Loo Hui Phang (writer), Hugues Micol (art)
Maximus Wyld had his heyday in 1940s-50s Hollywood. Of mixed race Black, Chinese and Native American descent, he was "the actor with a thousand faces”, essentially interpreting ethnic roles: Indian chief, Mexican revolutionary, oriental dandy...
A veritable reinterpretation of the myth of American cinema through the prism of minorities, Erased reveals the political and social dimension of Hollywood productions.
Maximus Ohanzee Wildhorse, renamed “Maximus Wyld” by Hollywood, was a talented, prized, admired comedian. His filmography is an anthology of cinema: Vertigo, the Maltese Falcon, Sunset Boulevard, the Prisoner of the Desert, Rebecca...
Copper faced and with unprecedented beauty and animal presence, he paved the way for colored stars in an segregationist climate. After him, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Yul Brynner were able to reach the rank of stars. His charisma ignited white cinema and shamelessly swayed its racial hegemony. Maximus Wyld was a pioneer. However, no credits mention his name. On celluloid there is no imprint of his face. Maximus the precursor rests in the graveyard of Hollywood amnesia. What event pushed him into limbo? What occult and superior force has stored his career in a cinematic Bermuda Triangle?
*This work was awarded the Grand Prize in non-fiction for excellence in publication and translation as part of Albertine Translation.
* Read Peter Debbene's interview with author Loo Hui Phang in Foreword!
* Listen to Calvin Reid's interview with Loo Hui Phang on the PW Comics World "More To Come" podcast!
REVIEWS:
"The book addresses a broad range of social issues through an early Hollywood lens, including the treatments of women and marginalized people… With its moody black-and-white panels... Erased is a dazzling graphic biography."
- Peter Dabbene, Foreword
"...an inventive dissection of the history of Hollywood filmmaking and its role in shaping American racial stereotypes that have lingered into the present day."
- Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly (Panel Mania)
"Readers interested in entertainment history and the long arc of social justice will be drawn to this glimpse of Hollywood as it almost was."
- Publishers Weekly
"...an exciting, disturbing portrait of Hollywood’s cultural power during its heyday."
- John M. Clum, New York Journal of Books
"...one is transported into what feels like a solid work of non-fiction which...makes for a much more powerful work of fiction."
- Lindsay Pereira, Broken Frontier
"Unreservedly recommended."
-Able Greenspan, Midwest Book Review
"[A] fascinating take on the less glittery parts of Hollywood."
- Patti Martinson, Sequential Tart
8 ½ x 11, 200pp., B&W hardcover, $24.99
ISBN 9781681123387
Buy the ebook: $16.99
ISBN 9781681123394