Fallen Angel (DC) #1: When he’s cookin’ (as he was with his final run on Supergirl), Peter David stakes an intriguing space between conventional super- and anti-hero morality; when he’s not (as he is in the current Captain Marvel run), his work can come across both directionless and excessively self-satisfied. This new DC series, featuring an ambiguous heroine-for-hire in a Town without Pity, starts on a nicely murky note (and gives us the first good Injury to the Eye scene in ages) and even justifies David Lopez & Fernando Blanco’s familiar looking comic noir trappings. Could be a good ‘un.

Fantastic Four (Marvel) #500: Reed Richards gets two lessons in humility – one from Doc Strange (looks like the sorcerer supreme’s trying out for a role in Boogie Nights II in a couple of panels, but never mind), the other from Doc Doom. I like the first; don’t necessarily buy the second – which has the dubious effect of simultaneously flattening the long-standing FF villain and setting up a “shocking” finish that we know can’t last in the long run. Still, Waid & Wieringo/Kesel’s work on this most recent arc explain the recent fannish outcry over Waid’s impending departure from this series. He writes a taut story (even if some bits – the sequence where our lead quartet get their powers switched around, for instance – could’ve been more fully realized) and manages to impart the feeling that, even in this most venerable of superhero series, something unexpected could happen.

Kingpin (Marvel) #2: Spot the Anachronism Game Two: I’m not sure that young Wilson Fisk would refer to gang members as “bangers” back in these early days of Marvel Continuity, but I’m less bothered by the gaffe than I was with Trouble – perhaps it’s because scripter Jones gives us more real story to concentrate on. A nicely brutal final scene to this issue, too, as we see the Kingpin-to-Be going all alpha dog on one poor banger. One of those rare prequels that actually seems to add to the character without undermining his earlier appearances.

Trinity #1 (DC): Let’s state the obvious: if you wanna do a really good Superman story, you apparently need to do it away from the confines of the monthly titles. (Doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed, of course, just that the odds are better.) This Matt Wagner trilogy purports to tell the first big teaming of the Man of Steel, Batman and Wonder Woman (oh, shut up, continuity geeks!) and if the story seems familiar, Wagner’s art – which neatly recapitulates the deco flourishes of the old Fleischer cartoons – is something to see. A strong genre exercise: wish DC’s Icon saw more of ‘em more consistently.

THE INTERCOSTAL CLAVICLE – Watched Bringing Up Baby as part of TCM’s Katharine Hepburn Tribute last night: I’ve viewed it regularly over the years, and the movie never fails to make me laugh. The role Kate plays, flighty heiress Susan Vance, is a far cry from the proto-feminist figures she claimed opposite Spencer Tracy – or the iconic spinster roles she took in her final years – but she’s implacably funny opposite Cary Grant at his most hysterically de-railed. (The pic also contains one of the great supporting actor turns from the great Charlie Ruggles.) It’s been said before, but I have no qualms about repeating it: this is the gold standard in screwball comedies and my personal fave in the Hepburn pantheon.

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Thursday, July 10, 2003
      ( 7/10/2003 02:32:00 PM ) Bill S.  

FALLIN’ FISH – When we come upon Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall) in the newest ep of The Dead Zone (we’re still in Season Two, USA’s website sez, though it sure feels like Season Three to me), he’s holed up in his house – teaching summer science to high schoolers and keeping from contact with the outside world. Frustrated by his inability to save an old Breakfast Club crony in an earlier ep, Johnny curses the life his psychic ability has given him.

If you don’t know that our hero will do an about-face by the end of the hour, then you haven’t been watching enough series television.

Still, the route that scriptwriter Michael Piller and story crafters Laura J. Burns & Mekinda Metz take to get him there is entertainingly rocky. Coerced by his physical therapist/compadre Bruce to attend an intervention at the woodsy retreat overseen by Reverend Purdy’s (David Ogden Stiers) Alliance Foundation, our duo find themselves seemingly pursued across Maine country roads by an F-3 tornado. Last time the area saw a storm this bad, we’re told, was on June 6,1995 – the night that Johnny had his fateful auto accident.

