13 Jaguar “Out of the Shadows” is done. If this graphic novel were a film, this preview is a “rough cut” of the final production. The final product still requires re-lettering some sequences, art correction on faces and figures, and final color, but this is the essence of the graphic novel in its entirety.
Work began on this project over ten years ago. My wife, Shirley, and I were involved with a local independent theater group, The Imaginists, performing original productions on the topic of the U.S./Mexican border, immigration policy, and the culture clash between two countries, who each shared a common origin, namely, the mass migration of different peoples crossing borders which didn’t as yet exist, east-to-west and south-to-north. Since 1993, and my introduction to waterless desert camping in the Southern Anzo-Borrego Desert east of San Diego, California, I’ve been intrigued by the past and recent history of bi-cultural south-north migratory trails between the Southwestern United States and the Sonoran Desert of Northern Mexico. The hiking trails, used by more than just camping tourists, were littered with the occasional shed piece of clothing or empty rusted tins of canned fish, drew me into the arena of “illegal” immigration and political policies abrogating some persons’ right to move freely across the earth.
I became an activist. Illustrating the 13 Jaguar “Out of the Shadows” project for my wife has been a major part of that activism. It hasn’t been easy, so ignorant was I of the Meso-American Mestizo/Ladino extant cultures of the Central Mexican Highlands, I felt conflicted with my experiences of anti-Mexican sentiment as a child raised in the Santa Clara Valley City of San José, California. When my son attended a K-8 public school dual-immersion Spanish-English education program (2001 – 2009), I learned a great deal about the people from Mexico who were living and working in California, my home state, and the many private injustices they had weathered in their lives, generation after generation.
Drawing 13 Jaguar “Out of the Shadows” has not been easy, but I am honored to have been given the opportunity, and am very proud of the final work. I hope you enjoy reading one Hero’s Journey of redemption.