What I Bought 12/3/2025 - Part 1

I actually ordered these books two weeks ago, but the package spent a solid week going from Kansas City to. . . Kansas City. Then it dicked around who knows where for another three days before finally showing up here. But at least it arrived, and we can close out the last of November's books.

Bronze Faces #6, by Shobo and Shof (writers), Alexandre Tefenkgi (artist), Lee Loughridge (color artist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - The rose in the damaged eye is a nice touch. 

A lot of the issue is focused on Sango returning to Nigeria for a big exhibition of the bronzes at a museum. So she sees the way Ogiso was seized on by seemingly everyone. Everyone singing Timi's song, everyone talking about Ogiso and what they accomplished. And Gbonka's used it to launch a greater political career. The Scotland Yard detective obviously let Gbonka and her crew take Timi's body, and then retired, because she's hanging around just, chilling at the exhibition.

Sango and Gbonka try and have one last conversation, and it goes miserably. Sango admits she should have been there for Timi's burial, and Gbonka agrees, for him and for her, and this somehow sets Sango off. It feels like that thing where people project what they know about themselves on others. Sango tends to put her desires and interests above everyone else. If she wants something she goes for it. If she doesn't want to deal with someone, she just shoves them aside. We get a flashback to what seems to have caused the rift and it's a case where something bad happened and Sango basically said, "fuck this, I'm out of here."

So maybe Sango takes Gbonka's words as proof she's doing the same. That Sango let down Gbonka, and that was just not acceptable, because it's all about what Gbonka, with her big plans to build up Nigeria, that are important. It's acceptable to use Timi's song as a rallying cry, even after his death, or borrow Sango's designs for the museum, because Gbonka's higher purpose makes it so.

In Sango's eyes, it's justifications for selfishness, but I guess we're not meant to agree with that, as she's shown repeatedly losing her temper at all sorts of people. Tefenkgi draws her at various times as a giant, who towers over a cab driver she's berating, or as spitting fire at Gbonka (who calmly walks through it and tells her she can never come back.)

I think the fact Sango's not from Nigeria originally factors in somehow, but I'm not clear enough on ethnic divisions in West African societies to grasp it. I was under the impression a lot of African nations are made of many different groups that got told they were a country when whatever European country colonized that area departed, regardless of the sometimes centuries-old tensions that existed. But maybe the idea is that, through the Benin Bronzes, Gbonka is creating a national identity for Nigeria that transcends those barriers. So Sango's unwillingness to buy in or get with the program means she has no place in it? Taking back the bronzes was never about anything like that for her.

Hector Plasm: Hunt for Bigfoot #2, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - I feel like the living, warthog skin cloak is actually more terrifying than the Bigfoot. 

Hector manages to convince the sheriff he didn't kill the new victim, and the victim's spirit says Bigfoot did it. They find a bloody footprint, but only one. A search in the woods reveals no trail, but a strange stone arrangement that Hector says gives off bad vibes. Hunter and Holt illustrate this with, jagged, crown-shaped panels that arc over and around the arrangement, spanning the panels Hector and Lip are in.

Hector starts to suspect Lip is behind this to raise the profile of their museum, but this would seem to be blown out of the water when the Bigfoot attacks Lip that night, and nearly tears their arm off. And this is a spot where the way Image printed the book entirely fucks it up, because pages 11 and 12 are laid out so you read the top row of panels across the two pages, as Bigfoot closes on Lip and grabs their arm, then the bottom row, as Bigfoot starts to swing Lip around and Hector rushes to the rescue.

Except the comic is set up where you have to turn the page to get from 11 to 12, completely breaking the flow of the book. I read page 11, flipped to page 12, paused, muttered, "what the hell?" Flipped back to 11, then back to 12, focusing on the top half. Then repeating the process for the bottom half. Feels like something that could have been avoided. (The issue is also only 17 pages, but the first issue was 24, so they're still averaging 20.5 pages per issue.)

Also, Bigfoot's a ghost, which is actually probably a relief for Hector, since he's got more experience dealing with those.