Hot Ground Hits Heavy Metal Tomorrow
It's a pretty big week for us at Coker CoOp! Not only are the first-round digital Kickstarter rewards for Crocodile Dance hitting inboxes tomorrow (31st), but our short story, "Hot Ground," is also being released in the North American edition of Heavy Metal Magazine's latest issue, "Paradise Lost."🤘🏾.
Here are a few images of BTS for the book. It was released a couple of years ago in French, and now we English luddites get to enjoy it 😚
Hot Ground is the story of Ògún and Ò̀s̀un's first encounter. Here's context from the book:
In Shof and Shobo Coker’s “Hot Ground,” [p. 112] gods are more sovereign beings, living their own lives and seeking their own truths.
Unlike in the real world, power, in many ancient beliefs, is an organic force flowing between entities fated to their particular jurisdictions and wielded only by those worthy of it.
This particular tale traces a relationship well-storied in the Yoruba pantheon—that of Ògún, the patron of iron, artists, artisans, and technology, and Ò̀s̀un, the river goddess of love…an earthly deity.
According to Shof, this connection between the heavenly and earthly realms is oft-strained, tempestuous but always seeking balance in the name of creation.
“It mirrors the real life tension between vision and execution, the friction of making, the intimacy of bringing something into being from nothing,” says Shof.
If gods can be defined by their ability to create…by the song and dance of life itself, then are artists gods? And if so, does that mean we hold the power to create paradise?
