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Mon Jun 1, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Funny Misshapen Body'
One of the really interesting aspects about the growth in graphic novels is that more and more people are using the form for memoirs and autobiographical works. Will Eisner explored growing up in the tenements, kicking things off, and since then we have had utterly fascinating works that detail romance, aging, life on the streets and the like.
Jeffrey Brown has been mining his experience in numerous works and has made a name for himself with his books, beginning with Clumsy, which has been acclaimed since its release in 2005 and has remained in print since Top Shelf acquired rights in 2007. Brown has done short and long works, all with observations on life and work and art. His work has won him numerous accolades and he has even gone on to direct a music video for Death Cab For Cutie.
Before Funny Misshapen Body
Brown’s style is a little on the crude side, but he keeps his page design fairly consistent, mostly the six panel grid. He doesn’t try and confuse with pyrotechnics but fills every panel with detail. His simple style manages to convey time, place, and emotion so one is never confused. The lettering could be cleaner and better space for legibility, but there’s an earnest feeling to the drawings, letting us watch him try and fail, finding his way. The story is told in chapters and in a non-chronological way but by the time you finish the 308 pages, you can put the pieces together and see what he has accomplished.
The adversity he faced included his own slacker ways through college, fueled by disinterested and clueless art professors. His diagnosis and handling of Crohn’s Disease is largely confined to one chapter but clearly affected everything that followed. Similarly, we get glimpses at friendships and lovers, all of which were influential but the book keeps returning to Brown’s herky-jerky path towards working as a professional artist. His trial and errors are exposed along with the tremendous support he received from artist Chris Ware.
There are moments of humor and times you shake your head at how stupid he was for wasting so much time getting drunk, but all in all, you find yourself cheering Brown as he found acceptance for his work, and finally a point of view to his artwork that culminates with the arrival of Clumsy from the printer.
For those who aspire to working in the field, this is a good travel guide and for those of us who like to see how others live and learn, this is a good picture of life in the 1990s. The engaging book can turn most into fans of Brown’s work.
Sun May 31, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Revolutionary Road' on DVD
America had won World War II, becoming the first true Super Power of the 20th Century. But with it came a price and that was a desperate desire among the populace to preserve their freedom through an amazing sense of conformity. Being different was seen as being un-American and you were likely to be accused of being a Communist, which had replaced being a Nazi as the vilest kind of person.The spread of television and the broadcaster’s desire to present a harmonious vision of an ideal lifestyle led to a sameness from coast to coast that the country had never experienced before. Nor had the country really seen the rise of suburbia as people commuted by the tens of thousands to jobs in the nearby city, which also had it s affect on society.
Against all of this, Richard Yates wrote the 1961 novel Revolutionary Road
that was the first work of fiction to examine the cost this conformity exact from the soul of the individual and society as a while. The acclaimed work had resisted being adapted into film until Kate Winslet campaigned for nearly four years to get the film made by her husband, director Sam Mendes.The resulting production, coming out Tuesday on DVD, quickly became a critics’ darling, garnering three Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe nominations. Starring Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, it told of the Wheelers and the day they woke up to declare they didn’t want to be trapped by the conformity that was suffocating them.
By 1955, they were married with two children, living in Connecticut while Frank commuted to Manhattan to work at the same business machine firm as his father while April felt suffocated in her perky home. She seized on the notion they should follow Frank’s youthful dream of living in Paris so he could figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. She had the then-radical notion of working to support him while he figured it out and her fervor was such that he initially signed on. As the summer progressed, you could watch his cold feet developing as he turned 30 and appeared to lack the courage to act.
The film does a nice job of showing Frank’s isolation despite being surrounded by an army of men in their gray flannel suits contrasted with April’s loneliness in the house. You see them fiercely trying to maintain their marriage while they each drifted in different directions. When April revealed her pregnancy, it became the moment they seemed to permanently part.
The film nicely realizes 1950s suburbia, from the kinds of appetizers served to company, to the uniformity of business attire in the office. What it fails to do is show them in the greater context of their life. The two children are mere decorations with neither parent apparently having any relationship with them. April seems to have a mere two friends despite her participation, no doubt with the children’s peers and their parents. There’s no real sense of their social circle; instead, we’re told they were a special couple but we’re never shown what that means.
As a result, we’re told a lot but not shown enough to understand how they came together and then violently pulled apart. The dialogue is well done by Justin Haythe and delivered by top performers but ultimately, I’m left with an incomplete portrait. The stars are ably supported with the familiar likes of Jay O. Sanders, Dylan Baker, and Kathy Bates.
Nearly stealing the film out from under them is Michael Shannon’s performance as John Givings, a mentally disturbed adult who acts as the vocal conscience for April and Frank. The madman is the only one to see the hypocrisy of their world which is a metaphor that could have been explored further.
