Los Tejanos is the story of the Texas-Mexican conflict between 1835 and 1875. Jackson's view of the conflict is seen through the eyes of the tejano (literally Texan of Mexican, as distinct from anglo, heritage) Juan Seguin. It is through Seguin that Jackson humanises and provides scale for this vast and complex story; the history is filtered through his consciousness. Seguin is a pivotal and tragic figure who, due to inexorable political circumstances and innate nationalistic prejudices, was considered suspect to the anglo Texans and, ultimately, a traitor from the Mexican point of view. The equal opportunity hostility directed toward Seguin allows Jackson the luxury of not taking sides (except perhaps Seguin's) that achieves a kind of passionate, hard-won impartiality toward both (or I should say, including the U.S., all three) sides.
There is, to all of Jackson's historical work, an unflinching no-nonsense approach, of which Los Tejanos is characteristic; that no side in this conflict is flattered is a testament to Jackson's own independence as an historian. The lineage of Texas' independence and eventual absorption into the Union is a political snakebite, which Jackson navigates with consummate skill and clarity.
Jackson has managed to compress an intimidating quantity of historical facts and information while never losing sight of the narrative's human dimension by refining the language of comics to serve his unique needs as an historian and comics artist: a heavy reliance on captions combined with an aphoristic visual approach whereby each panel serves as a visual synecdoche, summarising incident or motivation, capturing the essence of an historical moment. Such work could only have been accomplished by an artist who cares deeply about the gravitas of both art and history.
GARY GROTH:
(from Remembering Jack Jackson in The Comics Journal #278, October 2006)
...I'd see Jack every summer at the Dallas-Con. We'd always get together for lunch or dinner or drinks at the end of the night. In person, Jack very much reflected his meat-and-potatoes aesthetic: He had a straight forward, no-nonsense approach to conversation, eschewing bonhomie and bullshit, always focusing in on the salient points, never trying merely to score points, always Socratic and probing by nature. He was never a grandstander and never much concerned with status, either. He busted his ass, was never compensated adequately, and remained stedfast in his creative convictions in the face of indifference, hostility and commercial failure. He knew what he was doing had value. I don't have to point out how rare this kind of commitment is...
Jaxon at Wikipedia
The Jackson Papers
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