August 2008

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The Friday Comics Review

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard by Eddie Campbell & Dan Best (First Second, 128 pages, $16.95). A romantic fantasy might not be what you'd expect from the artist of the Jack the Ripper classic, From Hell, but Eddie Campbell has stayed in his recent experimental mode and produced (with co-writer Dan Best) a graphic novel that could almost be called sweet. Or at least as sweet as a story can be that involves a pygmy-eating ti-lion (half lion, half tiger), a trained bear that cheats on his female trainer (with another bear), and the sinking of the Titanic.

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard is another of Campbell's recreations and reimaginings of the 19th century world, in this case, that of a travelling circus and a young man named Etienne who inherits it from his uncle, the original Leotard. The characters are a mix of real and fantastic (a talking bear, a rubber man who really stretches), and the episodes go from comedic to strange, wistful to tragic. Sometimes-- amazingly, remarkably-- Campbell even pulls off all four changes in the same scene.

A perfect example is the weird, funny scene where a new Human Cannonball tries his luck. Here are a few panels (and note the nice brushwork-- his artwork is a pleasure all the way through the book):

The last part of the book, dealing with Etienne and his friends in their post-circus old age, is surprisingly moving, with a happy-sad ending that even includes a cameo appearance by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the creators of Superman. It's a perfect end to a story that could only be told in the comics format.

(Once again, New York's Comics Page beat me to this-- here's a link to their preview with lots of artwork.)

But wait . . . there's more! We'll be back after a few words from our sponsors.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 by Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics, $4.50).

I've written before about how much I love Kupperman's work, even if words fail me in describing it. The new issue of his semi-pseudo-quasi-anthology book is a real treat, and even its format gimmick is laugh-out-loud: It's designed to be read a page every half-hour after waking, with its content designed to follow the changes of the day. The usual Kupperman suspects show up, like the crimefighting team of Snake 'n' Bacon, as well as lots of ads for things like taco repair and learning piano in your sleep. And where else will you find Mark Twain and Albert Einstein together in a '70s cop show?

Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 29, 2008 11:19 PM

 

Bad marketing ideas of the past

Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 28, 2008 1:53 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #190

It's not your typical quiz movie-- maybe you don't know it. But if you do, send me an email with the title by Sunday with the title. If you get it right, you're see your name in next week's winner's circle. Semper fi!

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 25, 2008 2:02 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Some good comments this week about the film and its cast. Regarding the latter: "Damn, is it just me or does Annabella Sciorra look just like Laurie Anderson in that first photo." "Lili Taylor was so good in this that I forgot until now that it had Christopher Walken in it, too!" And regarding the former: "That would be The Addiction, as in, 'I'm addicted to playing the Monday Movie Quiz.'" (Thanks!)

Lili Taylor was very good in Abel Ferrara's 1995 black-and-white philosophical vampire film as a grad student who's infected with "the addiction." (And name another existential vampire movie produced by Russell Simmons!) As reviewer Hal Hinson wrote at the time, "Ferrara uses vampirism as a metaphor for AIDS, drug addiction and all sorts of worldly evils."

(By and large, the critics loved this movie, and in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll, the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, one of my favorites, named The Addiction as the best movie of all time!)

It's a dark movie in all kinds of ways. The look of it is perfect-- Ferrara made New York look like an urban Transylvania filled with dark alleys. It would have been lost in color, of course, and the richness-- and creepiness-- of the black-and-white cinematography actually makes the bloody scenes even more disturbing.

And speaking of disturbing, of course, there's this guy:

Although Christopher Walken is only in one scene, it's the best part of the movie. It also gives him a great Walken line: "The entire world's a graveyard, and we, the birds of prey picking at the bones." (There is a youtube of his best speech, but alas, it's poor quality.)

Also in small roles were Michael Imperioli (Christopher in The Sopranos), playing a street missionary and his series co-star, Edie Falco as Lili's classmate. Here's Carmella getting introduced to the joys of vampirism:

I thought this quiz would be tougher than most, but apparently not, so congratulations and a meal with Chris Walken to all these astute cinephiles: Wayne Palmer, Letra Minuscula, Nancy Louise Rutherford, TMiss, Michael Mattson, Shannon M. Quinlan, Dave Mallow, Bob Redwing, Christina O'Sullivan, Thomas Miller, Bill Hearne, Denny Lynch, Mojo Marshall, Song-Un Lee, John Middleton, Kevin Musolino, Vince Tuss, E. Yarber, and Paul Rignell.

