“I think God appointed me to call attention to the fact that the patriarchy is bogus and that men are not destined by God to be the rulers of all everything, including women”. Underground comix luminary Willy Mendes lays out her trippy alternate vision of creationism by a woman’s hand in this monumental work. With pieces dating back to the formative years of the comix scene up through the present day, the book reveals a cartoonist’s trajectory interrupted, only to be resumed decades later to far greater effect.
Buy Queen of Cosmos Comix TrilogyAfter her initial forays into comix the 1970s, where she was in the mix with many of its most notable figures including lifelong friend Trina Robbins, Mendes largely abandoned the scene in favor of fine arts and murals. That artistic mindset is on display in the book, with the bulk of it produced within the last decade. Mind-expanding, full-page pieces burst with intricate details and vibrant colors, drawing readers into a wondrous alternate vision of creationism at the hands of the Queen of Cosmos. The Queen is a groovy spiritual matriarch who expects her creations to act with similar compassion, never anticipating men rising to power, corruption, and lies. Sadly, even though she’s the all-powerful originator, the Queen still loves all of her creations, allowing the patriarchy to flourish through the centuries after her failed early reset attempt, the biblical Great Flood. Mendes paints a fascinating alternate vision of how creation could have gone with a woman in charge, even if the end results don’t stray far from our present reality.
The story is split into three books, with the first two having been previously published elsewhere but the third seeing print for the first time in this collection. Book one is rendered in black and white, with roughly half produced beginning in 2016 but also incorporating her early works from the 1970s, giving the volume the overall feel of a lost underground comic. Book two is where her muralist instincts take over, produced in full, eye-popping color that occasionally feels like a collection of fine art pieces rather than an ongoing narrative. Following brain surgery to prevent an aneurysm, Mendes crafted book three in the past few years, showing a subtle loosening of her line and slightly duller hues, but generally keeping pace with the mastery of book two.
Taken as a whole, the book is a freewheeling and wildly inventive trip through the cosmos. The creation story is laid out, but acts as more of a framework than a defining story, with Mendes following her stream of consciousness through many detours and breaks from logic along the way. For example, the latter half of book three details her own family history over the last 50 years, more the diary of a doting grandma than a direct continuation of the Queen’s story. Unrelated pieces are interspersed on a whim, such as a Kamala Harris-coded mural of a valiant woman riding a donkey to victory. She also changes her writing style, falling into rhyme for most of the final two books, which brought to mind my own grandmother’s fondness for writing rhymes in her later years.
The book concludes with a wide-ranging, multi-part interview with Mendes that provides a captivating look at her career, life, and thought processes. She demonstrates all the hippie weirdness and no-nonsense senior stubbornness one would expect, while also discussing her deep attachment to Jewish religion in spite of its strict patriarchy that prohibits her desired level of involvement. The interview adds meaning to the comic, with her feminine-forward story clearly a pointed response to the religious boys club she’s denied in real life, as well as the corporate greed of the overall societal patriarchy.
Mendes never loses sight of her underground roots, with that same “anything goes” sensibility honed in ‘70s comix carried all the way through to the present, making this collection a stunning and exciting discovery of a comix master who has been hiding in plain sight for over 50 years.