The film needed more to win me over but it’s a riveting drama despite its flaws. The DVD comes complete with a handful of deleted scenes, some of which expanded on the themes but reveal nothing new. The 30 minute Making Of featurette gives lip service to the themes but spends a lot of time on the costuming and set design, all of which contributed to the feeling of isolation.
There’s never a hint that while the couple battled the world they made for themselves, there were others slowly evolving beyond the constraints of the expected. Rock and Roll, the Beat Generation, and the civil rights movement were all bubbling to the surface at the time of the film, and the destination from Revolutionary Road could have been found had they worked together to find it.
Sat May 30, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Valkyrie' on DVD
World War II seems to have generated countless stories about heroism and bravery, stories told for the point of view of the allies and the axis, stories told about life on the homefront and life in the foxhole. As a result, it remains an enduring source of fodder for filmmakers as more and more details come to the surface. Through the 1950s and 1960s, most of the WW II movies were highly fictionalized accounts and by the 1970s war stories were played out, fewer and further between. In the last decade, we’ve had history to sift through and we now know of Schindler’s List. Valkyrie, Bryan Singer’s entry into the pantheon, intended to tell us of the closest a plot to assassinate Hitler came to working. Presuming you were taught anything about the war in school, you might not even know there were over a dozen attempts to kill the Chancellor of the German Republic.It’s a story worth telling but it should have been better told. The film was well structured by writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and Singer is to be commended for shooting on location, which gave the film a great look. The cast, led by Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard, is to-notch with many performers closely resembling their real world counterparts.
All that was missing was giving a damn about any of these players. The script drained each and every character of personality, sapping the energy out of a story that should have been as compelling as the facts. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, credited as the mastermind behind using Hitler’s own Project Valkyrie against him, was actually an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany. He was a brilliant, well-educated man who spoke multiple languages, loved literature and was partial to horses as well as being a family man, raising four children and embarking on his mission while his wife carried their fifth child.
Wish some of that came through beyond perfunctory scenes of him leaving the family to go kill the Führer. Cruise is restrained but also bland. The others allying himself were also drained of personality so we never understand why everyone revered Ludwig Beck (Stamp), who was actually quite the legendary figure and a reason so many signed up for the July 20 Plot. Instead, Stamp sits around and makes phone calls.
The actual plot is like a Mission: Impossible story with the usual complications but add to this a lack of conviction on the parts of various players, which at first slows and later tips the balance of action on that fateful day in 1944. It’s fascinating to see the way communications worked back then, and how people had to sit around and wait for the news over the teletype or radio.
In the end, though, we see how the plot failed and what became of the conspirators but by then, their fates leave you unmoved because after nearly two hours you don’t care about any of them.
Instead, you can skip the movie and go the special features on the DVD, now available. There’s the usual Making Of which shows the detail that went into securing the locations and what some of the locale people thought of the production, especially those still alive who recalled that day. But, best of all, is the 42-minute documentary from Kevin Burns that tells a far more compelling story as the children of von Stauffenberg and other conspirators discussed what they remember plus what their lives were like in the years that followed. This made us care and showed an aftermath the film barely acknowledged. The documentary also tells us some 700 people associated with the plot were tried – that’s a much larger scope than implied in the film which would have given the story more impact.
If I were you, I’d rent the disc, skip the film and watch the documentary.
Wed May 27, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Taken' on DVD
No one knew what to make of Taken
The movie, though, is thoroughly predictable. Liam’s 17-year-old daughter goes to France with a pal and immediately gets kidnapped by a white slavery ring. Former Special Forces (or whatever) Dad flies over and is told he has a mere 96 hours to find her of she vanishes forever. So, we know there will be mayhem, the clock will tick down and he will save her. It’s a modern day Charles Bronson flick. I get that.
The trick is to make the journey an enjoyable one and frankly, it’s so standard that there’s little to be entertained by. Fights, car chases, double-crossing people, been there, seen that.
Neeson is not your first thought as an action star, Star Wars notwithstanding. He’s more the everyman and he wrings your sympathy and you cheer to see him in action, regardless of the predictable outcome.
What would have been a lot more interesting would have been to show us two points of views, not just Liam Neeson’s. The most original thing in the film is the moment he tells her she will in fact be kidnapped. From that point, it would have interesting to see parallel tracks – while Liam Neeson sought his daughter throughout Paris; we also see what Maggie Grace as the daughter had to endure. As it stands, she appears to be the only one who was not drugged, not sold right into street prostitution and by happenstance, the sole virgin capping off an auction for international clientele. That makes her a little too precious and frankly, would have given Grace, a capable actress if too old for the role, something to do other than look terrified or cry.
In fact, other than Neeson, no one is given much of anything to do or so say to round out the story and show us the world Neeson thought he left behind.
Cowritten by Luc Besson (The Professional) and Robert Mark Kamen (The Transporter films), the film felt on autopilot from beginning to end. And with 96 hours to accomplish his task, we’re never given a good sense of when Neeson sleeps, eats, or actually rests. Sure, he’s driven, but he can’t be at his peak for that length of time and the story avoids the issue entirely, a common problem with stories like these. Pierre Morel directs with a nice attention to detail and setting, getting a good, smoldering performance from Neeson but everything else looked pretty much like his Transporter.
