Dear readers — today we have an extract from the debut book by Michael D. Kennedy, a cartoonist and illustrator from Tamworth who lives in Birmingham. Kennedy's work has appeared in places like The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Atlantic and his comics collection Milk White Steed, which is set in and around Birmingham, was published last month. He introduces the excerpt below but first, here's your midweek briefing.
Brum in brief
📻 UB40 have come out in support of striking bin workers while appearing on BBC WM radio. Speaking to Ed James on Tuesday, singer and founding band member Robin Campbell said: "Being a binman is a dirty job but someone has to do it and I think they should get paid whatever they're worth." He and drummer Jimmy Brown were also quick to reject the idea that residents should be embarrassed of the city following weeks of international press coverage about the crisis that has led to messy streets and piles of uncollected rubbish.
🗑️ Meanwhile, a resolution to the strikes is still out of reach (at the time of writing) although 85 per cent of rubbish has reportedly been cleared from the streets. However, there has been more coverage of the potential, broader implications of the dispute. This article in Moneyweek considers the impact of equal pay disputes on private sector employers, while Angela Rayner has come under fire by Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith for upcoming reforms to workers rights and union powers. He says the changes will make strikes more disruptive, as reported in The Times here.
Quick hits
🚄 HS2 is set to undergo a 'programme reset' involving a cost and schedule review. The first trains are supposed to leave Brum for London between 2029 and 2033 but CEO Mark Wild cannot confirm if this is still the case.
⚖️ The 15-year-old boy charged with the murder of 12-year-old Leo Ross appeared in court on Tuesday for an initial hearing ahead of his trial next month. The five week trial at Coventry Crown Court is expected to begin on 23 June.
📺 Joe Lycett's new Sky Max TV series United States of Birmingham, in which the comedian travels to the US and Canada in search of 18 other Birminghams, has been called "weirdly edifying and gently revealing" by The Independent.
With my work, I’m attempting to recreate classic Beano or Dandy comics combined with dark fairy tales, horror, science fiction and social history. I use these contrasting forms to write short stories about overlooked elements of Midlands life. These usually involve the experiences of the working class, ethnic minorities and those who have been pushed to the margins throughout British history. They are, effectively, folk stories.
My debut book Milk White Steed is a collection of ten comics (seven of which are about the Midlands) that often focus on characters from the Caribbean diaspora. My parents' families came to Birmingham from Barbados and Ireland to rebuild Britain after World War Two. This movement of people made me think about the folklore that migrated with them. Did spirits smuggle themselves in suitcases and cross the Atlantic to settle down in Small Heath or Aston? What lives would those spirits live? Would they also complain about the weather here? What events were they a part of? Who would they haunt?
Combining different styles of comic, exploring Afro-Caribbean folklore and portraying Birmingham in one has meant I’ve trodden new ground. Responses to the book range from describing it as “poetry” to “tragicomic” to downright “weird”. I’d agree and say my comics are trying to be all these things! These responses mirror my day-to-day life in the Midlands, and Birmingham in particular. It’s a city full of contrasts, lyrics, laughs, melancholy and the bewildering.
The extract published here is from the short story ‘Milk White Steed’ from which the collection takes its title. As a story, it embraces absurdity to the point where the wheels start to come off. It is partly set on a bus, the 110 route from Tamworth to Birmingham, via Sutton Coldfield and Erdington. I know this route intimately as it was my lifeline to culture and university as a small town lad. Historically it is a market route that was used centuries before my grandparents came to Britain.
Set during the years between Brexit and the pandemic, the events of the comic combine about two years of social madness. Two years of division, fervour and terror that I witnessed or was subjected to in public. It also reflects on my unhealthy relationship with drinking as a young man. After processing these post-Brexit experiences for a few years, I felt ready to confront what I had experienced in pen and ink on paper.
The milk white steed of the title is the trigger for the main character’s woes and sudden ability to begin noticing these tough events in the city and on the bus. In the story she is on her way to Birmingham to hand her CV in at a shop when she is astonished to see a horse in a field, dressed in a zebra striped body warmer. She (rather ludicrously) interprets this as a form of cultural appropriation and she begins to see things differently in her world. The title refers to the motif in English folk songs about heroes riding in on their horses to save the day. Ironically, the steed in my comic only haunts my heroine as she navigates these ancient market town roads in the 21st century. It’s a pretty weird scenario but Birmingham is full of weirdness which I try to bring to life in these brightly coloured comics.
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