The Sparrow Hawk: the real story of the Early Warbird

By Ricardo Tronconi

The only useful clue leading back to a non-conventional superhero's actions is a sparrow hawk's feather (or Early Warbird), left behind as a kind of signature. Nobody can guess what's beneath this ambiguous presence, who chastens men guilty of violence against women in mysterious ways (painfully, in any case).
The comic artist Ju, after a chance meeting with Victor Patillas, founder of a publishing company, takes the job as an illustrator and that's when he embarks on a journey, plunging into the Sparrow Hawk's world, the main character in the comic series he's expected to illustrate. Thus the character of Ketty comes to life, she, a victim of abuse from her brother-in-law, permanently haunted by that traumatic experience and by a family fully convinced she is the cause of it all. Taking shape as a simple illustration at first, Ketty and her friends become more and more real, finally blending into reality itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: La Novella Orchidea
• Release date: Jan 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220255516

Book preview

THE SPARROW HAWK

THE REAL STORY OF THE EARLY WARBIRD

Text translation by Alessia Bettini

Based on a true story

To Ketty.

CHAPTER 1

Of this story and its dark twists, I'm going to tell you the beginning and the continuation, still alive today and not shrouded in secrecy anymore.

It all started long ago, when, at 35 years old and in love with drawing, I lived with my wife in a tiny suburban one-room flat, whose meagre rent put our equally meagre finances in serious difficulty. I was good at drawing, but I lacked a credible story intended for an undemanding large audience, willing to spend a little money to get excited without thinking too much. My wife was a young doctor, penniless just like me and doing an unworthily paid job, only suited to ensure we pay the rent in a mere shack, utilities excluded.

We survived doing small occasional jobs, me as a handyman, her as a baby sitter, so we could afford a daily meal, if you could call it that.

On a Monday like any other, as I was wandering about in the supermarket near home looking for food at lower prices, I met a fine fellow more or less my age, in pilgrimage with a shopping cart just like me. He was coming speedily from an aisle, I was speeding down another. The collision was inevitable. Not a serious accident, ours, but after crashing, the carts were so wedged together that the staff was forced to intervene. It took about an hour to collect the things we had bought, since, in the meanwhile, there had been a pile-up among the carts coming from other aisles towards the obstacle which our carts represented. Nevertheless, during that seemingly endless timeframe, a new friendship formed between the man I had collided with and me. His name was Victor Patillas and he was one of the tycoons in the cultivation of watermelons worldwide. While the staff was busy trying to untangle and free the twisted metal of the carts with the help of a blowtorch, he told me that recently he had been dedicating himself to electronic publishing. He was looking for capable comic artists, beginning with the stories which his publishing company, Las Patillas, was selling on the Net. I promptly took advantage of the opportunity Victor was offering me.

I'm an illustrator. I said, without the slightest hesitation.

Good! exclaimed Patillas, looking at me thunderstruck. It’s clear we were meant to meet, or better, to collide. If you'd like, my dear Ju, I'll send you the first draft of the story we are ready to publish. You could do a few drawings and then we'll see whether a new character might be created out of them.

I said to Victor that I accepted immediately. A golden chance such as that was unique.

When the firemen managed to free an old lady involved in the collision, we parted, but not before exchanging our mail addresses. That night, at home, I told my wife what had happened in the supermarket.

Our lives were about to take another road, though not the kind I thought.

CHAPTER 2

The first of the chapters I was expected to transform into comics arrived a week after the accident in the supermarket. Victor had kept his word. In the attachment, some notes I should strictly adhere to:

"Dear Ju, here are some chapters from the novel, so that you can start drawing. As you will see, it is a very simple story and quite intricate at the same time. It deals with a cartoonist drawing an avenger who's not been given any special powers, who goes by the unusual name of Sparrow Hawk. Some among my associates have suggested that we call him Warbird, but I don't like it, except if we attach the adjective Early to the name. You'll be wondering: why Early Warbird? Well, our hero has a preference for taking action at dawn, let's say between three and six in the morning. The Sparrow Hawk is ageless and asexual, with a mysterious past and appears to be ambiguous when striking out against Evil. What I mean is it definitely isn't an angel and sometimes goes too far with vigilantism. It wears a dark red cloak almost down to its feet and a black mask covering its eyes. No hat and a tight fitting black overall which looks reddish under the cloak. Its shoes are the sort Peter Pan wears, except for a sparrow hawk's feather at the back. In the chapters I've sent you, the cartoonist is dealing with the first of the Early Warbird's adventures. I would set the story in a northern or south central town, as you please. A small village would do too. Against this background, a young man, Retch, who's going to marry his sweetheart Samira, begins to harass the latter's younger sister, Ketty, barely more than fifteen, groping her inopportunely and hinting at sexual innuendos. Samira learns about everything from Ketty. Their parents are informed too, but incredibly they blame it all on Ketty, too pretty to be true. Ketty's mother and father declare that Retch can't be sent away from Samira, since it would give rise to an unmanageable situation for her, opening a wound which would prove unlikely to heal. Not to mention just what to say to close relatives, eager to become a hindrance in difficult situations and so generously judgmental about others' wickedness, while hiding their own. The Sparrow Hawk alone will be able to save Ketty from Retch's dirty claws, restoring the perfect harmony