Category: Reviews

Review: ‘French Milk’

Review: ‘French Milk’

French Milk
Lucy Knisley
Touchstone Books, October 2008, $15

These days, people record their every inner thought and deed via Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook and other social networking sites.  It’s a fast and easy way to tell the multitudes what you’re up to.  This is especially true for people who travel far from friends and family.

As a result, Lucy Knisley is a throwback.  The 23-year old grew up on comic books and has studied art in Chicago and New York, developing a distinctive style and voice that earned her a small but dedicated following. She recorded her six week sojourn in France by using pen and paper, recording a graphic diary of her trip to celebrate her 22nd birthday and her mother’s 50th.   Upon her return, she gathered up her dozens and dozens of pages and self-published through Monkfish Book Publishing.

While showing [[[French Milk]]] to people at a MoCCA event, she was discovered by Amanda Patten, senior editor at Fireside/Touchstone.  Now, the book is receiving a big PR push and is on sale as today and has already been receiving positive notices.

Knisley has a keen eye for atmosphere and detail, finding joy in the simplicity of a baguette or a rude American tourist. Her observations are sharp and we can share her delight in fresh, unadulterated whole milk, from which the book takes its name.  We follow mother and daughter as they sightsee, shop, dine and relax together.  She does a nice job recording the details to bring their flat to life along with shops, Laundromats and restaurants.

The book’s publicity tells us of the changing relationship between moth and daughter but the book barely scratches the topic.  There’s one sequence when mother tries to discuss financial planning to Lucy but that’s about it.  They share the flat and bed and seem to get along without any tension, quarrel or serious issue.  Lucy Knisley, it seems, missed having sex but remained faithful to her boyfriend, whom she stills has a relationship with. But she seemed content to be a homebody and never craved going out to experience Paris nightlife on her own with people her age. If anything, the relationship seemed very close and stable.

The pair had been to Paris before and her observations about seeing things after a few more years’ growth and maturity is interesting.  But her diary is all surface.  We did this, ate that and went to sleep.  There’s precious little about the culture or differences with her life back in the states.  Her observations are all micro with no attention paid to the larger issues facing a young woman on the cusp of adult independence.

The book benefitted from the occasional photograph so we can compare the real people with Knisley’s fun drawings.  It could have benefitted from some summing up beyond a one-pager at the end.

Knisley has great potential and she’s working hard to achieve her place in the comics field.  This is a terrific, albeit flawed, first major effort. Her current material at Knisley’s website show continued development.

Review: ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’

Review: ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’

Sitting in the darkened screening room at Paramount Pictures that early May day in 1981, I had no idea what I was about to experience.  Working at Starlog at the time, I thought we were pretty much aware of everything cool that was coming from Hollywood.  But we knew little about this thing called [[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]].  Then we watched it.

An homage to the action serials of the 1930s and 1940s, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas combined their best skills to produce something iconic and fresh at the same time.  They also did what has become increasingly difficult ever since – create an interesting character from scratch.  Sure, Indy is one of a long line of adventurers dating back to Allan Quatermain if not further back, but still, he was new and cool.

Ever subsequent Indy film has been measured against the original and found wanting. I missed [[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]] when it opened in May so sat with the DVD, on sale today, and was curious to see what sort of experience this would be. After all, the buzz over the summer that while good, it was ultimately a disappointment after waiting so many years.

I was entertained.  The movie wisely moved to the 1950s to reflect the passage of time and evoke an entirely new feeling.  As a result, the Roswell setting, the Crystal Skull possibly being an alien, etc. was all appropriate as was the arrival of the Cold War nemesis, successors to the Nazis for storytelling fodder.

However, Spielberg and Lucas got too cute from the get-go with the Caddyshack-like gopher  popping up as we began the story.  While winks to those no longer with us, such as Marcus Brody were fine at Indy’s home, the statue’s head striking a blow was unnecessary.  While immediately understanding the locale from John Williams’ evocative score, we didn’t need to see the Ark.  Too many winks at the expense of good storytelling.

