Being as I haven’t been able to visit my local comic shop this week, (as the French say: Quel Domage) I have decided to fire up the Way-back machine to review some favorites from ages past. We begin with a little Indie gem from the mythical year 2000. Cynical Girl #1:
Geneva works at a local bookstore in or near New York City. She is smart, sarcastic and put out by the idiocy of common life. What’s a girl to do? Why, turn her snark and curmudgeonliness into a career as superhero Cynical Girl of course! Belting out such action-packed phrases as “Freeze, line cutting man!” and “Freeze, skanky men who have not bathed in a very long time!” she attempts to use her powers of cynicism to cure the ills of modern society. (Particularly the ones directly affecting her.)
William Morton’s art is clean, slick, and cartoony; coming off as an exceptionally well drawn comic strip. The over-sexualized images of Cynical Girl on page two detract somewhat from writer Jennifer Heddle’s anti-sexism message, but I can understand why he might get carried away drawing a cute, spunky, no-nonsense girl whose wardrobe consists almost entirely of black.
Geneva has three main nemeses in this tragically single episode story: perky, dimwitted co-worker Jacquie, Dave, her clingy, stalking ex, and nerdy adorer, Kenny. The third in this trio of irritation lavishes Geneva with a gift of a truly creepy fan-boy drawing of the two of them. (Complete with Fred Hembeck style elbow and knee spirals.) Geneva responds with what every female comic character that doesn’t have the good fortune to be drawn by Terry Moore must be thinking all the time: “...I don’t look like that, I don’t want to look like that, and even if I did look like that, I wouldn’t dress like that. Capish?” I’m sure my fellow comic blogger, Ravenhaired http://coverstosleepunder.wordpress.com would get a kick out of Kenny’s bewildered response: “No.”
Cynical Girl’s best friend is a gorgeous, bespectacled female dentist (I’m sure a certain someone will be wanting to make a joke at this point) who is twice as snarky and strong willed as Geneva herself. Cynical Girl can’t seem to actually put anybody in their place until she and her unnamed friend go out to a club wherein Geneva saves a girl from the unwanted attentions of a pair of creepy men.
I would have been more than pleased to see this book be a quarterly for the past twelve years. My comic book closet would have had a special short-box waiting patiently to store issue #50.
Stitch #1: Winter 1999, was there an angstier time in Western Civilization since the Bubonic Plague years? Maybe it was just because I was turning eighteen soon but I sure felt so. The proliferation of vampires, Y2K fears, and an insurgence in Goth culture was a boon for comic imprint Slave Labor Graphics. Enter Tommy Kovac. (Oh, and make sure to call him a deathrocker and not a Goth!)
He has no memory and he is a doll. Finding himself in a mysterious, hostile and seemingly endless “playroom” our hero faces themes of childhood isolation, bullying, existential crisis, madness, abortion and evil. Setting the stage for theatre of the absurd style dark chaos is Yum Tum Bear who “smells like pee” and gives us all the introduction we need in three pages.
Our amnesiac doll boy is startled by a manic, disturbed girl doll who he recognizes as his sister Maggy. Three more familiar faces follow: his cousins, vapid Daniel and Simon and petulantly vicious Polly.
After failing at kickball, our hero wanders off and is harassed by two diminutive punks in dresses called the Benders, who accuse him of being “fancy boy” in a hauntingly stylized version of anti-gay bullying. Finally, we are introduced to a sock monkey who is kind and can relate due to his own ostracization. After all, he “get(s) teased an awful lot ‘cause of (his) big red bottom.” Our sock monkey is sure he has found new friends in an unopen puppet cabinet. There are true horrors here: a demonic Pope marionette and a baby skeleton marionette called Tiny Bones.
Dead center in this book is a Jhonen Vasquez-inspired, non sequitur, brightly demonic short story about two bunnies who exclaim “Holy shit. We are so cute...” Short story shorter, a demon vomits acid on them turning them into “ skelebunnies”. Nonplussed, the rabbits continue playing and scampering. The demon returns to Hell whining “I’m telling Satan.”
Kovac’s art is an odd but pleasant cross between Voltaire’s “Oh! My Goth” and Tony Millionaire’s “Sock Monkey.” (If such a thing is possible.) On the final page, we are gifted with the most haunting, beautifully disturbing piece of flash fiction I’ve ever read. If you can find this comic, read it for this story alone, if nothing else.
Stan Lee meets Silver Surfer #1:This decidedly mixed bag celebrated Stan’s sixty-five years with Marvel. I know I’m not allowed to say anything but glowing purple prose regarding Mr. Lee but he’s always come across as hokey to me. The man is as much a promotor as a writer and I don’t believe he would have seen as much success as he has without partnering with Jack Kirby.
Our first tale, written by Lee himself, is meant as a satire. Here Stan finds out that his creations are real as he is summoned by Galactus. The script is marginal and Mike Wiering can only draw Galactus well of all the characters in the story. (But boy can he draw Galactus!)
We learn that the Devourer of Worlds’ grand scheme is to show Stan how annoying the Silver Surfer is. Lee shoe-horns every cheap philosophical trope into the Surfer’s mouth, so maligning the discipline that Plato would be rolling over in his grave. Let’s skip ahead to the next story before I get a headache.
Our next tale, “The Magician” is a sweet, if cloying, love letter from writer Paul Jenkins to Lee. In it, the young Jenkins is working on a comic, “Spidey Vs. Dudley Moore”, which he describes as “poo-ey” when Lee appears to provide inspiration. Lee, showing the child the fantastical world of his own imagination. (Which coincidentally appears VERY similar to Stan’s own.) The half-muse-half-psychopompous (Look it up kids) smatters useless advice such as: “Always use big words so people will think you’re clever.” (O.K., so I just FOLLOWED advice I said stunk.) with great advice like: “...with magic you can saw a leopard in half...with talent you can create an entire WORLD before breakfast.”
Before Stan leaves, he shows Paul the Sentry, the very character he will later create with Lee. Despite being a heart-warming tale of budding creativity, the ultimate message appears to be mirrored by another “gem” dropped by Stan to Paul: “You’ve got to think in the mighty Marvel way.”
After a ridiculous two-page exercise in wasted space by Jacob Chabot in which Doctor Octopus falls asleep watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, we get a reprint of Stan Lee and John Buscema’s first meeting of Spiderman and the Silver Surfer. It’s really not a bad story at all but it prominently displays Lee’s penchant for over-writing and over-dramatization. Despite being decidedly more of a “word guy” than a “picture guy”, I found myself mesmerized by Buscema’s line-work. You probably want to own this comic for the milestone it is but actually cracking it open should be saved for a case of extreme boredom.
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