Gaylord Phoenix

Edie Fake has been slowly releasing his mini-comic Gaylord Phoenix in tantalizing bits for the past seven years. Indie comics publisher Secret Acres has finally collected all of the issues (including a previously unpublished closing chapter) and bundled them together into what amounts to a queer graphic epic.

The text is sparse, and absent are many conventions of the comic form: speech bubbles, panels, sequential storytelling. Instead, Fake has created his own visual language, utterly foreign yet immediately decipherable. Across gorgeous full-page illustrations, the titular Gaylord Phoenix soars over pyramids and paisley landscapes, and dives headfirst into crystal caverns and feasts at a smorgasbord of surreal homoerotic exploits. Simultaneously, the strangely emotional creature experiences the ups and downs of soul-searching and identity-making in a complex world riddled with ambiguity. Magic, sex, mythology and violence are all fractured and recombined through Fake’s psychedelic lens. We’re talking flying diamonds, wizards with linked beards, cloud napping, tubular genitalia and one seductive emperor crocodile.

One shortcoming: Collecting the series into one volume reveals some unevenness. The later chapters, masterfully rendered in two colors, show Fake’s drafting skills at their prime. I found myself wishing that the earlier editions had been as well-executed. But there is something fascinating about watching Fake’s abilities develop. And in a way, it’s the perfect metaphor for the Phoenix’s story: a journey of transformation resulting in something undeniably glorious.