The movie comes in the release edition and an extended version that amplified the violence here and there but adds nothing to the story and barely three minutes to running time. The extras are perfunctory with Le “Making Of” featuring everyone gushing over how wonderful everyone else was. The Inside Action: Side by Side Comparisons of six sequences is more interesting.
The stars and crew are all capable of so much more; the overall product is a lackluster affair.
Tue May 26, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Star Trek Movie Collection' on Blu-ray
It is most logical for Paramount Home Video to be flooding the shelves with product capitalizing on the release of Star Trek. We’ve been treated to the various Best Of sets, the first season of the original series and now the first six feature films all making their Blu-ray debut
The sextet of films featuring the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise was, at best, an uneven affair. It all began when Paramount floundered throughout the 1970s, unsure of how best to capitalize on the growing fan base for the canceled series. It made sense to launch a fourth television network with a revived Star Trek but when that was derailed, it took a while for them to figure out what to do next. George Lucas and Star Wars changed all that. Unfortunately, the corporate handwringing over the next two years meant we were presented with a turgid film that may have featured the cast but lacked the feel of Gene Roddenberry’s series.
The Motion Picture’s costumes were monochromatic bores, much like the performances wrought by director Robert Wise, and the crew were never really given much a chance to show that they still liked one another. Instead, we’re given some new faces to dilute the story and the conflict between the Enterprises new captain, Stephen Collins, and his predecessor, William Shatner, is never fully developed. Nor is the story about Spock and his search for something beyond pure logic. Instead, we’re left gazing at some kinda nice visuals as V’ger comes to menace Earth. It’s slow, ponderous and more than a bit of a mess. For $44 million, Paramount expected something more satisfying and profitable.
Turning the franchise back to the television division and asking for a fresh start with a quarter of the budget was perhaps the most inspired move. Veteran Harve Bennett was given the show to run and did so by combining with director Nicholas Meyer to give us the single best feature of them all. Why? Because it had everything from nifty one-liners from the crew, a philosophical debate over a truly important matter, a memorable villain and a good guest cast. Killing Spock to accommodate Nimoy also meant the status quo could change which was a good sign.
The next two films, though, suddenly turned the solid Wrath of Khan into the beginning of a trilogy that really doesn’t hang together. The Search for Spock was crafted to allow Leonard Nimoy back on board but did so without giving us anything but the most stock of Klingon villains. The philosophical and moral debates from the previous film are gone and Kirk watches the son he just met die for no obvious reason. Robin Curtis, replacing Kirstie Alley as Saavik, wasn’t given enough to show she could be as interesting a character. Nimoy also made a nice debut as a director although the film felt claustrophobic and shot entirely on sets which didn’t help.
The Voyage Home wisely changed the tempo and look. Nimoy grows as a director and the humor is all character-based which is terrific. The fish out of water theme nicely works as does the ecological message. A fine way to bring everyone home and reset the mission parameters.
Of course, Shatner has to be given a shot at directing but his ham-fisted story development and desire to search for god without really exploring how everyone views the deity is a notion that arrives stillborn. Shoehorning Sybok into the Spock family tree doesn’t help matters nor does the lackluster performances by the guest cast. And the humor here is more slapstick than necessary and the supporting cast is ill-served.
As a result, Meyer was brought back for what everyone acknowledged would be the final original cast film, The Undiscovered Country. Given an opportunity to go out with a bang, the story is strong but the execution isn’t quite as sharp as it should be. Overall, it was a pretty fine way to go out, leaving us wanting more.
Today, we get that in the case of the DVDs with hours upon hours of extras. Most noteworthy among them is the extra disc with a roundtable discussion between Shatner, Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and moderator Whoopi Goldberg. Here's a preview:
Each disc comes with its own set of extras, many of which are already included on the DVD versions. New commentaries and featurettes freshen each film’s experience. I can quibble that Blu-ray should have allowed Paramount to include both the original Motion Picture and the more-recently released director’s cut. The discs collect the High-Def features plus the special two-disc DVD features, so all together, you get 2.5 hours or so per film of goodies. New commentaries are added with the previously released comments which could enhance your enjoyment of the films, although little will improve The Final Frontier. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, from the new film, provide some fun commentary on The Voyage Home.
Each disc has a link to BD Live with additional features such as quizzes.
Of the six films, only the best, The Wrath of Khan was given a complete restoration. The rest look better merely because they’re being watched on Blu-ray. All six, though, sound better than thanks to Dolby TrueHD 7.1. Dialogue, sound effects and score all sound vastly improved.
While not as good as the original series season one on Blu-ray, it’s the best these films will look. While the Human Adventure may only be beginning, the revamping and reworking of the films may well be a work in progress so either get them now or wait until some undetermined future date when remastered versions may arrive. The consensus seems to be that the lack of a director’s cut or slightly modified edits of the other films may well mean a new and improved set is in Paramount’s plans.
