“I need support to preserve my humanity”: a prisoner who has been on death row for 15 years opens up in a comic

In 2008, Renaldo McGirth (Florida, 33 years old) became the youngest person to be sentenced to death.

He was 18 years old.

Behind that information there is an event: the assault by three men on a house that ended with the death of a woman.

“I need support to preserve my humanity,” the inmate tells EL PAÍS from death row at the Union Correctional Institution in Florida, where he has been held for 15 years.

That cry for help also appears in the comic

Perpendicular to the Sun

, published this month in Spanish by Salamanda Graphic, where French author Valentine Cuny-Le Callet (Paris, 28 years old) illustrates the correspondence she had with McGirth for almost a decade.

And, incidentally, she reinforces a wave of first works by very ambitious creators that have invaded the comic market in Spain in recent weeks.

Cuny was always tormented by the idea that capital punishment is still in force in the 21st century in some countries around the world (52, according to Amnesty International).

“I cannot conceive the horrors for which they condemned the men I have seen on death row;

That violence surpasses me.

But that of the institutions against them also surpasses me.

To begin with, they mummify their bodies and minds, and then they induce that death, sometimes decades after the events that led to their conviction, sometimes when they no longer resemble the person they were at all," he writes. the young author in what is her first graphic novel.

However, she assures that she did not begin the correspondence with McGirth thinking about writing a book, but rather about approaching that world that outraged her but also provoked curiosity.

The idea of ​​capturing hundreds of thousands of letters in a work came six months after I sent the request to participate in the correspondence program with a person condemned to death, through the Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture (Acat ).

When she, aged 19, first visited McGirth, she was overwhelmed by the images and conversations she heard;

she needed to exorcise those impressions.

More information

Alabama executes a death row prisoner whom he already tried to kill in 2022 with the experimental method of nitrogen asphyxiation

From the introduction of the book, Cuny points out that

Perpendicular to the Sun

is a co-authorship between her and McGirth, but American law prohibits prisoners from obtaining financial gain from the story of their crimes.

“I want people to see what the blessing of friendship can mean to two people.

I want them to see the struggle, but also make them understand that neither I nor they are defined by negative experiences,” Mcgirth explains to this newspaper.

Her responses, subject to detailed scrutiny by the authorities, take several days to arrive.

McGirth has been waiting since 2016 for a new hearing to confirm his death sentence or sentence him to life in prison without parole, after the Florida Supreme Court overturned the ruling, following the Supreme Court's order that all capital sentences after 2002 must be unanimous: his was a decision of four jurors against one.

One of the first pages of 'Perpendicular to the sun'.Salamandra Graphic

The intention of

Perpendicular to the Sun

was never to delve into or be an allegation of the innocence or guilt of its protagonist, according to its creator, but rather to humanize and intrude into the thoughts of a prisoner who does not know exactly when the last time he will wake up will be.

“I am a hostage, but not only of the State, of the law, of appeals, but also of my own dreams and of knowing that today they are further away than when I was a child,” reads a letter from McGirth.

Cuny barely dedicates a couple of pages to reconstructing the assault and what follows are hyper-realistic, highly crafted illustrations that bring to life the head of McGirth, whose missives make up the majority of the book.

The correspondence format provokes a feeling of closeness and the evolution of the authors' friendship is followed.

The reader witnesses firsthand the internal battles of the convict, which become more acute towards the end of the book: “I suffer the effects of my condition.

"It destroys me, it embarrasses me (...) God has made me an authentic human being and no one will take that away from me."

There are also the mental fights of Cuny, who wonders if it is his fault that McGirth goes into depression by making him dig in his head: “At first it caused me a lot of conflict to think if I had done something wrong.

But then I realized that her letters were a message of 'continue', 'keep writing', because each one of them cost her money, effort," says the artist via video call from Texas, where she lives with her husband and has been PhD in Fine Arts.