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 25, 2008 12:43 AM

 

The Friday Comics Review

This feature began with graphic novels as the intended focus, but I found out almost immediately that there's too much great comics stuff of all kinds to limit myself. So this week, indulge me, please, as I revel in a new reissue of a personal favorite.

Herbie Archives Volume One (Dark Horse Books, 220 pages, $49.95.) The favorite superhero of Watchmen author Alan Moore is "a little fat nothing named Herbie," the most improbable comic book success of the 1960s. A small company named ACG-- more specifically, its editor and best artist-- gave the comics world something truly and completely different. And intensely weird.

Herbie Popnecker was so unfortunate looking and slow-witted, in another era-- like, say, ours-- his character might even have been attacked for being offensive (i.e., Tropic Thunder). But Herbie's saving grace was that he really was a superhero, one who got many of his powers from the lollipops he sucks on constanty. (One story ends with his cuddling a new shipment, and proclaiming them better than girls.) Different lollipops gave different powers, and the anti-gravity and time-travel ones alone accounted for half the plotlines.

He was also known and feared throughout the animal kingdom, as well as the spirit world, outer space, and mythology.

The men behind the creation of these strange stories were writer/editor Richard E. Hughes (under the name Shane O'Shea) and artist Ogden Whitney (who, tragically, modelled Herbie after himself as a boy!), and they made a great team. Their typical work was actually pretty straight-laced, even square, especially Whitney, whose style was '50s advertising art. But the ridiculous events and crazed jokes they then heaped onto their otherwise stodgy storytelling gave Herbie its charm.

Most of the stories were the kind of science-fiction comedies that the ACG company used in their other books, but as the Herbie adventures went on, they also had a lot of "current events" content. Included were many political figures of the time, usually calling Herbie in to help in another crisis-- JFK and LBJ both not only needed his aid but had to watch Jackie and Ladybird swoon over him. (His irresistable sexual attractiveness is a sick, running joke.) In one story, Herbie would be a leading man in a '60s blockbuster, the next he'd be filling in for Ringo-- or Castro.

The first volume of Dark Horse's Herbie archive collects all of the earliest stories from other titles (he started out as a backup story and became the company's most popular character almost overnight) and the first five issues of the fat fury's own book-- in other words, the choicest stuff. I was impressed by what a quick, enjoyable read it all was (re-read, actually, although it had been decades), and how it stayed interesting all the way to the end, something most archived comic book series don't.

Herbie had enough moments of almost-greatness that the series is worth the kind of deluxe reissue treatment it's getting. I think Alan Moore would agree.

(If you're interested or need to be convinced further, here's a link to the youtube interview where Moore gives a mini-lecture on Herbie.)

Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 22, 2008 1:34 AM

 

Great moments in movie history

I agree with the comments in the poster blurbs-- Chuen jik sat sau, aka Fulltime Killer (Hong Kong - 2001) is all of those things, plus laugh-out-loud funny.

It's the story of Asia's number one hit man and the eager nutcase who wants to replace him. (Japanese actor Takashi Sorimachi plays the former, and Andy Lau is great as the latter.) Even though they never meet face-to-face, they start showing up at each other's "jobs" to watch the other guy in action, the better to kill him later.

The film was co-directed by Johnnie To, one of Hong Kong's best and most energetic action filmmakers (he directed and co-starred in the HK classic, The Heroic Trio), and it shows especially in this scene: The Japanese assassin 'O' poses as a tourist so he can take pictures of his rival, Lok (Andy Lau), rubbing out a carful of gangsters in the middle of a busy street. The scene's master touch?-- Lok's disguise!

(And yes, that's Spanish being spoken toward the end-- the only version of the clip on youtube-- and there's no translation. Basically, Lok tells his victim that death can't be much worse than having a mouthful of teeth like his. It'll make sense when you see it.)

Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 20, 2008 1:21 AM

 

WTF and then some

(Send Steve an email-- no shit!-- at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 19, 2008 12:38 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #189

Oh, no, not him again! And here's a hint that some may find hard to believe: this movie is as strange as he is!

So what is it? If you know, send me an email by late Sunday with the title. Get it right and I predict you'll get hooked on seeing your name in the winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 18, 2008 2:15 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

The choice of last week's quiz movie, Escape from New York (1981), was of course spurred by the passing of one of its stars, Isaac Hayes, and there were many comments from quiz winners wishing him a fond farewell: "R.I.P. to a giant of soul music." "He was the Duke, and he was A-Number-One."

