A real treasure! Written by Gerry Conway, illustrated by José Luis García-López, with colors by Joe Orlando. “Cinder and Ashe” is a true comic book treasure!
An engaging action-packed yarn that tells the story of Ashe, a veteran soldier of fortune, and Cinder, his adopted daughter rescued from Saigon in the final days of the Vietnam War. Together, the two run a detective agency—or, as they say, a “problem-solving” agency. Their inability to escape their violent past and come to terms with the horrors they experienced is the story’s central theme.
Published by DC Comics in 1988, “Cinder & Ashe” is set in New Orleans, and it is not unlikely that Conway was inspired by the relative success of the crime film “The Big Easy,” released just two years earlier. As in the movie, the fascinating cultural atmosphere of Louisiana permeates the story, with its African American and Francophone cajun influences.
Gerry Conway’s script is practically a movie waiting for a director, but the real standout is the art by José Luis García-López! If he weren’t a great artist, he could have been an excellent actor.
Look at the characters’ body language, their gazes. Notice the changes in the protagonists’ postures and expressions before and after the violence they experienced in Vietnam, the defining event of their lives. Observe how Conway’s text perfectly complements García-López’s drawings, presenting a complete picture of each character—not a word too many or too few.
Notice the details in the character designs and García-López’s sense of fashion in dressing them. For instance, Cinder wears casual clothes that, in a way, hark back to her time as a thief in Vietnam. Notice how her glasses, earrings and accessories change according to the clothes she’s wearing, which, in turn, vary depending on the context she’s in. Elegant, she has a style for every occasion—unlike Ashe! Notice that there’s nothing Ashe wears that doesn’t evoke his military roots. Ashe is always a soldier, and that’s his tragedy.
Notice how colorist Joe Orlano contrasts the colors of the past—reds, greens, and oranges depicting a subliminal nightmare being nurtured in the swamps of Louisiana to be finally unleashed in Vietnam’s jungle—with the colors of the present, cooler and more opaque blues in panels with fewer colors, as if the color of the real world had been stripped away by the traumas of war. Notice that even the characters in the background have a personality, interacting with each other without dialogue. There is drama and story unfolding, always! I could go on and on just pointing out these details.
Text, art, colors—it’s all seamlessly integrated to serve the story in a subtle way, and for that very reason, it’s masterful in its storytelling!
My killer tip? Look for “Cinder and Ashe” at your local comic store or in the internet, set aside a Saturday afternoon, and read this cool comic to the sound of zydeco, a fusion of traditional Cajun music and Black Rhythm & Blues. And have fun!