McGirth says she is happy with the final result of a book that, despite having made her feel vulnerable in the process, is her window to expose herself to the world.

In fact, the cards are your connection with the outside, allowing you to see reality.

He now corresponds with eight people, although some write only once and others only want to share his thoughts on the book.

“In any case it is good because the letters allow me to preserve my humanity, to be part of the world, of their lives... to live outside the bars, the concrete and the steel of this man-made hell.

And to love and be loved,” he responds in writing.

The artist represents herself by investigating all the racist visual references with which the black community was represented.Salamandra Graphic

Seeking the visual representation of thoughts

“How to represent Renaldo's memories, dreams and fears? How to create an image that transmits his voice without betraying it and without usurping his place?” the artist asks herself in the comic.

The answer has two aspects: on the one hand, there are images that reconstruct memories and real places, hyperrealistic drawings with many gray scales;

and, on the other hand, there are the allegorical and symbolic illustrations that represent the thoughts of the protagonist, and that Cuny makes with woodcuts (engraving on wood).

In both cases there are dark, sometimes cruel vignettes.

“I print very black images.

The drawing was born in the shadows,” says the artist.

By resorting to a realistic style, Cuny relies on countless artistic and documentary references, from Hieronymus Bosch's painting

The Garden of Earthly Delights

to botany books, including photographs from the Florida State Archive.

Her research process is included in the comic and reveals how a racist visual grammar has historically been used to represent black people:

mammys

(derogatory use for black women who did domestic work),

pickaninnies

(pejorative for children of African descent) or the stereotype of his taste for watermelons.

McGirth not only co-wrote the script, but also contributes some images, vivid landscapes that contrast with his confinement.

Cartoonists who debut with avant-garde works

With

Perpendicular to the sun,

Cuny

It joins a series of graphic novels by debut authors published in Spanish between the end of last year and the beginning of this year and who share a vocation for visual and content experimentation.

In

Alison

(Errata Naturae), Lizzy Stewart (Plymouth, 36 years old) offers a meticulous visual portrait of London over the last three decades to tell the story of an artist seeking to make a name for herself on the international scene;

Merel

(Garbuix), by Clara Lodewick (Brussels, 28), challenges a forty-something single woman who divides her time between her ducks and soccer;

Bea Lema (A Coruña, 38) relies on embroidery to remember her childhood with a mother who suffers from mental illness in

The Body of Christ

(Astiberri);

Rotunda

(Swath),

by Candela Sierra (Granada, 33), exposes the job insecurity for young people;

and Zoe Thorogood (Ipswich, 25) narrates the tortuous path to darkness of a painter in

The Inevitable Blindness of Billie Scott

(Reservoir Books).

The lace of the streets of London drawn by Lizzy Stewart in 'Alison', an image provided by the publisher Errata Naturae.

They are award-winning works, applauded by critics and that tell stories of women in adverse contexts.

The protagonist of

Alison

, for example, realizes that she cannot be a renowned painter on her own, in a sector created and structured by men.

Or in

Rotunda

, the protagonist's boss takes advantage of her desperation in search of work to harass her.

“Abuses of power are even in the family.

There is beginning to be a conscience, which is superficial, and often hypocritical.

I had a project in mind for my first comic, but I wanted to express all the contained rage,” says Andalusian Sierra.

They are also stories that start from one's own biographical experience.

As in

The Body of Christ

, where the Galician Lema reconstructs her traumatic childhood with a sick mother.

“It is an exercise in autofiction, it arose from my need to talk about a topic that was taboo at home.

Our life has revolved around my mother's diagnosis.

In the end it is my story, but that of many others, because there is still a taboo around mental illnesses,” says the author about her debut film, which was awarded the audience prize at the last Angoulême Festival.

Stories that show that comics are not afraid to draw on issues that have historically been avoided, such as mental disorders, workplace harassment or inmates who live perpendicular to the sun on death row.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_