Oh yeah, this is one mean storm: it rains fish on the flummoxed reverend, lifts Bruce’s PT Cruiser up off the country highway and drops the vehicle on its head, then finally does a major assault on the Alliance retreat just as Johnny and Bruce arrive to join their friends. Inbetween, our psychic hero has visions both frightening and provocative: at one point, a falling raindrop prompts him into a prolonged soaring mindtrip that takes him up into the sky and then back down into the navel of bikinied reporter gal Dana Bright; at another moment, he sees a facially scarred figure gesturing to him from the edge of the woods. We get what the former image is about (it’s about actress Kristen Dalton’s flat belly); the latter remains unexplained by episode’s end.

After Bruce’s snazzy Cruiser gets demolished by the storm, the two are picked up by a genial nuclear family, the McMurtrys. As played by Robert Picardo and Jane Lynch, this family of happy tourists seem indefinably off, but I won’t hazard a guess at this point what, if anything, that means for the show’s greater storyline. Be nice to see Picardo working regularly again, though, so let’s hope it means something Really Creepy.

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      ( 7/10/2003 06:07:00 AM ) Bill S.  

“GOTTA FIGURE OUT A WAY TO KEEP THE YOUNG ONES MORAL AFTER SCHOOL” – The cover comes with a big “PG+” to the left of its title – so hopefully parents’ll get the message even if they’re not disturbed by the photo cover image of two nymphettes gazing at you over the top of their sunglasses. Marvel/Epic’s much-hyped Trouble (writer, Mark Millar; artists, Terry & Rachel Dodson) purports to be a teen-centric comic aimed at cracking a new audience: pre-teen girls who think that Dirty Dancing accurately depicted the early sixties, perhaps. On the basis of its debut issue, I suspect that Marvel has a major uphill climb.

If you follow the comic book sites, you already know the set-up: two hotteengirls, May and Mary, and two studlyguys, Ben and Richie, leave to work a Hamptons resort for the summer. It’s the quartet’s first time away from home, so, being your typical “hormonally-charged teenagers” (a phrase that probably wouldn’t have been used in the era, though one character says it, anyway), they’re also looking to Get Lucky. Two of our summer workers have brought condoms with ‘em, and May has also swiped a bottle from her parents’ kitchen. Yup, looks like we’re heading for Trouble, indeed.

Part of the gimmick, though we’re not told this in the opening issue, lies in the fact that this foursome will be major figures in the life of Spider-Man’s Peter Parker: Pete’s parents plus his Aunt May & Uncle Ben. It’s a bit disconcerting to read the younger Aunt May being described as “skanky,” but, then, I’m still dismayed to know that Ultimate Ant-Man is a wife beater, so clearly I’m not riding the zeitgeist. Some mainstream Marvel fans are also reportedly upset about the way this series plays fast and loose with established character chronology, but to my mind Bill Jemas’ company abandoned all pretense of playing fair there once he came up with the Ultimates books. Perhaps this series represents a third timeline for Marvel: the Epic Universe, where all the protagonists behave like they’re auditioning for a big budget Porky’s remake.

Me, I just wish that scriptwriter Millar remained mindful of period. We know it's the late sixties/early seventies because Ben tells his mom, "It's not like we're going to Vietnam or anything." But later on, horny Ben notes that the scene they’re in is just like one out an Emmanuelle movie, only I remember seeing the first Emmanuelle in its American theatrical release when I was in college – back in 1974. I knew Uncle Ben was an amazing man, but I didn’t know he was precognitive.