More should have been done to examine Indy at a point in his life when he was getting a little old of adventure and his life was filled with missed opportunities.   Mutt being his son was telegraphed from the get-go and was totally without nuance.  Marion arrives too late for my taste, trades quips but seems to accept the passage of time with a smile and far more forgiveness than she showed in the first film.  Her spunk and edge, which made her extremely fascinating in Raiders was all scrubbed away, making her likeable and far less compelling.  Thankfully, Karen Allen has aged as gracefully as Harrison Ford and they still have some great screen chemistry.

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Review: ‘Jamilti & Other Stories’ by Rutu Modan

Review: ‘Jamilti & Other Stories’ by Rutu Modan

Jamilti & Other Stories
By Rutu Modan
Drawn & Quarterly, August 2008, $19.95

Rutu Modan came to the attention of most American comics readers last year, when her graphic novel [[[Exit Wounds]]] was published to great acclaim. Exit Wounds went on to hit a number of top ten lists, and won the Eisner for Best New Graphic Novel. But no cartoonist comes out of nowhere – Modan had been writing and drawing shorter comics stories for a decade. Those would be these stories, which have now been corralled between two covers.

[[[Jamilti]]] collects seven stories, all of them but the title piece originally published in anthologies from the comics collective Actus (of which Modan was one of the two founders). (“Jamilti” itself was originally published in [[[Drawn & Quarterly]]], Vol. 5, for those seeking closure.) Modan’s style has changed slightly over the years, but her artistic progression isn’t obvious. Her most recent work – Exit Wounds, “Your Number One Fan” from [[[How To Love]]], the currently running serial [[[The Murder of the Terminal Patient]]] – have a tighter, cleaner line and solid blocks of brighter, purer colors than her earlier stories, but that’s more of a tightening of what she was already doing than anything else. The stories before that bounce back and forth from color to black and white, with the drawing similarly getting looser and tighter as Modan worked out what she wanted to do.

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Review: ‘Iron Man’ DVD

Review: ‘Iron Man’ DVD

I’ll admit it right up front; I grew up with [[[Iron Ma]]]n as my favorite Marvel super-hero. I can’t say why exactly, although I really liked the armor and the gadgets and when Gene Colan began drawing his adventures, I loved the artwork.

So, you might imagine, I was predisposed to enjoy the movie now out on DVD. The idea that Iron Man would ever become a feature film was one I never really imagined and all through the years o development, I kept hoping. Still, as cool as it might have been to see Tom Cruise as Tony Stark or see what Nick Cassavettes would have done as a director, I was perfectly content with Jon Favreau as the director. After all, from the moment he started writing on MySpace, you could tell he got it. He understood what set the character apart.

Whereas fantastic things happened to Peter Parker, Susan Richards and Bruce Banner, among others, what happened to Tony Stark was very real world. The notion of shrapnel threatening the munitions manufacturer was a just irony and showed that Stan Lee was very plugged into the Cold War fears of the day.

It took All-American ingenuity to fashion the crude armor that allowed Stark to escape his captors and return to his Military-Industrial complex. However, the experience changed him and he knew he had things to atone for.

Favreau updated the worldview to today and the switch from Vietnam to Afghanistan was smart. Seeing so much of Stark Industries’ wares in the hands of the bad guys was also a great wakeup call and yes, the near-death experience made him a changed man.

All the elements of those early Iron Man stories are excellently updated and made to feel fresh after the previous Marvel films. This one felt more grounded in our world and we could easily accept the higher level of technology. He made Stark Industries cutting edge and by integrating Obadiah Stane into Stark’s life is the one major change and it works for a film.

