Monomania (Don't be an uncool black guy.)

“Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws.” 

- Confucius

Imagine picking up a book and finding nudity that doesn't make you horny, finding child abuse that's funny and disturbing and finding an African American character, black guy, the bad guy.  But wait, there's more.  The bad guy is also a cool black guy and he is a black guy with a cowboy hat.

(Don't be an uncool black guy.)

Katy High School best friends Joseph Graham and Michael Comeaux authored Monomania - a buddy vigilante story with art by Geoff Sebesta. Darel McMilham, a beta male activist is alter ego ofr the hero of the book The Conservationist.  We see the trials up close of a man who is passionate about a noble cause surrounded by a society who could care less.  That is the human condition.  That's life - real life - especially if you are in politics.  You care about the community that made you.

There is a lot of literary references - most obviously Homer's The Odyssey as our hero is constantly getting stabbed in the eye.

Graham and Comeaux address the duality of the dark sinister world of politics (the hidden) versus the idealists (open) in an artistic way.  Hydranna states, "Apparently this is how people get elected."  Hydranna, a person of color, (this book is not guilty of Tokenism) is another baddie who plays the part of the succubus/Yoko Uno trope. 

I really liked Monomania.  It mades me laugh and Monomania makes you laugh.  There's an observational humor, extreme tone shifts, absurdist satire and slapstick violence.  It's really cool.  It's political but not in the Soviet Realist sense that is obvious and ubiquitous in so called "woke" culture.  It's political in the way that Monty Python or old school SNL was political.  Truth be told, I don't know what their politics are.  Sebesta, Comeaux and Graham have artfully told this story so well that I don't know what their politics are.  As a somewhat embittered alienated formerly passionately dyed in the wool ideologue, I am not sure I ever want to know.

Geoff Sebesta (Illustrator) and authors Joseph Graham and Michael Comeaux

There's hook up culture.  There's a manwos.  (A manwo is not a woman, but a female who acts like man or story forced to fill a man's role).  There's Quasi-lesbian Cat fights that inspires the opposite of sex.  Monomania an eclectic mash up of many genres and a critique of environmentalism, corporatism and illusion of choice democracy.

I would not  normally pick up this book.  But I met Joseph Graham and Michael Comeaux first over facebook and then in real life.  I am glad I met them and gave this book a chance. 

Let's be honest, a lot of Indiebooks are just not that good.  I think a lot of readers who have been spoiled with DC and Marvel (it ain't like it was) can be hypercritical because of the art or story or maybe just embarrassed that the creators have revealed so much heart in telling of the story.  I myself am guilty of this not giving FUBAR a chance because it did not meet my definition of period.

But what Graham, Comeaux and Sebesta have done is created a niche called originality.  That is their strongest selling point.

Give it a chance.





video:  https://vimeo.com/177278985