Mon May 25, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Sunny Side Down'
Tales of Mere Existence began as a series of videos beginning in 1999 and now found at YouTube as Levni Yilmaz drew simple cartoons and added a narrative. They were immensely popular and won some awards and now Simon Spotlight Entertainment has released Sunny Side Down, a collection of those cartoons.The book, the fourth such collection, attempts to humorously take us from birth to old age and the struggles along the way. At first, the early sections were somewhat reminiscent of Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid books but as his cartoon self aged, the material moved into other realms.
He draws in an engagingly simplistic style and he nicely varies the page composition so you don’t get a feeling of sameness. On the other hand, the same cannot be said of the observations. With age comes cynicism and frankly, by the mid-point, as he ponders life after college, the character is downright pathetic, not funny. The material covered here felt familiar, similar themes have been played out on other web comics and even in Doonesbury. Lev seems to be celebrating the slacker lifestyle as opposed to mocking or questioning it.
He looks at types of girls, types of job hunting and shows how sad and pathetic it all is. There’s weariness to his day-to-day existence as he seemingly meanders from home to school to an apartment. There’s no support group of friends or a positive romantic relation, no job that fulfills him even for a month. The pervasive feeling exists from cover to cover and certainly lives up to the title.
In fact, the sense of despair regarding careers and relationships garners some chuckles but taken as a collection, it’s actually a sad commentary that perpetuates stereotypes of an entire generation.
The book’s concluding chapters, the pondering of the future and relevance with advancing years actually covers some fresher territory although the conclusions are fairly bleak.
Yilmaz is a filmmaker who fell into doing the comic material and he seems to have run out of fresh observations because this all felt very familiar. While engaging and entertaining, there’s nothing new to be said here. If you want to sample this for yourself, try the videos before investing in the books.
Sun May 24, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970s Volume One' on DVD
As the 1970s dawned, I was 12 and no longer as interested in Saturday morning fare. There was Little League which was either in the morning or afternoon and I found myself drifting more towards the Bowery Boys shorts that ran on channel 5 after the cartoons wore themselves out. My younger siblings watched, but not with the same passion I had shown just a few years earlier.
For me, the Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Vol. 1
The success of The Partridge Family in prime time and The Archies on Saturday mornings certainly explained by there was so much music, without a single top 40 tune to emerge from any of these groups.
The mysteries could be ascribed to the wildfire success of Scooby Doo, the series that straddled the decades by being introduced in fall 1969 and becoming the most imitated series of the 1970s.
The stories were also vastly different. By 1970, concerns over violence seemed to have begun taming the stories so the level of danger was different. The villains tended to be stupider and more bumbling, prone to slapstick ways of taking themselves out than being subdued by the crime fighters. Groups of teens were proving to find mysteries, stumbling across problems and then fumbling their way through the investigation until the culprit was exposed and then apprehended as much through dumb luck than effective law enforcement.
Scooby Doo, a series I never warmed to through the years, is represented here in an episode from The New Scooby-Doo Movies that guest-starred the Harlem Globetrotters, which had their series so it was a nice but of cross-promotion. The Globetrotters were at the height of their fame around this time and this was a fun brand extension even if none of the players actually did their own voices, leaving that to the likes of Scatman Crothers. In this case, there are too many people caught up in a fairly mediocre story concluding with the guest stars strutting their stuff on the court, doing things that only work in animation. That it needed a laugh track, cueing kids when to laugh speaks volumes of how unfunny this could get.
We are shown just how many imitators there were with episodes from Goober and the Ghost Chasers and Funky Phantom that also featured groups of teens and their pets solving cases. One thing that was never clear, even after watching these, is why these people were friends. Look at Fred and Daphne, the homecoming King and Queen, who in the real world would have nothing to do with Shaggy or Velma. We’re just presented them as an ensemble and the stories move forward. Goober and Funky Phantom are pale imitations with stock stories, stock characters and even overly familiar voice artists doing variations on their characters, especially the great Daws Butler recycling his Snagglepuss for the Phantom.
Other imitators were Josie and the Pussycats which came in 1970, just two years after The Archies. The music was certainly incidental to the story and this one had a vile Captain Nemo who played an organ coming to hate the pop stars and their music.
The one variation that was weird was Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan which was more a “how done it” than “who done it”. In a nice special feature, actor Jamie Farr talked about the series where he wrote three episodes and explained how the network insisted the Clan each had a distinct personality all had to have something to do and each case featured a song from the children’s band. Oddly entertaining with nice voice work from Keye Luke as the famed Chan. It’s also interesting to note that a show with a predominantly Asian cast made it to Saturdays before any African-American series.
The Asian influence was also seen with Hong Kong Phooey, where a dog working as a janitor at the local police station was also the feared martial arts pooch – reflecting the then hot genre of martial arts films. The animation is among the weakest offerings but had its moments.