Robert Downey Jr. superbly inhabits Tony Stark and makes us care for him as he evolves from the callow genius to the responsible global citizen. He’s aided by Gwyneth Paltrow as the sharp-tongued Pepper Potts and Terence Howard, a tad underused as James Rhodes (although when he looks at the Mark II armor, he tells the audience, “Next time”). There’s another tip to the comics as Stark’s chauffeur, Happy Hogan is there, played quietly by Favreau himself (he’s now a sidekick in two Marvel franchise films, a neat trick matched by Sam Elliot).

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Review: ‘Dexter’ Episode #303

Review: ‘Dexter’ Episode #303

Note: Click here for last week’s victim!

The Crime Scene: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
From Showtime: "While grocery shopping with Rita and the kids, Dexter comes across a fellow predator. But this one is a pedophile. After the pedophile is seen talking with Astor, Dexter must decide if he fits The Code. Meanwhile, Debra has a new homicide to solve, a mysteriously skinned Jane Doe that they like Freebo for. But Dexter knows that Freebo is not the culprit, so he must find a way to help Debra identify their murder victim, thus proving that Freebo didn’t do the crime. While doing this, Dexter learns that Miguel Prado wants Dexter to be his friend. But just how smart is it for Dexter, a serial killer, to befriend an Assistant District Attorney?"

Blood Spatter Analysis
In the season’s third installment, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," Dexter continues to explore his impending role as a father while dealing with the ramifications of murdering Freebo, the man Miguel Prado believes to have killed his younger brother. Miguel, who doesn’t know that Dexter is the true culprit, witnessed the aftermath of our hero’s killing of Freebo in the previous episode, and was shockingly happy about Dexter’s actions. Complications continue as Miguel pushes his way deeper into Dexter’s life, swearing that the killing of Freebo is a favor that will "never be forgotten."

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Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ The Complete Series

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ The Complete Series

In 1987, television was evolving.  Thanks to [[[Hill Street Blues]]], the way dramatic stories were presented became more complex, the storytelling more diverse and the stories more compressed. The subject matter was also starting to broaden, moving beyond cops, lawyers and doctors.  It was just before the SF wave kicked off with [[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]] but that didn’t stop CBS from trying something a little different.

On a Friday night, September 25, 1987, audiences were treated to a different look at the classic [[[Beauty and the Beast]]] tale.  The series starred Ron Perlman as Vincent, the beast, a mutant of some sort, who comes to the rescue of Linda Hamilton’s Catherine, a rich girl turned assistant district attorney.  Their connection became the stuff of fairy tale and from that pilot episode, their fates became inextricable.

It had all the lush romance of a Harlequin book and the action to keep spouses by their side.  The series had its ups and downs, making a star out of Hamilton who left the series after just two seasons, derailing the eternal romance. Jo Anderson was brought in for the third season but that, coupled with CBS’s insistence on increased action for the males, hurt and the series came to an end in January 1990 (although the final two were run that summer).  Its 56 episodes remain a testament to the creative vision of creator Ron Koslow and fantasist George R.R. Martin who wound up penning 13 of the episodes.

Paramount Home Video has released a 16-disc box set of the complete series and it shows its age.  Beauty and the Beast has the look and feel of the 1980s without fully embracing the changing storytelling in television. The storytelling is slow, almost plodding at times, and each week they seemed to focus on some new social ill without really offering long-term solutions.  The threats were fairly standard stuff for the most part, intertwined with the poetry between the characters.  Complete with lush music, long, lingering gazes into character’s eyes, it was truly a romance novel brought to the screen.

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Review: ‘Typhon’ Vol. 1

Review: ‘Typhon’ Vol. 1

Typhon

Dirty Danny Press, $24.95

At 50, I’m pretty set in my comic book reading habits.  Having been raised largely on the output from DC Comics and Marvel, I have fairly mainstream tastes.  Now and then, though, I push myself to see what else is out there. As a result, reading Danny Hellman’s recently published [[[Typhon]]] anthology was an eye-opening experience.

