Comics / Comics News

Xeric Grantee Ships Book

By The Editor
October 2, 2005 - 19:49

The March 2005 Xeric Award winning title Black Mane, by Michael V. LaRiccia, will ship this fall. LaRiccia makes his comics debut with his 96 page graphic novel. Black Mane confronts issues of race and gender through the author’s self-deprecating self-portrait.

The story is set in Boston Massachusetts during a summer break from graduate school in the Midwest. LaRiccia works at a T-shirt stand on the waterfront and lives in an apartment in Brookline. The banality of his life is contrasted with the consistent presence of volatile male characters: Hyper testosterone jocks, chauvinistic abusers and entitled alpha males. In public Michael deals with these figures through contemplation and reason; in his most private thoughts he revels in the fantasy of resolving these situations with the immediacy and energy of violence. This resolve is accomplished by his fantasy hit man, Black Mane, a man/lion hybrid cloaked in midnight black fur.

His frustration and confusion accumulate even more from the constant presence of racial categorization. Horrifically hot summer days at the waterfront, a camping trip with old friends, a fantasy dream in ancient Greece and a dangerous night in a night club are some
of the scenarios which challenge the ideas and values of the main character.

Black Mane incorporates the social potential of comic books to address contemporary social issues. Humor and horror combine to facilitate a conversation about social constructs of masculinity and racial categorization.

About the artist: Michael Victor LaRiccia was born and raised in Massachusetts. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1997. He completed a BFA degree in printmaking as well as three and a half years of drawing a comic strip (Spunk) for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. In 2002 he attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in the printmaking MFA program. In 2005 he received his MFA.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12