An oddity was Yogi’s Gang, a show that collected all of the Hanna-Barbera characters from the previous decade and put them on a flying ark. Each episode used different collections of characters, by Yogi, and had adventures. Based on the episode here, the story seems designed to shine the spotlight on each character to say their favorite line or do a character bit. The story, though, had a nifty twist ending which made it satisfying, especially compared with the rest of the stories collected here.
Perhaps the most original series on the two-disc set is Roman Holidays that tried to replicate The Flintstones formula in a Roman era setting. It was about a nuclear family and their exploits – it didn’t look like any of the competition and had some of the best writing, so it’s sad that it lasted a mere 13 episodes.
By the latter part of the decade, Scooby’s imitators were fading fast and CBS was ready to try heroes once more. While ABC was still running Super Friends, there hadn’t been much in the way of heroic adventure but in 1977 they hired Filmation to bring back Batman and try their hand at Tarzan. The former featured Adam West and Burt Ward reprising their prime time roles and both needed better direction because they over-emphasized the phrases or sounded constipated rather than dramatic. With cartoon violence even further de-emphasized by this point, actually fighting the criminals was out so the cases were contrived so the Dynamic Duo could triumph over the likes of the Joker with their wits and equipment. They added Bat-Mite for comic relief and it didn’t work at all. Filmation’s animation recycled much of their earlier Bat-efforts and there isn’t much entertainment to be found. Tarzan, with nice design work from Bob Kline, tried to make Edgar Rice Burroughs’ world palatable to kids and it largely worked.
The final extra on the set is a short piece looking at how odd Funky Phantom was with modern day animation folk such as Paul Dini trying to figure out how and more importantly, why it got made.
Here's a quick preview... enjoy!
Sat May 23, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Volume 1'
Back in the days after the dinosaurs died out, Saturday mornings meant all three networks would run children’s programming from as early as 7:30 until noon or so. Every fall, as we started a new school year, we eagerly anticipated what new animated fare there might be and were mesmerized by the cartoon antics of anthropomorphic animals, adventurous humans and some downright silly-looking monsters. The baby boomers born at the end of the generation were raised on this diet animated diet as it proved cheaper to produce than live-action fare.
Warner Home Video has collected a wonderful sampling of those shows in Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1
Back in the day, with few channels to pick from, we would watch these shows endlessly, repeated throughout the year and then when they went into syndication packages, watch them again. I certainly did with my younger siblings and it was frightening how many of these episodes felt familiar and recognizable.
Wisely, the collection heavily features Hanna-Barbera offerings since they effectively ruled Saturday morning animation. Upstarts such as Filmation, didn’t arrive until 1966 so maybe we’ll see some of those shows in subsequent volumes. Instead, we begin with the enduring figures from The Jetsons to Quick-Draw McGraw.
The earliest offering is The Flintstones, H-B’s biggest hit which actually first aired in prime time and then got recycled on Saturdays beginning in the 1960-1961 season. A year later, Top Cat, another prime time series, moved to Saturdays. Lesser known than Fred and Barney the series used cats led by a finagler, T.C., styled after Phil Silvers. It’s pretty interesting to see Silvers, who immortalized the wheeler-dealer character with his Sgt. Bilko, became the template for more than a few of the characters in these H-B series.
The vocal casts were limited and you began to recognize Don Messick, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Ted Cassidy, and others are they voiced multiple characters throughout the decade. Similarly, H-B’s cartoony style varied little so you got to see stock characters repeated, modified by the addition of a mustache or change in hair color. When the adventure characters come into the spotlight, Alex Toth’s strong design sense comes through again and again.
The shows are not organized in any order but you do get to see pop culture trends infiltrate the shows, modified for their youthful audiences. Secret agents followed by super-heroes slowly edged out the animal exploits so Quick-Draw gave way to Space Ghost. And with the wild success of Batman on ABC’s prime time schedule, the latter half of the 1960s featured many a masked hero. Oddly, the robotic Frankenstein Jr. wore a mask as if a 30-foot tall robot needed an alter ego. The Herculoids is the latest series in the collection, debuting in fall 1967 so the social trends that were reflected in animation will have to wait for volume 2.
Each series is included as a complete 30-minute installment so the secondary features that were commonplace back then, are included. For example, 1965’s Atom Ant also had The Hillbilly Bears and Precious Pup, two features with entirely unconnected themes and casts of characters. Heck, I forgot about Precious until I watched.
The episodes selected are certainly some of the strongest offerings from each series such as the introduction of Rosie on The Jetsons or a confrontation with Zorak on Space Ghost. Watching these, you could feel the writers sometimes struggle to make their simple stories stretch to fill the time allotted. Back then, each 30-minute show ran close to 25 minutes with just a few commercial breaks. As a result, rather the plot twists or characterization, the chase scenes got extended or you had long panning shots of space vehicles or landscapes (such as The Herculoids). The stories all had beginnings, middles, and ends, and while they may not have been the strongest stories, at least made some sense.