Okay, you’re right: Catch the Anachronism is a cheesy critical game. So how does the book work as a comic? Within its own calculatedly limited terms, it’s not bad, though there are moments when you can see a disconnection between art and story. Near the end of the book, for instance, our group is nearly caught skinnydipping by the prissy resort manager Peter Howard Shelby (you can tell he’s a prig by the fact that he uses all three names and wears a bowtie). As he’s peering into the dark, holding May’s bra and looking for ‘em, all four steal back to their cabins from behind. Yet even though they’re out of sight when Shelby’s wife comes upon her husband holding the undergarment, May later notes of the wife, “Did you see the way her eyes sparkled when she saw the bra?”

The Dodsons’ art is typically slick – not as cheesecake as their work on Harley Quinn or their Spider-Man collab with Kevin Smith but close enough, particularly in the aforementioned swimming scene (there’s a pose of Mary standing in the water in her underwear that looks like something out of an old risqué vacation postcard). I had difficulty visually telling brothers Ben and Richie apart at times, particularly in the night scenes, but maybe it doesn’t matter. The resort background is nicely rendered, though (as with much of the Dodsons' art) the setting looks more pristine than you'd expect. These two just don't really do rustic.

The first chapter ends with half our quartet about to pop open a condom packet. “Face it, Tiger,” May tells her beau, as she displays the telltale packaging, “you’ve just hit the jackpot!” That sound you heard was the collective groans of a thousand dismayed fanboys, as one of the cherished stoopid lines from their youth is heedlessly resurrected. I’m sure Millar got a kick out of writing it, but sometimes it’s better to resist such easy self-gratification.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2003
      ( 7/09/2003 01:51:00 PM ) Bill S.  

“IT’S JUST THAT DEMON LIFE. . .” – From Jim Henley’s place comes the news that alt country artist Alejandro Escovedo is in major poor health and has had an assistance fund set up for him. I’m mainly familiar with Escovedo as a punker in the Nuns and as a member of the seminal eighties cowpunk group, Rank and File (love that band's two Slash releases - why aren't they out on CD?) Since then, he has released a bunch of solo albums, but the only one I’m familiar with is 1998’s Bloodshot collection of live cuts, More Miles than Money. That disc's a whole lot quieter than I would’ve expected from his punk era material (nice covers of the Rolling Stones' “Sway” and Iggy’s “I Want to Be Your Dog,” though). But it's really quite fine for fans of intelligent singer/songwriter material. Think I’ll check out one of Escovedo's more recent albums this week. . .

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      ( 7/09/2003 08:55:00 AM ) Bill S.  

THE “ENTERTAINING FAT GIRL” – Been reading Celesta Geyer & Samuel Roen’s 1968 Diet or Die for a fat collectibles column in size acceptance mag Dimensions. Geyer, throughout the Depression and into the forties, was a sideshow fat lady who went under the stage name of Dolly Dimples. Her book – which was marketed as a diet plan (it’s subtitled “The Dolly Dimples Weight Reducing Plan”) – is prized by both collectors of circus memorabilia and fatabilia.

The book was not a success when it came out, in part, I suspect, because it was severely mis-marketed. Fully three-fourths of the volume is devoted to an autobiographical account of Miz Geyer’s years with the circus and fat shows (vaudevillian productions that revolved around predominately super-sized performers: believe it or not, there were several of these produced during the Depression). Fascinating stuff for anyone interested in the rough-and-tumble life of traveling entertainers but not exactly the sort of thing that’d appeal to a reader simply wishing to lose a few pounds.

Though I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet, I’m told the final fourth detailing her diet regimen is pretty grueling. (Probably another reason Diet of Die didn’t sell when it was first published: who wants to read a realistic account of weight loss?) Too, I suspect the gleeful manner in which the self-confessed gourmand describes some of her fat lady meals likely worked against the book’s purported intent: one fulsome description of a Hawaiian feast sure made me hungry, anyway.