He was, indeed, The Duke of New York in this well-known cable staple. (It's playing twice this week on AMC, although as one quiz winner pointed out, it will be so neutered "I may as well watch it on ABC Family.") Set far in the future-- 1997-- Escape from New York is a pioneering entry in the genre that could be called "post-apocalpyse action."

Lots of agreement, too, that it's one of director John Carpenter's all time best. It was one of the movies he made in the '80s with Kurt Russell, probably the actor Carpenter worked with best of all. Russell's performance as Snake Plissken is by now in the cult movie pantheon, and deservedly so. He makes internet movie top-10 lists almost on a daily basis, from "Greatest Movie Anti-Hero" to "Best Prison Tattoos."

The rest of the cast is filled with old pros doing fine work like Lee Van Cleef (picture clue #1), Donald Pleasance as the kidnapped president (#2), Adrienne Barbeau, and Ernest Borgnine. Unbelievably, the 91-year-old Borgnine was in the news this week, too, with his recipe for a long life.

Proving, I guess, that the real future is even weirder than the one in the movie.

Or not.

It was the biggest number of winning answers in weeks, so congratulations and a handshake from Ernie to all these people: Vince Tuss, Thomas Miller, Mojo Marshall, Wayne Palmer, Joe Rosenberg, John Seffl, Bob Redwing, John Middleton, TMiss, Bill Kelly, Michael Mattson, Dave Mallow, Bill Hearne, Jim Moomey, Song-Un Lee, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Donald Greene, Christina O'Sullivan, Fred Lorence, Letra Minuscula, Paul Rignell, Denny Lynch, Jack Sparks, Kevin Musolino, Mick Arran, and E. Yarber.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 18, 2008 12:08 AM

 

The Friday Comics Review

It was a dud week for anything new, so instead of a current pick this time, it's a look back at a two-part graphic novel from a few years ago that's at the top of the list of most disturbing comics of all time.

The Laughing Vampire and The Laughing Vampire 2 by Suehiro Maruo. Maruo is a manga artist-- more specifically, his genre is called ero-guro, or erotic grotesque. Little of his work has been translated into English, and there would be even less if not for fansubbed efforts like these.

The Laughing Vampire is proof that there is a genuine distinction between "grossed-out" and "creeped-out," and while much of Maruo's art and story is stomach-churning, it's the lingering chill of the images that keeps his work from being mere horror porn. And there's something to shock everyone in this long, grim story about young vampires whose bloody acts of violence are sometimes indistinguishable from those of their still-living but equally inhuman high-school peers. Maruo's world is one where "human beings are beasts, ruled by their appetites for sex and cruelty."

(That last quote is from Adam Stephanides, who wrote an excellent piece on Maruo for The Comics Journal a few years ago, and an excerpt of it is here.)

The Laughing Vampire is not for horror lightweights, and even hardcore fans should find scenes that will shock them. Once entered, Maruo's nightmare world is not easy to leave-- some pages stayed with me for days the first time I read it, and not just because of his superb artwork.

Here are a few more panels (and a cover) from one of the best horror comics ever done.

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 15, 2008 5:11 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #188

Believe it or not, not everyone in the movie is bald. Do you know what it is? Then send me an email with the title by late Sunday-- if you're right, you're know the liberating feeling of being in next week's hot buttered winner's circle. Can you dig it?

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 11, 2008 2:11 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Long ago, I knew a record-store manager who believed he could sum up someone's musical taste by their answer to just one question: "Do you like Queen?" (Hint: He didn't.) I'll bet there are video store managers all over the country who pull the same snooty trick on their customers by substituting the name "Oliver Stone."

Last week's quiz movie, U Turn (1997), is a weird one, even for Stone, but it's also a rare message-free film from the director that Quentin Tarantino rightly dubbed "the Stanley Kramer of his generation." Sean Penn (great once again, in another of his best performances) plays one of the world's biggest losers, a fact made obvious by his plight at the movie's beginning: on the run from a gambling debt (he's so far behind on it, he's already lost two fingers in interest), his car blows a gasket (actually, a radiator hose) in the middle of the Arizona desert. The only nearby town-- a little dump laughingly named "Superior"-- proves to be the worst place he could go, and everyone he meets is something out of Kraft-Ebbing. And the harder he tries to leave, the more trapped he becomes.