The 192-page full-color trade paperback allows me the chance to see who else is producing comic book work.  Typhon takes its name from Greek mythology and is a creature with hundreds of hissing serpents, outdoing the Medusa. Venom was said to drip form their eyes and lava to be spit from their mouths. There are no super-heroes, no continuing characters, nothing based on a media property (although Droopy appears in one story).  Each tendril from the creature’s head is the product of the fertile imagination of the 42 creators who contributed to over the course of several years.

Hellman may be best known for his [[[Legal Action Comics]]] in addition to his own work at Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and the Village Voice. Promoting the book, he said, “I realized that I was looking at a far more ambitious book than what I’d done previously. The work presented in Typhon covers a wide spectrum of what’s possible in comics, from zany, offbeat humor to unnerving existential angst, and on to chilling horror, all of it brought to life with breathtaking, cutting-edge artwork.

“Anthologies give us the opportunity to enjoy work by talented cartoonists who, for whatever reason, don’t produce enough material to fill out solo books. As an editor of anthologies, I’m excited to provide a showcase for artists and work that we might not see otherwise. Diversity makes for a richer comics scene.”

Everything he says is correct and to be applauded. I really enjoyed the colorful, inventive use of the page from Hans Rickheit, Rupert Bottenberg, Tobias Tak, and Fiona Smyth.  They created visually arresting images and used color in appealing ways. On the other hand, I could not make heads or tails out of Bald Eagles’ eight page head trip that is hard on the eyes and unreadable.

On the other hand, way too often I’d reach the end of these short works and scratch my head.  “What the hell was that all about?” was a repeated refrain. I’m used to stories about character or stories about something.  Yet, these works seem to be characters and situations that begin and end and say nothing.  Too frequently, I think the creators were out to amuse themselves, forgetting their audience. Rick Trembles’ “[[[Goopy Spasms]]]” feels like it was done because he could not because he had something say or share and was generally off-putting.

Hellman told Tom Spurgeon, “…It can be tough to pin down precisely what ‘good drawing’ is. Ultimately, beautiful art is a matter of taste. Drawing chops, anatomical knowledge, the ability to recreate the natural world in two dimensions and have it be both accurate and pleasing to the eye; these are important. But what’s really vital is that we connect with the art on an emotional, perhaps spiritual level.”

I’m all in favor of creative freedom but if someone wants my $24.95, then the editor of the collection has to step up and guide the talent to make certain their point, if there is one, gets across, from page to reader.  Here, Hellman spectacularly fails.

He kicks off the collection with his own “[[[The Terror in Peep Booth 5]]]” which looks and reads closest to a mainstream comic, complete with beginning, middle and end. After that, though, it’s all over the place.  Perhaps the most moving piece is Tim Lane’s “The Manic Depressive from Another Planet”.

I enjoyed being exposed to new voices and talents but come away disappointed that there are all these people with very little to say.

Review: ‘Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday’

Well as careers go, here’s a good one. Start off writing a fanzine and wind up working with and for Del Close and Monty Python and, specifically, John Cleese. Then you get to write all kinds of books about your labors.

Long-time comics journalist and frequent ComicMix commenter Kim Howard Johnson has a new book out called Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday. It’s a misnomer; Monty Python was in Tunisia to work. They were making a movie. Monty [[[Python’s Life of Brian]]], to be exact. But few would buy a book called [[[Kim Howard Johnson’s Tunisian Holiday]]] unless it had a lot of sex in it, so the title choice is obvious. So are the contents: it’s Howard’s account of his time with the Pythons in Tunisia filming [[[The Life of Brian]]] and touches on his time on-stage with the group at the famed Hollywood Bowl concerts (Howard’s a professional, trained by no less than Del Close).

This is less of a companion volume to his [[[The First 200 Years of Monty Python]]],[[[ And Now For Something Completely Trivial]]],[[[ Life Before (and After) Monty Python]]], and [[[The First 280 Years of Monty Python]]] than it is Howard’s story chronicling his experiences as both a performer in the movie and a journalist covering the shoot. As such, it’s more of a companion volume to Michael Palin’s recently released autobiography Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (I highly recommend the audiobook version, read by Palin). It’s witty, it’s thorough, and if you’re a Python fan or a movie nut, it’s completely vital. 