Dolly Dimples, at her peak, had a recorded weight of 555 pounds (that figure's a bit tidy – but then sideshow fat ladies have a history of fiddling the numbers on their weight charts) and at the time of her book’s release claimed to weigh 122. It’s clear the publishers and collaborator/professional show biz writer Roen were working to sell the book as an inspirational tome, the kind of thing diet shills like Richard Simmons and Susan Powter would more successfully market two and three decades later. But Miz Geyer’s voice is so BiPolar – rapturously describing her personal menu one moment, then sinking into addictionspeak the next – that it works against this message. May be more realistic to acknowledge the continued draw that her old lifestyle holds, but that ain’t necessarily what the inspiration-seeking audience wants to read. . .

I remain enthralled by this aspect of old circus sideshow and was happy to snag a battered library copy of Dolly Dimples’ autobio via eBay. During her prime as a circus attraction, Miz Dimples was advertised as the “It Girl of Circus Fat Ladies.” Though she was married, she kept that fact from her audience and consequently attracted more than her share of Tent Flap Johnnies. Throughout the book, she alternately is both flattered and bemused by the attention of these men.

Wonder what she’d say if she knew a continued coterie of admirers for her fat lady self (as exemplified by this Karl Niedershuh tribute) exists today?

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      ( 7/09/2003 07:26:00 AM ) Bill S.  

MUSICAL MOMENT OF THE MONTH – Or at least my month, anyway: off the Libertines’ shambollic Rough Trade debut, Up the Bracket, a disc that took a good six months to make sense to me but has recently firmly wedged itself into my personal soundtrack. The moment comes in the Ramonesy, “I Get Along,” where vocalist/guitarist Pete Doherty follows the sung sentiment “People tell me I’m wrong,” with a succinct and perfectly delivered spoken “Fuck ‘em.” Bluntly obvious, sure, but I still find it – and the chaotic guitar thrash following this pronouncement – thrilling.

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Tuesday, July 08, 2003
      ( 7/08/2003 05:01:00 AM ) Bill S.  

“I’M NOT BRAGGING ON MYSELF, BABE” – When he’s not taking umbrage over the fact that a proto-hippie like Alan Moore (who once scripted an anti-war comic as part of a Seven Deadly Sins anthology) has less-than-generous things to say about the U.S.’s Great Iraq Adventure, Sean Collins is a damn good pop blogcritic: his appreciation of the late Barry White says everything I wish I was knowledgeable enough to say about the man.

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Monday, July 07, 2003
      ( 7/07/2003 02:14:00 PM ) Bill S.  

“OH, VACUOUS VAPOR, AM I” – The central figure of James Robinson & Phil Elliot’s Illegal Alien (Dark Horse) may look like a London gangster circa 1964. But, in reality, he’s not of this Earth. A bodiless visitor from another planet, the unnamed alien has been shot down by the American Air Force. Freed of the containment suit which his race has used when piloting their starships, the gaseous alien takes over the body of recently slain tough guy, Guido Palmano. In this form, “Guido” returns to his body’s native London – and the Notting Hill domicile of his cousin Tony Bardinelli and family.

Illegal Alien is a modest black-&-white graphic novel that puts its s-f premise to the service of more mundane domestic dramedy. The primary story emphasis is on the ways that New Guido influences a family of struggling Londoners, Tony’s son Dino, in particular. Because the revived gangster shows a capacity to listen and a miraculous inventiveness, he ingratiates himself into the Bardinelli family and ultimately helps each one. He alters, for example, the frequencies on the music box of Tony’s ice cream truck so that whoever hears it will immediately become hungry for ice cream. The results are so phenomenal that by the end of the book Tony is the owner of his own ice cream parlour. “Now that I have that,” Tony tells his still-skeptical wife, “our future is assured.” (Hey, it’s the mid-sixties – these are simpler times.)

Though government agents and mobsters hover on the story fringe, watching Guido and pondering what he’s up to, their presence proves more of a distraction than anything. When several of these outside agents clash alongside a Brighton Beach mods and rockers riot, Robinson & Elliot pull away so quickly that you’re not quite sure what happened to ‘em. And though we’re given several scenes where the gangster responsible for Guido’s death is nonplussed by his resurrection, it never really leads anywhere. It's not what Robinson's interested in developing.

