By Darryl Ayo

I never really took to alternative comics, when it’s all said and done. I like them, and I like supporting them. But I’m the antithesis of alternative culture in general. My personal drive in alternative media, culture and art is always to try to lift things that I like from “alternative” to “mainstream.” I never caught onto the “underground forever” mentality of many alternative culture enthusiasts and I never understood finding it preferable to remain obscure.

I want things that I like to become popular. I want my opinions to be popular, I want art that I like to be well-regarded, I want cultural values that I hold to be mainstream.

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By Darryl Ayo

The following shouldn’t be my last word on the subject because it is one very near to my heart. Just a few inches away from it, in fact. I’m talking about eating meals. Since the dawn of the non-aggression agreements that we humans call “civilization,” our people have always bonded around meal times. Traditionally, meals are a time of sharing stories and building relationships with our immediate communities (families, friends, tribe). It is a concept so very basic that I almost don’t think I should mention it, but here I am, mentioning it.

Welcome to David Kim’s apartment. Xombi #4, written by John Rozum, cartooned by Frazer Irving. It’s not an overly spectacular storytelling mechanism. A lot of information needs to be unloaded quickly in order to advance the plot. This issue is the chapter in which that information is delivered to the protagonist and to the reader. Most people think “boring,” but I think: “BAGELS!”

If there is a flaw in this breakfast sequence, which provides the frame for most of the issue, it is that there isn’t enough breakfast for my liking. The best thing about sitting around and eating scenes is that you get to draw the characters sitting around and eating. You get to do things with their hands, faces and posture that you usually don’t get to explore in other scenes of an action story.

I’m nit-picking pretty hard right now because I really like Xombi and I enjoyed this particular issue a good deal; so this is just a little hair of a concern for me in contrast to a full-on attack on Rozum and Irving’s storytelling.

Just for the record, I believe that this comic has already had the plug pulled on it. So shame on you, comic readers! But that’s besides the point. Pass the orange juice, please?

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Xombi is (c) Milestone Media Partners.

Side note: David Brothers and Gavin Jasper totally pulled this panel for Gavin’s “Week in Panels” column, stealing my thunder. Or, in the words of the panel’s own text: “I beat you to it.”

*shaking fist*

By Darryl Ayo

Gonna talk about superheroes.

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