The oddity in the set was the inclusion of Marine Boy, a Japanese series, that aired there starting in 1966 and came to America a few years later but never on Saturday mornings; instead, it ran in syndication and played weekday afternoons in New York. The series is a nice touch but the weakest in the bunch given its overly simplistic story and animation. The classical music soundtrack really doesn’t fit the series’ look and the character seems entirely over-dependent on his boomerang (which shouldn’t even work underwater).
I admit it; these were comfort shows at the advanced age of 50. I see their flaws today but also recognize that H-B created an enduring set of players that were unique and fresh and have reason to still be revived in one form or another today. The two-disc set has several fun features including bonus episodes of Quick-Draw McGraw and Snooper and Blabber Mouse. Mini-documentaries celebrate Quick-Draw and the Herculoids with Paul Dini, Mark Evanier, and Jerry Beck holding forth with great delight.
The silliest aspect of the set is that, like the Fleischer Superman cartoons, is labeled “intended for the Adult Collector and is Not Suitable for Children”. To which I say, hogwash. Yes, there’s violence – over-the-top, impossible to repeat bits of business but find this reactionary warning a sad sign of how some things have not changed for the better.
Here's a quick preview:
Wed May 13, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'The Best of Simon and Kirby'
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby have been the gold standard for partnerships in the comic book field. Their work ethic, their creations, and their longevity speak volumes about the duo and speaking of volumes, they are likely the only ones to get DC and Marvel to allow stories from their archives to share two covers,Titan Books has just released the first volume in a six book set celebrating the collected works from Simon & Kirby. The Best of Simon and Kirby
(240 pages, $39.95) is a delightful sampler from the many genres they mastered. Forthcoming will be Joe Simon: The Man Behind the Comics, a more comprehensive autobiography than his previous effort, followed by five volumes focusing on super-heroes (two books), romance, crime, and horror.The oversized book (9.25” x 12.5”) allows the artwork to breathe, showing off the vitality found in every panel. Harry Mendryk has lovingly restored each page, a project he did out of love for the material and has since turned it into a profession. Between Mendryk’s work and the color restoration, each story has that Golden Age feel with the larger dot patterns and somewhat closed up line work.
As selected by project editor Steve Saffel, the stories in this book cover the genres – Heroes, Science Fiction, War, Romance, Crime, Western, Horror, and Humor. Each chapter has the stage set by -- who else -- Mark Evanier, who quickly recaps how the pair’s career evolved, and how they moved from company to company, genre to genre.
We get a sampling of three or so stories per genre plus some covers and it’s just enough to whet your appetite. As one would expect, the adventure heroes shine above all else. The energy in their work is clear, the figures bursting from the panels. We can see Sandman, Captain America, the Vision, Fighting American, and the Fly in derring-do.
The other stories, though, are the revelations as we see that no figure is at rest. Each panel is composed with figures in motion as if standing still was against some Simon & Kirby law. Page composition was fluid and inventive as the pair experimented with keeping the reader’s eye in motion, much like their characters.
Things moved, and they had to since the stories rarely ran over 9-10 pages each. We meet the characters, get into the situation, and before you know it, the story ends. Characterization, if there was any, was all surface and the dialogue was perhaps the weakest aspect of the collaboration. Both were strong draftsmen and inventive storytellers, but all the dialogue sounded somewhat the same.
As creators of the romance comic field, the two told confessionals, as they got in touch with the feminine sides (if that was possible). One such tale, “Weddin’ at Red Rock!” mixed romance with the old west with a nice surprise ending. And it was nice to see that while it was not Kirby’s forte, he could draw an attractive woman when pressed.
About the one genre where Simon excelled and Kirby faltered was the humor field. While Simon created and executed Sick for years, the stories seen here are pale imitations of Mad, with nothing new added to the mix.
If you only know the legendary Simon & Kirby team for their work on Cap or the Newsboy Legion, this book is a must-read. You gain an entirely new appreciation for their efforts and Titan is to be commended for reminding us about the field’s pioneers.
Fri May 8, 2009 — by Andrew Wheeler
Manga Friday: My Karate Is Unstoppable!
Four books in which problems are solved by hitting things
There’s something about the comics form that just lends itself to stories about people in outlandish costumes trying to beat the snot out of each other, often in unfeasible ways using silly powers or items. From giant mecha to Asterix to Spider-Man, it’s just not comics unless you get something ridiculously large dropped on your head, have it shatter into pebbles, and then you shake it off and fight on. And the four books this week all are about fighting in one way or another, and, speaking of funny costumes….
Maid War Chronicle
By RAN
Del Rey Manga, April 2009, $10.99
Prince Alex II of Arbansool is the usual feudal scion – pig-headed, self-centered, and barely smarter than a block of wood – but he’s the last hope of his kingdom after the forces of fiendish Nowarle (neighbor to the south) invade and overrun the capital. He barely escapes with a few retainers. Seven retainers, to be precise. Actually, seven maids.