In the intro to Dark Horse’s reissue of this story (it originally was printed by the late lamented Kitchen Sink Press), the writer notes that he was trying for an Ealing Studios feel with this work. You can see this in the way Elliot renders the story’s gray urban setting (looks like something out of The Ladykillers), but I don’t think the creators capture the famous Brit comedy studio’s deft and idiosyncratic comic characterization. Elliot, in particular, seems more comfortable lavishing attention on architecture and setting than he does in creating distinctive people: a deadly problem when you’ve got a story that features lots of guys walking around in business suits. At times you can catch him taking from artists like Jaime Hernandez (particularly in panels featuring the Bardinelli women), but he doesn’t come close to matching Hernandez’s expressiveness.

In its casually cobbled way, though, Illegal Alien remains an appealing book. It captures its era – of emerging Britbeat and youth culture, of still-potent Cold War tensions – without pushing too hard, and it makes you care for its stranded hero. Trapped in a body he knows will soon betray him, he quietly enjoys the new experience he’s been given: “In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve touched and moulded and built,” he says. “I’m dying, but I’m happy.” Where so many mainstream s-f comics find their story in xenophobia or elaborately contsructed cosmology, Illegal Alien basically celebrates the simple joy of working with your hands. . .

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Sunday, July 06, 2003
      ( 7/06/2003 06:21:00 AM ) Bill S.  

ODYSSEUS, HE’S NOT – I happily noted the appearance of another Dark Horse Groo collection at my local comic emporium this week: The Groo Odyssey, which reprints issues #57-60 of Groo the Wanderer’s run as part of Marvel’s first Epic line. Sergio Aragones & Mark Evanier were working at peak productivity during this period – and the material remains as sharp today as it was when it first came out.

The Groo formula's still used by this creative team on Dark Horse mini-series: Groo, a barbarian whose stupidity is exceeded only by his brute strength in a fray, travels from kingdom to town through an elaborately rendered proto-Howardian world, often accompanied by his hero-worshipping dog Rufferto. Comic, violent disaster always follows, either through Groo’s own deeds or the machinations of those trying to take advantage of the dimwit mercenary.

By this point in the series, our hero’s capacity for calamity has been so well established that he doesn’t even need to appear in the story to spark it. In “One Fine Day,” the bumbling barbarian doesn’t show until the last panel, but the efforts of one city’s attempts to anticipate his arrival lead to its destruction anyway. Evanier’s script takes plenty of well-aimed jibes at politicians and advisers who capitalize on public fear of the Enemy from Without (an idea that gets explored more fully in the more recent Death and Taxes mini-series). Though the story first appeared in the late eighties, it could’ve easily been written last week (okay, two weeks ago – to allow Aragones a few days to actually draw the thing!)

Aragones’ art is intricately detailed: though cartoonish, he visualizes towns, crowds and elaborate architectures that look more believable than many “realistic” comic artists. In “The Captain of the Chinampa,” for instance, he creates a sprawling city/ship that looks like it could’ve sailed out of a Terry Gilliam movie (naturally, Groo’s made captain of this vessel.) His facility with comic expression is masterful, especially on Groo’s frequently puzzled canine companion.

A great funnybook collection – but I do have one small gripe. Unlike the other Dark Horse Groo trades, this entry lacks an irrelevant and entertaining Afterword by Evanier. Hey, waitaminute, wasn’t Mark gonna print the answer to a puzzle printed in Groo Nursery this time? What’s the story, guys?

UPDATE: Mark Evanier acknowledges my review on his must-read blog and answers the abovewritten question thus: “Bill Sherman . . . wonders why this volume doesn't contain the traditional silly text page by me. I'm kinda wondering the same thing.”

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