The world of underground comics is daunting and intimidating. Similar to music, there's such a vast array of new material out there, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Also, like music, it exists under a multimillion dollar mainstream industry that probably brought you to the medium in the first place, but after so many rehashes and so much commercialism, you're left wanting a bit more. This isn't meant as a stab against Batman, or X-men, and the like, since many of these properties feature gorgeous art, and brilliant stories featuring iconic characters. But sometimes, however, you want to see what else the medium is capable of, which is where I found myself a few years ago. And it was thumbing through the pages of Kramer's Ergot, at the request of my professor, that I discovered Victor Cayro, better known as BALD EAGLES.
There may very well be more lines in the above drawings then in all my works combined up to this point. And it's not a sketchy mess either. Meticulously laying down each line, like an engineer, building a computer from its base circuitry. The visual style serves as an appropriate vessel for his equally labyrinthine storytelling. Long rambling tirades, a hodgepodge of metaphors and references, and a narrative that clicks from incomprehensible to simple once it all clicks, much like his drawings, if you're willing to devote the time and energy into studying.
Finding out more information on Bald Eagles is challenging. His artwork isn't exactly suited for most audiences, and even within the underground community there is strife and rivalry. Even his most recent projects and updates were old when I first considered this entry a year and a half ago, and it seems little has changed. Hopefully, BALD EAGLES is still out there, somewhere, still making his art, and still not giving a damn what anyone has to say about it.