(What is it with the Japanese and maids? At least these girls are dressed in the semi-sensible Japanese maid style, with long sleeves, aprons, and full skirts trimmed in lace, rather than the “sexy French maid” mostly-lingerie look I’m sure they would have had if this book was created by an American.)
So Alex is loud and demanding and only rarely in touch with reality (and then mostly by accident). He also would be fondling the girls all day long if he weren’t a good foot shorter than any of them, and if they’d take it – luckily, they mostly don’t. Since he’s also convinced of his own power and righteousness, his first order of business, upon escaping the capital, is to run to an ancient shrine that holds twelve secret old weapons. The weapons can only be wielded by knights, so Alex declares the maids a new – sexy – order of knights devoted to protecting only him, and the girls then pull a variety of unfeasible and silly-looking weaponry out of a table.
And then Alex and his girl knights – untrained, still in maid costumes, and generally unsure how their new super-duper magical weapons actually work – set off to find a garrison of still-loyal soldiers and then retake the kingdom. That’s going to take a lot longer than Alex expects, of course.
Maid War Chronicle is silly and generic and full of panty shots – you’d think it would be tough with skirts that long, but you didn’t count on the fiendish ingenuity of the being that calls itself RAN – but it never fails to be fast-paced and entertaining. And it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect a manga called Maid War Chronicle to be, so I certainly can’t fault it there.
Wed May 6, 2009 — by Andrew Wheeler
Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910
Moore & O'Neill's metafictional romp plunges into the 20th century
: “1910”By Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
Top Shelf, April 2009, $7.95
The usual rule in comics is that nothing with two or more colons in its title – not to mention two or more separate numbering schemes – is nothing but rubbishy hackwork, and should be avoided. In this, as in so much else, Alan Moore is the Great Exception, as his newest miniseries comes with a jaw-breaker of a title that sounds like a piece of summer crossover from a stranger and much more literary world than our own.
This volume begins the third major “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” story – last year’s Black Dossier doesn’t quite count, for complicated Moorian reasons – and it continues with the survivors of the team from the first two stories (Mina Harker and a rejuvenated Alan Quatermain posing as his own son), augmented by several more fictional characters (Orlando, Raffles, Carnacki) to continue their work preserving England from obscure horrors, reporting in to the secret group headed by Mycroft Holmes.
There will be two more volumes in this story – each set in, and titled after, a different and widely spaced year in the last century – so 1910 is mostly set-up. Moore re-introduces the League and sets them to squabbling, since superteams must always fight among themselves. The battling is less ominous this time around: none of the team are as immediately dangerous as Mr. Hyde, nor as sneakily obnoxious as the invisible Mr.Griffin. (So we get Raffles’s sniffing attempts to maintain his requisite stiff upper lip in circumstances he never expected and Orlando engaging in high-quality mincing whenever the slightest opportunity arises, along with Mina’s usual Serious Girl act and very little from the increasingly colorless Alan.)
Continue reading Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910 ›
Fri May 1, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: Wolverine reference books
It's fascinating to see the same material presented in competing books, approached in entirely different ways. DK Publishing, the successful home to the various character-specific Ultimate Guides, offers up Wolverine: Inside the World of the Living Weapon (200 pages, $24.99) while Pocket Books, which has been home to the Marvel novels, gives us The Wolverine Files (160 pages, $40). The former is written by DK mainstay Matthew K. Manning while Mike W. Barr, not a writer normally associated with guide books or Wolverine, handles the second book.Both detail the character's background, his friends, his foes, his greatest capers, and a look at his deeply fractured psyche and tortured soul.
However, Manning's book gives readers a far more detailed accounting of the backgrounds of the characters and storylines. Taking a chronological approach, he offers up overview of specific eras followed by key issue spotlights plus long looks at the key people in his life, both the good and the evil. Interspersed are also short bits regarding how the stories fit in with the overall publishing program at Marvel along with some insight into the creators and their efforts. As a result, this is a far richer, and cheaper, reading experience.
DK, known for its hyperkinetic layouts, tones things done here and makes each spread easier to read, with nice call outs, and judicious graphic selections showing the great range of art styles employed through the years.If this book is to be faulted, it's in not providing enough information regarding the behind-the-scenes work that led to these stories and events. For example, why did Bill Jemas decide that 2001 was the time to finally provide Logan with an origin? Also, Wolverine's unusual friendships with Jubilee and Kitty Pryde are given short-shrift and both deserved more space.
Barr's approach is the more creative, with files, reports, letters and memos from the people in Wolverine's life summing up the man's background and career. Written from the point of view of Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, Jasper Sitwell and others, it has varied voices which make for a different reading experience.
The book is more cleanly designed, resembling a S.H.I.E.L.D. case file with tabs along the edge to replicate the look of a report. There are margin notes from Fury and sections are redacted to give it that "declassified look". The profiles of people and places read not too different from a Marvel Handbook page and the art skews to the works from the last decade and could have benefited from material culled from earlier points in his publishing career.
