“...hybridity is also the ongoing process of meddling with the structure... being able to influence pacing and add images that morph the narrative into spaces I didn’t even know existed, personal spaces.”

Sandy Tanka is a writer, artist, and designer. She has been working in the comics industry for ten years. Before that, she was an art director, music supervisor, and band manager in Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in fi lm from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She was a nominee for the Pushcart Prize. In 2021, she received the Oregon Literary Career Fellowship. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.

from A MOUTH HOLDS MANY THINGS:
“The Countdown as Seen from 2000 Feet Above”

“The Countdown as Seen from 2000 Feet Above” is a short story by Sandy Tanaka, created originally as a “scrolly-telling” multimedia piece. The story was transposed into image-and-text print format for its inclusion in our hybrid-literary collection A Mouth Holds Many Things. You can view the original multimedia version of the story here or by clicking through the image below:

Artist Reflection

“Countdown” began out of a necessity I felt to access my ancestors, to be in a narrative inaccessible by time and physicality, and emotional connection—the point of view of a uranium-235 gun-type fission weapon. In using the commonality of a countdown, this strict structure as the bomb’s purview forced a very personal second narrative to be told between the stints. It was like holding open crevices and writing in glimpses. Hybridity of narratives. But hybridity is also the ongoing process of meddling with the structure. I was fascinated by the New York Times use of scrollytelling, of being able to influence pacing and add images that morph the narrative into spaces I didn’t even know existed, personal spaces. Not only did it change reader experience, like a zoetrope, it allowed me for the first time to see my ancestors hovering right beside me.