest to the LGBTQ community that I think should be appreciated, and I thought these two issues were noteworthy.

Issues 36 and 37 of Scalped were published in May and June of 2010 and tell a mostly self-contained story focusing on the chief’s right-hand man, Shunka, as he goes to Michigan to get some assistance with Red Crow’s burgeoning casino business. He’s promised whatever help he needs if he helps intimidate the former chief, who was removed after coming out of the closet and is threatening to stage a gay-rights protest. Naturally, Shunka becomes embroiled in something more complicated than what it first appears. The title comes from the sixteenth-century writings of an Augustinian monk about the expeditions of Balboa, who fed forty two-spirit Native men to dogs. There is a great deal of internalized homophobia on a cultural level with the characters. Even Chief Red Crow, who is defiant of any Christian influence and speaks of the Jesuits with little more than contempt for the entire run of the series, throws around the word berdache with impunity.

Mr. Aaron credited Ed Brubaker for suggesting a story about homosexuality and the role of two-spirit people in Native American tradition. Gay noir stories are not new, but this one could feel overstuffed. Instead, it seamlessly blends all of its story elements into a cohesive whole. The art for these two issues was done by Davide Furnò and works perfectly at accentuating the shadows while keeping all the characters very expressive. Most of the pages have tight, overlapping panels that create a cumulative claustrophobic feeling until the inevitable violence. Each issue has a splash page of a passionate outburst from one character in very different ways, highlighting all the conflicting forces at work inside him.

“A Fine Action of an Honorable and Catholic Spaniard” can be found in the seventh volume of the collected Scalped series, Rez Blues. The entire series should be available wherever comics are sold.

The cover of Scalped issue 36 by Jock

The cover of Scalped issue 37 by Jock