On Monday we go to Madrid

Yet another expat artist offers The Sojourn intelligent reflection

If you’re among the few who make it to the bottom of my posts, you probably caught Martinique-based novelist Dimitry Léger’s response to my query, “Would you ever come back here to live?”

Dimitry Léger: No!

Me: Like it’s the stupidest question.

DL: Yeah, it really is.

Considering its timing, “Would you ever return to America?” may indeed be the single most idiotic thing I’ve ever asked. Still, that response was unnecessarily raw, in my opinion. I prefer the tone taken by my next West Coast Sojourn podcast guest, cartoonist Lance Tooks. He’s been chillin’ in Madrid for a long, long time and his collected memories retain a wistful sweetness.

Here is a man who relishes his past in The States:

Later on in our talk, some of Tooks’ assessments are political and less wistful. More like scathing. A well-informed consumer would never call them unfair though.

My guest comes from a family of New York artists. Near the Reagan era’s start, Tooks became a teenaged editor at Marvel Comics. He put out the cult fave graphic novel Narcissa in 2004, and shortly thereafter moved to Spain, where he draws in bars and lives a modest life. Tooks told me that his mother called him “the world’s fattest starving artist,” and I can’t stop thinking about that.

Beyond America slagging, another bit that deep-reading subscribers have been privy to is my kidding-not-kidding take on tipping journos. I picked up the idea somewhere on social media, from a young Black reporter who posted, in essence, that he deserved a tip because the degree of difficulty imposed on him by status and because of his POV’s necessity.

Listen, a part of me thinks I’ll be taken into custody at some point during the Trump Administration. My biggest challenge though? Writing awesome sentences, not Big Whitey. That’s why I took the gig, back in the far simpler 20th century ; I knew I could lick sentences. Whitey? Not so much.

Regardless:

I kid, so much, because kidding may be all I have…. except for Gaspar Yanga!

Below is a depiction of the man at the center of my Legend of Black Mexico screenwriting project, which I am about seven toes-deep into. There’s an expectation that I’ll do something public on this script next May.

Readers of my crowdfunding campaign updates know that I’m attempting to divine character from historical events. An evolving timeline is my guide.

Digging deep into the history of slavery in Mexico is now my part-time job, and this work has helped me conclude that Gaspar likely wasn’t the African Adonis that’s depicted in Mexican folk art and history. Perspective seems to me to have warped him. The Indigenous people in charge of Yanga’s “New Spain” lore probably topped out at five-and-a-half feet tall. The Europeans have not bothered to tell the Gabonese royal’s story, that I can tell. So, my portrayal of the hero will be as more of a wily leader than physical superstar. I have a few casting ideas in mind.

That’s all for now. Check in on Monday. I am editing you up a legitimately bohemian conversation.