The supporting cast was packed with A-list actors, and all of them seemed to love their roles, especially Powers Boothe, Billy Bob Thornton, and Nick Nolte (Stone focuses on Nick's teeth, and they've never looked scarier). There's also nice (relatively) early work from Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes (see picture clue #3). And of course, the story's femme fatale couldn't be better-- "Jennifer Lopez hasn't looked that hot since she was a 'Fly Girl.'"

Oh, yeah-- it also featured a practically unrecognizable Jon Voight as a blind Indian shaman. Here's what Angelina Jolie might look like in thirty years.

For those who don't think Oliver Stone could pull off a black comedy like U Turn, here's all the proof you need-- the trailer from Stone's very first feature film, the 1974 horror masterpiece, Seizure. The thirty seconds will fly by so fast, you may not believe your eyes-- but yes, that is a pre-Fantasy Island Hervé Villechaize, and yes, that is a post-Dark Shadows Jonathan Frid.

That's right-- Tattoo and Barnabas Collins together in an Oliver Stone movie!

Congratulations and a free car repair from Billy Bob Thornton to the following quiz winners: Bob Redwing, Vince Tuss, Song-Un Lee, Thomas Miller, Wayne Palmer, Joe Rosenberg, John Middleton, Mojo Marshall, Christina O'Sullivan, Dave Mallow, Bill Hearne, TMiss, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Denny Lynch, Fred Lorence, E. Yarber, Michael Mattson, letra minuscula, Kevin Musolino, and Paul Rignell.

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 11, 2008 12:28 AM

 

The Friday Comics Review

Two new books from indy publisher PictureBox Inc. are this week's recommended reads.

We Lost The War But Not the Battle: a revengeful story by Michel Gondry (PictureBox Inc., $5.99). That's right, it's that Michel Gondry, the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This could be called a political science fiction comedy: 20 years after four friends fake mental illnesses to avoid being drafted (in France), they all get letters from the government ordering them to serve their country. Their assignment is to fight the International Solidarity Army (ISA), an all-woman force-- as the narrator describes them, "They were magnificent, angry creatures. Only a few of them, though."

Gondry is a filmmaker who gets the graphic format completely, and We Lost The War But Not the Battle is pure six-panels-a-page comics fun. His art style is that of a demented school-notebook scribbler (and a damned fine one), but his writing is sophisticated and his comedic touch is deft. Especially funny are all the scenes with Simon, the John Lydon-quoting member of the team who died of a drug overdose years before.

Here's the scene where the other three dig him up, so they can take him to the Army and prove he's dead.

(Notice the double "just?" The book is filled with mistakes like that. Usually I hate that kind of sloppy work, but it's actually charming here!)

Gondry packs a lot of story into his 32 pages (but not too much-- as I said, he gets comics), and I laughed out loud several times. In fact, I liked it better the second time I read it. I'm not sure that it will appeal to people who aren't already comics-- or more appropriately, comix-- fans, mainly because of his art style, but anyone who's been initiated into the wilder, weirder places the art form can go (think undergrounds) should see it for the instant classic that it is.

Goddess of War by Lauren R. Weinstein (PictureBox Inc., $12.95). The last genuine underground comic was probably published around the time Ms. Weinstein was born, but their spirit lives on-- as does mythology, American history, and even Jack Kirby-- in her story about the title character, Valerie the Valkyrie. An immortal goddess who lives on a planet of vampires and volcanos, after 175 years of reporting for work, she finally feels the need for a day off. By the time the story's over (and it's really not-- this is part one), she gets drunk on a bottle of virgin's blood and relives not only the (real) story of Cochise, but also her romance with him.

Goddess of War is a lovely oversized book, and its author makes great use of the page size, with tightly-panelled pages of story suddenly giving way to large, flowing panels and portraits. While Weinstein's art and layout are the main attraction, her writing is too good to be overlooked. (The Cochise story is especially well told.)

But like the Gondry book above, it may even confuse non-comix readers with its trippy panels and phantasmagorical plot shifts. Take the comics acid-test yourself and look at this (alas, drastically cut) cosmic Cochise moment (and note that the panel's action begins in the lower right corner):

(By the way, although I was irked to see that New York's comics page beat me to both of these books, I'm happy to steer you over to their entries, which feature pages and pages of both. Here's the one for Goddess of War and this is the link for the Gondry comic. And this is a link to a nice photo-feature about Lauren Weinstein and her studio.)

Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 8, 2008 12:23 AM

 

Great moments in movie history

A pair of creepy horror moments from movies made over 30 years apart.

The first is the "Miss Muerte" dance sequence from Jess Franco's The Diabolical Doctor Z (1966). If you don't know Franco, he has almost 200 feature films to his credit, from monster movies to hardcore porn. Most of his movies are flat-out bad (even his fans admit it), but you can't write him off as a hack-- besides some of his own genuinely good work, he was Orson Welles' right-hand man on Chimes at Midnight and was instrumental in both the filming and editing of that picture's incredible battle sequence (its editing alone took six weeks).

So here's Franco at his best, and a prime example of why I love Euro-trash movies so much. When people complain that they often don't make sense, they're absolutely right, but when they're filled with weird, stylish scenes like this, who cares?

Our second clip is a time-honored classic that I was reminded of when I read the "news" about the strange voice being used by Christian Bale in the new Batman movie ("like a 10-year-old putting on an `adult' voice to make prank phone calls," "like the offspring of Clint Eastwood and a grizzly bear"). But Bale's Dark Knight makeover has absolutely nothing on the magnificent tranformation work by Ted Edwards in the 1934 exploitation landmark, Maniac.

It could be argued that every gross moment in a horror movie since can thank this movie for setting the bar so high so early, and ditto for its level of bad acting. Edwards (as "Baxter") gets an injection meant to cure his delusion that he's the ape in Poe's "Phantom of the Rue Morgue." Unfortunately, the quack administering his hot shot is as crazy as he is, and accidentally gives him straight water.

Watch what happens as the horrible H2O surges through his pseudo-simian veins. Watch, too, as he really knocks the doctor to the floor. (And am I the only one who thinks he looks a little like Steve Carrell?)

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 6, 2008 2:01 AM

 

Al Franken's first closeup

One of the several sketch-based comedy films that wore out their welcome in the '70s, Tunnel Vision at least had a decent premise: a Congressional committee (headed by Howard Hesseman, aka Johnny Fever from WKRP!) investigates the programming of the country's first uncensored TV network. (Of course, it was set in the future-- 1985.) Some of the cast went on to better and/or bigger things, like SCTV (John Candy, Joe Flaherty) and SNL (Chevy Chase, Larraine Newman).

One of the most interesting segments is the one featuring Minnesota's Al Franken and Tom Davis. Not only does Franken get a closeup, he's glasses-free, making it possibly the only picture of him without his trifocals. Here, then, is the motion-picture debut of the man who would be senator:

"Hey, baby, wanna go somewhere and shoot the shit?"

"Yeah, where should I meet you with my gun, feeb?"

Later, Al asks Tom what's wrong-- after all, he uses the best mouthwash and deodorant.

Tom suggests his friend use "Heavy Changes Ego Spray" instead. "Hey, Al, don't worry about your breath and armpits-- it's your personality that stinks."

(Send Steve an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 4, 2008 4:15 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #187

Hey, at least it's better than Endless Love. So what is it? Send me an email by late Sunday with the title if you know it-- if you're right, you'll see your name in next week's bad-driving winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 4, 2008 1:19 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

It was a tough quiz this time with few right answers, and even fewer good words for the movie itself. "God, was this movie poor! I was dragged to see it on a blind date and within the first half hour I wished I was blind." "I'm not sure, and if Endless Love is right, I'm happy to be wrong." "Terrible movie, and not much of a quiz, either."

Mea culpa. I don't know what possessed me to pick Franco Zefferelli's 1981 dud of duds, Endless Love, for last week's quiz-- you would have thought Little Darlings would have taught me my lesson. I apologize profusely for it, as well as the gag-inducing poster above.

There isn't much to be said about it, other than "Blecchh!" Plot in a nutshell: A teenage nitwit loves his first girlfriend so much, he burns down her house and kills her dad. That's romance! Over the years, critics have had great fun renaming the film: Mindless Love, A Case of the Swoons, and I'll Always Remember My First Sociopath.

(The last title was from the webpage Cinema de Merde-- if you absolutely have to know all about the movie, click the link for truly endless Endless Love.)

The movie's another of those odd time capsules where its leads are now, by and large, forgotten, and it's the supporting cast who are our current stars. Brooke Shields is still with us, but the male lead, Martin Hewitt quickly went to TV and straight-to-video. But playing Brooke's brother in his second film was James Spader when he was still billed as Jimmy. (That's his first closeup in the film above.) The truth is, he's not very good, but neither is almost anyone else-- it's tough to be good in a movie this lousy! (Believe it or not, the only decent performance is by Brooke!)

