Book Review - George Mann's Motherbridge: Seeds of Change
Motherbridge: Seeds of Change by George Mann and Aleta Vidal
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: June 7th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 88 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Twenty years ago Mother Nature did what no human could, she united the world. The World Mother awoke and formed a bridge that spanned the globe, making borders irrelevant and migration anywhere a possibility. A "one-world nation, blind to creed or color, to allegiance or belief." Like so many others Hayley Wells used this miracle to create a new life for herself. She left England and settled in New York where she married and had two children. But then utopia failed. The World Mother went silent and the worldbridge began to die and governments used the opportunity to segregate. To bring the walls back. To make it us and them again. Haley was dragged from her bed in the middle of the night. It didn't matter that she was married to an American, she came into the country illegally as the government saw it and she was to be made an example of. With a gun to her head she was walked out beyond the walls and left to fend for herself. She was thrust into a wondrous and ruinous world. Where nature had reclaimed the constructs of man. She is surprised that there is far more life than she ever expected. She's a refugee and there are others. Haley walks into a confrontation. A group is attacking two individuals and it doesn't sit right with Haley. She tries to break up the fight and somehow the worldbridge stirs for her. This is against everything she has heard. Behind the wall they've been told that the worldbridge is dead, and yet somehow it responded to her. She hasn't just been exiled, she's been lied to. This makes her desire to be reunited with her family by bringing down the walls that separate them even stronger. With the help of Constanza and Doyle can they awaken the World Mother? Can Haley help her new friends survive the forces arrayed against them and return the world to the utopia it had become or will she forever be a refugee?
Despite being such a bookworm now I was a reluctant reader in grade school. Therefore I loved comics and graphic novels. Betty and Veronica, The Family Circus, and in particular Classics Illustrated Comics, which was basically CliffsNotes in an illustrated format and made me appear far more widely read than I really was at the time. As I got older and appreciated prose more I never turned my back on my first literary love. Which is why I'm a happy camper when authors whose prose work I love expand to other mediums. George has been working in comics for years and Motherbridge: Seeds of Change is another stellar addition to his copious output. What I really connected to was that I could appreciate it at the age I am now and as that young girl hiding behind the table in the far corner of the library so the librarian, Sister Marie, wouldn't yell at me for sneaking a peak at the comics. What I'm rather inexpertly saying is, that while this comic is written for adults it has such relevant topics that it could be read by young reluctant readers and would give them a book that is very of the moment but that doesn't talk down to you, like L. Frank Baum was notorious for. Because Motherbridge: Seeds of Change is bringing in some heavy topics; immigration, female rights, climate change, forced separation, the military industrial complex, and yet it never feels preachy or politicized, while still being political. It makes you open your eyes. And isn't that what reading is about? People who read are more empathetic and we need empathy now more than ever. It would also be nice if nature actually came along and "tried to balance the system for us," but I have a feeling we're going to have to do the work. But if more people read books like this, if more people connect to each other, what couldn't we do?
I have always loved epic stories set in India. Indian Summers tapped into that on many levels. Set during the waning days of the British Raj, there's a sense that the party was winding down and these characters were grasping for whatever they could get, leading them to, more often than not, make disastrous choices. The show has very little in the way of plot other than lots of romantic obstacles, but the stellar cast makes up for any plot defects. Come one people, Julia Walters! Not to mention Patrick Malahide, Nikesh Patel, Art Malik, Blake Ritson, and Craig Parkinson. I could just watch them wander the lanes between their precious club and their homes for hours on end. The insufferable heat they were trying to escape by summering in Simla, in the foothills of the Himalayas, is palpable onscreen and made me feel like I was there. I know there are a lot of people who took issue with the show, primarily due to the fact that instead of actually filming in India they filmed in Penang, Malaysia, and, well, you can tell, but it still succeeded in creating that atmosphere of suffocating and insufferable British superiority where they refuse to dress for the climate because that wouldn't be British. I can even see them sitting around set declaring themselves to be in India when they were not. I do wish the show had been given a chance to play out over the intended five seasons, because they started moving more into the political upheavals that were on the horizon in India with Gandhi and contrasting his power with that of the Raj with the introduction of Art Malik as the Maharajah of Amritpur in season two. A change was in the wind and the cracks really started to show in season two and then it just ended! And what about the romance between Alice and Aafrin! The series ends with a potential happy ending for the mixed race couple, but would that have actually lasted if the show went on for three more seasons? Or did they shoehorn this in to give the audience some kind of happy ending even though anyone who has any sense of history would know how hard the life they chose would be in 1935. Also would the show have tackled World War II? But I have to settle with what we got, a slice of life, not perfect, but very atmospheric.