By the way, Howard’s got prefaces from Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and his former boss and collaborator ([[[Superman: True Brit]]]), John Cleese. It’s nice to know people.

O.K. Cool, Howard. Great job. Now go do that biography of the Bonzo Dog Band I’ve been wanting so desperately.  Ummm… after you finish that [[[Munden’s Bar]]] story you’re doing with…

Review: ‘The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide’

Review: ‘The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide’

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The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide
By Roy Kinnard, Tony Crnkovich, and R.J. Vitone
McFarland & Co. Publishers, August 2008, $55

Growing up in New York during the 1960s meant that Sunday morning we were treated to two choices: Sonny Fox on Channel 5’s [[[Wonderama]]] or the zany Chuck McCann who hosted a show that seemed to be a little bit of this and that.  Included among them were the old movie serials from the 1930s.  Among the most aired and best remembered were the ones starring Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon. Imagine being 6 or 10 years old, and being introduced to these breathless adventures taking place on other worlds in digestible chunks that made you anxiously await the following Sunday.  It was merely a taste of what an earlier generation experienced in actual movie theaters.

Those serials,[[[Flash Gordon]]], [[[Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars]]], and [[[Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe]]], have remained memorable not only to me but to other generations of adventure fans.  Finally, we have a book that looks into how these were made and who made them. The writing triumvirate of Roy Kinnard, Tony Crnkovich, and R.J. Vitone bring their expertise and affection to the McFarland book which was just published.

The authors detail how Universal came to option Alex Raymond’s lushly illustrated comic strip and what happened as regimes changed and budgets tightened.  While among the best serials ever made, Universal soon left the field to Republic and Columbia which is a shame. The storylines, sets, miniatures and acting were all a cut above.

 

 

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Review: ‘The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle’ by Jim Butcher and Adrian Syaf

Review: ‘The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle’ by Jim Butcher and Adrian Syaf

The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
Written by Jim Butcher; Pencils by Adrian Syaf
Del Rey, October 2008, $19.95

Jim Butcher’s [[[Dresden Files]]] series is something of an anomaly in the world of contemporary fantasy – a hugely successful, bestselling series of novels set in the modern world, featuring vampires, werewolves, elves, and other beasties that go bump in the night…but also featuring a main character who isn’t an attractive young woman embroiled in love and/or sex entanglements with two or more of those aforementioned beasties.

Butcher’s hero is Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only consulting wizard – and Harry’s literary background is more from the hardboiled mystery (Always Having Bad Luck With Dames Division, rather than the racier Always Falling Into Bed With Dames Division) than from the romance novel, like so many of his high-heeled and back-tattooed fellow explorers of the supernatural. Harry’s the hard-luck kind of mystery hero: he saves the day, but doesn’t usually get the girl, or much in the way of monetary reward, either. (But that’s OK, since his heart is pure – or as pure as anyone’s heart can be, these days.)

Dresden gets called in – usually by Chicago PD’s Lt. Karrin Murphy, head of Special Investigations (which gets all of the woo-woo cases) – when something seems to be “weird.” No one but Harry actually really believes in the supernatural, of course, but he does get results, most of the time.

Welcome to the Jungle is a prequel to the Dresden Files novels, taking place just before the events of [[[Storm Front]]], the first novel. It’s written by Jim Butcher himself, and penciled by “rising talent” (which here means “someone I haven’t heard of – not that there’s anything wrong with that”) Ardian Syaf, an Indonesian artist.

The Dresden Files is like [[[The X-Files]]] (and many other series of stories about supernatural beasties, like Hellboy) in that there are “mythos” stories – ones that move forward the larger plot – and stories that are one-offs. [[[Jungle]]] is a one-off, concerning some unpleasant doings at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

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