Another even bigger star made his screen debut in Endless Love, and he was really terrible, but his self-love comes across even in a fuzzy screenshot (good news-- there's no DVD!). Here's everybody's favorite movie hero in his first moment of solo screentime . . . ladies and gentlemen, Tom Cruise!

Thanks to a quiz winner, there is an interesting story about this movie. I'll let her tell it:

"I was working for a small production house that did a lot of stuff for Polygram, including insert shots. We were hired to do a shot where the boyfriend opens an address book to his girlfriend's phone number. The handwriting on the address book page? Mine!"

Here's that historic moment of cinema:

Almost no winners at all compared to most weeks, so congratulations and the promise to never mention this movie again to the following intrepid trash experts: Wayne Palmer, TMiss, Corey Anderson, Bill Hearne, Nancy Louise Rutherford (she of the lovely handwriting), Song-Un Lee, Thomas Miller, Fred Lorence, and Michael Mattson. Sorry for the stinking movie, everybody!

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 4, 2008 12:28 AM

 

The Friday Comics Review

Welcome again to this blog's new feature, where I take a look at the best of the latest comics fare, books that are so good you don't have to be a comics fan to enjoy them. While the focus is primarily on graphic novels (like last week's review, Nat Turner by Kyle Baker), this week we'll make an exception for a gorgeous new biography of one of comics' all-time greats.

The World of Steve Ditko, written by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics, $39.95). Even people who've never read a comic book in their lives know who Stan Lee is-- he's the guy who created all the Marvel comic book characters that are currently keeping Hollywood afloat. The only trouble is, Stan didn't create them all, including the greatest Marvel hero of them all, Spider-Man. That distinction goes to Steve Ditko, comics' true mystery man (he avoids the press and his last known photo is over 40 years old) and one of the most original artists of the 20th century.

Blake Bell's new book, The World of Steve Ditko, is part biography, part critical assessment, and-- as befits a deluxe volume like this-- part art collection, with beautiful, full-page reproductions of Ditko's best work. If the bio part sometime recedes into the background, it's only because Ditko is almost invisible as a subject, with very few printed interviews over a career that spans half-a-century, and no desire to give any new ones. Bell incorporates everything that's already known with personal recollections of the (relatively few) people who have worked with him enough to know him at all.

Since he was known to quit a book because he didn't like the color of the first issue's cover, much of The World of Steve Ditko is basically the story of an inflexible genius and his life working in the scruples-free ghetto of comic books. When Spider-Man became a hit, he walked away from it for both artistic and monetary reasons, doing irreparable damage to his career. Even before that severe move, there are many examples in the Marvel chapters of how much at odds Ditko was with not only his peers but his fans. For a funny example, not only did he slip in the fan's most loathed character, J. Jonah Jameson, as much as he could, Ditko even wrote a letter to the editor under an alias defending JJJ's capitalist-pig ways.

(It was during the Marvel golden years that Ditko first fell under the spell of Ayn Rand, and Bell's analysis of how her philosophy permeated even his '60s work is one of the best things in the book. )

Bell has inpeccable taste when it comes to his assessment of the high points in Ditko's art and career. Besides some very choice Spider-Man and Dr. Strange art (not to mention the wonderful monster stories he did in Marvel's pre-hero days), he devotes a chapter to the post-Marvel work of Ditko's that many believe to be his best: the horror stories he did for Creepy and Eerie. Plus, bless his heart, he even includes a couple of pages of one of Steve's lesser-known gems, Konga.

Steve Ditko at his best is magic, and The World of Steve Ditko is filled with Ditko at his best. The cover gallery and full-page B&W panel blowups alone make the book a must for the old grouch's many fans, and should convert some new ones, too. Recommended and then some.

(Don't have the book and want to know just how good a comic cover can be? Here's a link to Ditko covers from Blake Bell's own website. And here's Blake's home page-- it's packed with info and artwork. If you're already a Ditko-ite, don't miss this webpage about Steve's bondage work!)

All artwork by Steve Ditko-- duh!-- and from Blake Bell's The World of Steve Ditko.

Send Steve-- Monaco, that is-- an email at couchpundit@yahoo.com

Posted by Steve Monaco at August 1, 2008 1:51 AM

 

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