While a more varied read, it's also not as complete a dossier and for $40, it should offer a lot more, especially with the competitive book.
If both books are beyond your wallet, Marvel competes with their licensees with Wolverine: Weapon X Files, a 64-page comic book for a mere $4.99. Head writer Jeff Christiansen and his ten colleagues have the advantage of the files being the most up-to-date given the shorter schedule for a comic versus a book. The Handbook pages follow the traditional format and scream for a redesign and the pick-up art is hit or miss.
Want more Wolverine after seeing the movie this weekend? You have plenty of options.
Wed Apr 29, 2009 — by Andrew Wheeler
Review: Showcase Presents Ambush Bug by Giffen, Fleming, Oksner, and others
A big fat book of stories making fun of the pre-Crisis DC Universe
Showcase Presents: Ambush Bug Vol. 1
Plot & Pencils by Keith Giffen, Script by Robert Loren Fleming, Inks by Bob Oksner (for most of the stories)
DC Comics, March 2009, $16.99
We all have to look back at the comics of our youth once in a while. It’s not always a pleasant experience, particularly when we’re reminded of what no-taste cretins we once were. But, once in a while, it’s possible to look back and discover that our taste wasn’t that bad, that something we remember as funny was actually clever and inventive as well. Even then, though, we might have to wade in pretty far before we get to the good stuff.
Ambush Bug started off as a random villain in a minor issue of a minor DC comic in late 1982 – DC Comics Presents #52, at that time the Superman team-up book – written by Paul Kupperberg, though the Bug was created by penciller Keith Giffen. He was there purely as an additional complication, as the A story in that issue saw a rampaging Negative Woman (from the then-new incarnation of the Doom Patrol) trashing Metropolis while Supes and her teammates tried to stop her. (And that issue is very of its time, with acres and acres of tedious explanatory dialogue like “The name’s Joshua Clay – Tempest to you, Superman. The lady calls herself Arani, or Celsius, take your pick! Put us together an’ you get the Doom Patrol” and similar decaying-Silver-Age tediousness.)
The Bug came back to DC Comics Presents slightly wackier, but still vaguely villainous, seven issues later, with Giffen taking over plotting as well and getting Paul Levitz to write an ostensible Superman-Legion of Super-Heroes team-up. It turned into a chase-the-wacky-villain around plot, something like a minor ‘50s Joker story. Kupperberg grabbed the Bug another six months later and made him wackier still for an issue of Supergirl.
And then Giffen took the Bug back for good, putting him in three short stories for Action Comics, where the core Bug team – Giffen on plots and pencils, Robert Loren Fleming providing script, and Bob Oksner on inks – came together. Giffen’s panels shoved into each other, eliminating gutters most of the time, and his Munoz-influenced period, all big noses, tight close-ups and odd angles, began – all of which gave the Bug’s stories a dark, cluttered, deeply nonheroic look. Oksner chipped in by dropped pots on ink on every page to fill Giffen’s blacks. And Fleming brought a light touch to the prose that made the stories funny and not just amusing.
Continue reading Review: Showcase Presents Ambush Bug by Giffen, Fleming, Oksner, and others ›
Tue Apr 28, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Star Trek' Season One on Blu-ray
All eyes are on what J.J. Abrams and his team have done to reinvigorate public interest in Star Trek
By the time Enterprise was canceled and Nemesis got ignored at the box office, everyone agreed it was time to let the entire behemoth rest. Some argued forever, others wisely knew Paramount would never let it go so bet on three to five years.
What everyone seems to have forgotten is what Roddenberry got away with back in the 1960s. Today, we’re reminded of that once more with the release of the first season of the Original Series on Blu-ray. The 29 episodes that NBC aired during the 1966-1967 television season have been carefully restored, remastered, and augmented for today’s technology and audiences.
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Tue Apr 28, 2009 — by Amy Goldschlager
Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books; April 2009; $12.95
What is there left to be said about the Undead Sensation That’s Sweeping the Nation? The buzz for this book was so loud that they rushed it into publication a few months early (which no doubt accounts for the inconsistently applied British spellings in the text). Everyone and their newly risen mother has reviewed it, or at least written about it, and it’s now spending a second week on the New York Times bestseller list.
As broad farce, the book succeeds. It does a fine job of interleaving the original text with brutal confrontations with the undead, katana swordplay and ninja ambushes. There’s even a note of pathos in the fresh explanation for why Charlotte chooses to marry the dreadful Mr. Collins: she’s been stricken with the zombie plague, and wants to eke out her final days as a married woman before someone must behead and burn her. I also particularly enjoyed the revised faceoff between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth. In the original, Lady Catherine sneers at Elizabeth for not being personally educated by a governess; here, Lady Catherine mocks Elizabeth’s inferior martial arts tutelage in China—apparently true gentlewomen go to Japan to learn how to kick butt.
Continue reading Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith ›
