Sullivan’s Sluggers is a 2013 graphic novel published by Dark Horse (even hers and their crowdfunding Kikstarter) and proposed since last July by saldaPress with the subtitle Horror in First Base.
Generally I don’t like the subtitles stuck on by Italian publishers, often and willingly without a real reason. But in the case of Sullivan’s Sluggers – Horror in First Base there is everything, because the title plays on the double meaning, all American, of a word in slang which also has a slang meaning in the Baseball.
Because the story develops around Casey Sullivana former professional baseball coach, now in tour in the Midwest American to scrape together some cash with which to carry on his team of former stars of the Major Leaguei Dragons.
The team is made up of athletes on the avenue of the sunset. Disillusioned, alcoholics, stoners, rowdy and downright dirty. Sluggers, precisely. Word slang which means slacker, lazy. But also, in the jargon of the Baseballone who beats hard, than with the club (from Baseball!) can do it. As the good explains us very well Fasobassist of Elio and Le Storie Tesegreat enthusiast and amateur player of Baseballwhich presents the Italian volume with its original preface.
The volume opens with i Dragons who are preparing to reach the town of Malice, where their next meeting will be held. Despite the dark omens that precede their arrival in the city, the ramshackle team enters the diamante and the game begins. But on the seventh inning the opposing team’s players (and spectators) turn into bloodthirsty monsters hungry for human flesh.
Thus begins a survival adventure like in the most classic films horror splatter. With our players who gradually find (not all, of course) atrocious death between the paws and teeth of horrible demonic monsters.
If that were all, the aftertaste already seen would be strong. Instead, what distinguishes it Sullivan’s Sluggers from a story splatter like so many is the background that is revealed to us more or less in the middle of the story. We will discover that at the base of the curse of the city of Malice there is a sad story of racial hatred mixed with economic interests and indifference. A history that has in the members of the African American family of gods Carver its victims. Where only a priest tries to bring the truth to the surface, but he is silenced. Hence the curse that grips the city.
A background that is not at all fantastic and strongly rooted in the American history of the post-Civil War. Many incidents of lynching were committed in the Deep South during that period, when freed slaves were finally granted the right to vote and own property. A raw background of the story that highlights the violent acts of racism that African Americans have had to endure during the development of their communities, from 1865 onwards.
Sullivan’s Sluggers is scripted by the winning writer of Eisner e Harvey Award Mark Andrew Smith. The author manages to give us a smooth reading and pure entertainment. However, by brutally and mercilessly anchoring it to the history of the States.
The magnificent drawings by James Stokoe. Thirty-six year old Canadian artist with a curriculum very respectable. Stokoe, who also worked with with Image, Marvel, IDWseems to be quite amused in outlining the monsters and the violent and bloody carnage of which they become voracious protagonists, taking the essence to the extreme horror of the story.
Sullivan’s Sluggers it is therefore a fun and light reading, unpretentious and well designed. But, at the same time, capable of making the reader reflect on who, in the end, are the real monsters.
The Italian edition of the Reggio welders is, as always, of quality. A nice hardcover of 208 pages with a preface by Faso enriched by Pin-Up, Cover Gallery and a nice collection of stickers (which are so popular – the real ones – by overseas fans) of our Sluggers.
SULLIVAN’S SLUGGERS – HORROR IN FIRST BASE
HISTORY: Mark Andrew Smith
DRAWINGS: James Stokoe
COLORS: Rodrigo Aviles
COVER: Rodrigo Aviles, James Stokoe
FORMAT: 168 x 256 mm, C., 208 pp., col.
EXIT DATE: 21/07/2022
PUBLISHER: saldaPress
PREZZO: Euro 19,90
