{"id":33031,"date":"2025-06-04T19:59:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=33031"},"modified":"2025-06-04T19:59:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:59:54","slug":"fires-above-hyperion-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/06\/04\/fires-above-hyperion-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Fires Above Hyperion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Patrick Atangan<\/strong> (NBM)
\nISBN: 978-1-56163-986-1 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Might as well face facts: I\u2019m old, opinionated, infirm and easily angered. Thus, as I finish recovering from my latest blue light hospital stay, and rapidly readjust my plans for Pride Week\/Month reviews, I\u2019m again compelled to switch to summer re-runs for a few days until normal service can be resumed. First off then, another plug for one of my absolute favourite graphic novels, bar none. If you haven\u2019t seen this one yet, why are we still even talking?<\/em><\/p>\n

Bad times for human beings, these days. With people daily dying in incalculable numbers, whilst denied the simple solace of friendly or familial contact as the end comes, with most of the world\u2019s leaders continually fumbling the ball and losing their metaphorical bottle as the world dies from commercial abuse and obsessive exploitation: with the haters and bigots proudly – and utterly without a trace of shame – spreading their bile again, it seems odd to moan about comparatively minor issues.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I\u2019m adding another sin to the list. Perhaps the cruellest, most pitiless of the minor horrors besieging us – as \u201cothering\u201d returns as a method of political advancement and with COVID apparently setting up Round Two of the war against humanity – are increasing threats associated with simply congregating with like-minded friends and hoping to live life their own way. Hypocritically, that\u2019s a right I\u2019d happily deny every racist, homophobe, misogynist and fascist in existence, but hey, I\u2019m \u201ccomplicated\u201d…<\/p>\n

Over millennia, a large proportion of mankind decided (or just didn\u2019t care) that it was okay for men to love men, women to love women – and in fact every flavour of person to enjoy the brief or sustained company of any other person or persons, as long as it was mutually consenting and age appropriate (admittedly those last two have always been a major problem for most men and some women).<\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s hard for some to let go of hate and fear, but we\u2019d made a good honest start. Over time people began convening in vast, colourful bustling parades and parties: rowdy affirmations of a struggle that was generally regarded as won. LGBTQ+ folk are resilient and when that happened, carefully adapted and carried on, but some threats don\u2019t end: they just retrench.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s long been an aphorism – if not outright clich\u00e9 – that \u201cgay\u201d comics stories are the only place in the graphic narrative game where true romance still thrives. As far as I can see though it\u2019s still true; an artefact, I suspect, of a society seemingly determined to demarcate and separate sex and love as utterly different and opposite things. I\u2019d like to think that in the 21st<\/sup> century – at least the more civilised bits which actually acknowledge and welcome that times have changed and should STAY changed – we\u2019ve outgrown those juvenile, judgemental, religion-blighted bad old days and can appreciate powerful, moving, wistful, sad and\/or funny comics about ordinary people without any kind of preconception. That battle\u2019s still not completely won yet, but hopefully thoughtful, inspirational memoirs such as this will aid the transition…
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\nCalifornian Patrick Atangan (Songs of Our Ancestors<\/strong>, The Silk Tapestry<\/strong>, Tree of Love<\/strong>, The Yellow Jar<\/strong>, Invincible Days<\/strong>) is a multitalented Filipino-American creator with many strings to his creative bow. He\u2019s as deft and subtle in his computer-generated comic tales and retellings of Asian myths as with the tools he uses to craft high-end designer furniture. Here, to his printed canon for youngsters, he\u2019s added a wry, charming yet deeply moving collection of short intimate musings and recollections on his \u201cromantic gaffes and failures\u201d with the results enough to make the toughest cookie crumble…<\/p>\n

Pitched as if Sex and the City<\/strong> had been created by a gay Charlie Brown<\/strong>, these utterly compelling, seditiously humorous slices of a life lived a little too much inside one\u2019s own head kick off with chronological logic as still-closeted Patrick attends his \u2018Junior Prom\u2019<\/em>. The problem is that he is escort to obsessive beard Mildred<\/em>, whose attention to detail and fierce determination to make the event \u201cabsolutely perfect\u201d cannot help but fail. At least the string of disasters the fervent Promzilla endures take the spotlight off his own failings, petty jealousies and perceived inadequacies…
\n\"\"
\n\u2018Secrets\u2019<\/em> skips ahead to the emotional and intellectual liberation of college, as our introvert resolves to reinvent himself. It begins an ongoing process of \u201cOuting\u201d which gradually encompasses friends, family and everybody new in his life. Sadly, that in turn leads to a sort-of romance with Calvin<\/em>, who never really comes to terms with his own sexual identity…<\/p>\n

On leaving academe, another character-building debacle involves \u2018Gary\u2019<\/em>: someone our author judged far too lovely for a dweeb like himself – and therefore something of a self-fulfilling prophecy – before eponymous vignette \u2018The Fires Above Hyperion\u2019<\/em> turns the screws even tighter. This episode finds Patrick coolly contemplating LA\u2019s now-annual forest fires threatening his stable existence whilst he foolishly attempts to rekindle or reinvent the three-year relationship he has just ended with Roger<\/em>…
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\nEschewing his usual \u2018New Year\u2019s Eve\u2019<\/em> ritual, the narrator then attends a big party and suffers inebriation, gastric trauma and the humiliation of mistakenly putting the moves on a chain-smoking straight guy before \u2018APE Shit\u2019<\/em> reveals the sorry fallout of a trip to San Francisco to attend his first Alternative Press Expo in a decade: a concatenation of domestic disasters comprising old friends with new children, commuter congestion and a total change in the way Indy comics are sold. At least he connects with gorgeous, seemingly ideal Bryan<\/em> – before Fate and Patrick\u2019s own conscience play a few pranks to spoil what might have been a perfect moment.<\/p>\n

More self-inflicted trauma comes from ignoring the custom of a lifetime and attending a wedding as a \u2018Plus One\u2019<\/em>. Naturally, he didn\u2019t mind his \u201cdate\u201d Julia<\/em> going off with a guy, but when Patrick zeroes in on wonderful, apparently available Peter<\/em>, events and the author\u2019s own treacherous tuxedo (not a euphemism) conspire to make the soir\u00e9e memorable for all the wrong reasons…<\/p>\n

A heartbreakingly harsh assessment of Patrick\u2019s failings leads to the awful conclusion that he is \u2018Nobody\u2019s Type\u2019 <\/em>before the excoriating romantic recriminations conclude with one more ill-fated, self-sabotaged first date that founders from too much introspection and accumulation of \u2018Baggage\u2019<\/em>…<\/p>\n

Insightful, penetrating, winningly self-deprecating, guardedly hopeful and never afraid to be mistaken for morose when occasion demands, this collection of misjudged trysts and missed chances offers a charming glimpse at the eternally hopeful way most folks of every persuasion live their love-lives. The result is magical and unforgettable, making this a must-have item for anyone graced with heart and soul…
\n\u00a9 2015 Patrick Atangan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patrick Atangan (NBM) ISBN: 978-1-56163-986-1 (TPB\/Digital edition) Might as well face facts: I\u2019m old, opinionated, infirm and easily angered. Thus, as I finish recovering from my latest blue light hospital stay, and rapidly readjust my plans for Pride Week\/Month reviews, I\u2019m again compelled to switch to summer re-runs for a few days until normal … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Fires Above Hyperion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104,125,215,148,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-autobiography","category-humour","category-lgbtqia","category-romance","category-young-adult"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8AL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33036,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33031\/revisions\/33036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}