Barks - Island in the Sky

Uncle Scrooge #29 - March 1960
W US 29-01

This 18-page story begins with the rather odd premise that Duckburg is the single city in its world with technological marvels, including flying cars and space travel, including space stations which transmit news and weather. Why you'd need such a capability when there's a single city that's hoarding this technology I don't know...

I'm not quite sure what the point of it only being Duckburg that has this technology is, since the story works the same without that little bit. Anyway, Scrooge decides that the perfect place to hide his money would be an asteroid, and takes the nephews out to find one in a second-hand rocket with the minimum of fuel he thinks he'll need to find such a place.

For some reason I can't resist posting panels about high fuel prices...

After various mishaps, they find an asteroid that has a lot of food and a nearby island with some aliens with minimal food, even less after Donald's rash actions scare off the birds that are the source of their eggs. In an atypical moment of generosity, Scrooge winds up helping them at quite a cost to himself. He got to be a softie when the '60s began.

Kirby Museum

If I may overlap weblogs for a second, on the off chance that anyone reads this and not the Kirby weblog (which the relative site statistics indicate is unlikely) I wanted to mention that this site is now active and gorgeous.

Plastic Man

I dunno about anyone else, but I think a Plastic Man story by Don Rosa could be pretty fun.

THE QUESTION by O'Neil/Cowan #21 - #25

 

Continuing with THE QUESTION 

#21, "Rejects", was the first issue of the series I ever picked up, so it would be a favourite just for that reason. It also has a great black&white cover by Cowan/Sienkiewicz which I think is the best of their collaborations. Dick Giordano is the guest inker this issue, which looked different. Good, but different.

This story continues the Junior Musto story from #6, starting with a flashback continuing the last scene from that issue, with some interesting bits about identity and the symbolic significance of Vic's mask. Then in the present, Junior steals a heart to give to his father for a transplant while Vic is sent to report on his high school reunion.

There are many brilliant bits in this issue, and I think I can call it my favourite issue overall.

#22 begins the long awaited polling day in "Election Day: The Fix". Malcolm Jones III joins as the regular inker, which looks really nice. It's hard to pick whether I liked Magyar or Jones better, partly because Cowan's pencilling style was also shifting around this point. Both were really good.

This is a very cynical storyline about voting irregularities, cover-ups, fixed voting machines, corrupt judges and all the rest. And for the action scenes, you have the Question fighting bikers, which is a lot of fun.

#23 is "Election Day: Welcome to Oz", and also has the final Cowan/Sienkiewicz cover. It starts with a history lesson on the first Hub City election, which not surprisingly ended in violence. Back in the present, the election continues with even more violence, an approaching storm and Vic facing a bit of a moral dilemma as he has to lie on the air to prevent more violence.

#24 concludes the storyline (in name, at least) with "Election Day: The Dark", more fun with bikers, including one odd scene of Vic almost being burned alive, and the storm hitting. Bit of an odd ending, didn't entirely work for me, but I remember the ending really catching me off guard.

#25 is "Skells", with the aftermath of the election and the storm and Vic's search for the former Mayor. I found this run of the book a bit weaker than the earlier stuff, but there were a few things I really liked in almost every issue. In this issue there was a really good bit with Vic talking about his growing anger and reversion to his earlier personality.

TALES OF THE CLOSET v1 by Velez

Thanks to some of the fastest turnaround time on a mail order I've ever seen, I now have a copy of Ivan Velez's TALES OF THE CLOSET v1, collecting the first three issues of the series originally published in 1987/88 in the first of four planned volumes (the last being an all-new conclusion to the story). I already knew that the comics were good, so now I can add that the production on the book is really sharp as well. Nice white paper as opposed to the newsprint of the originals more than makes up for the slight reduction in size (it's a large digest size, about the size of Tezuka's PHOENIX books from Viz).

Read more about the book in this earlier post.

www.planetbronx.com - Reviewers / store owners note the offer for a sample copy.

Order the book here if you want it now.

The book will also be offered in the September 2005 Previews if you prefer to get it from a comic store / mail order company. Page 314, order code SEP053064

You can check out some summaries/review of individual issues.

Just released is the first volume of Ivan Velez Jr.'s TALES OF THE CLOSET. Originally published (and unfinished) in nine issues from 1987 to 1993, it's now being re-released in four volumes from Velez's own Planet Bronx Productions, with the fourth volume set to contain the new conclusion of the story. It's a long time in coming, and sadly most of the issues it discusses are as relevant today as they were then.

"Once upon a time, in a high school in Queens..."

TALES OF THE CLOSET is the story of eight students in a New York high school, coming to terms with questions of their sexuality and the reactions of society to their identities. It has elements of soap opera and "afterschool special" (especially since one of the purposes it was created for originally was educational), but manages to transcend most of the flaws associated with those labels. While there are a few rough bits in the early going there's an earnestness and enthusiasm which carries it through, and it's great to see him improve by leaps and bounds with each issue.

I pick up some new thing in the script or art every time I pick it up, and it's a very smooth but dense read. I can never believe that the first issue is only 24 pages but somehow manages to introduce the eight main characters, with enough of their background and personality to get a handle on them, and several minor characters. By the last published issue there are a few dozen characters, and even ones you thought were minor background bits take on more significance, and that their own stories that impact on the main characters in unexpected ways. This is going to be best $8.50 you can spend on comics this year, and it'll only get better in later volumes. And the more of you who buy it the sooner I'll finally get to read the ending, so buy early, buy often.

Anyway, it's great to see one of my favourite obscure books finally get released in a permanent commercial format. Check it out if you get a chance, and you might agree.

My Collection - ICON [1993 Series]

Icon [1993 series]
42 issues [1993 - 1997]
1 - 42

On average probably the best of Milestone's titles, though initially I thought it was the weakest of their launch titles. It probably helped that it had the most consistent creative team, with Dwayne McDuffie and Mark Bright sticking around from the first issue to the last, with a minimum of fill-ins (only five issues aren't written by one of those two).

My initial interest in the Milestone line was that it was Denys Cowan's big project a few years after his work on THE QUESTION, which was a favourite. I wasn't at the time familiar with most of the other creators involved, but the characters looked good and the books were fairly inexpensive. While they had some rough spots, all of them were entertaining enough to keep picking up.

As I said, ICON was initially my least favourite of the books, although I did enjoy it. It took a while for it to get around to the point where we find out that the main character was the sidekick, Rocket, rather than the big guy with the cape. It gradually got better, pretty soon was my favourite of the books in the line (others of which got worse, but more on that later). I also thought that this book did the best job of integrating guest bits of the rest of the Milestone characters and handling the occasional crossovers.

Unfortunately later in the series there were a few scheduling problems, with long gaps between issues, and it was eventually cancelled in the middle of a storyline. I guess getting on to a decade later it's time to give up the hope that it'll ever be finished.

Still, despite the lack of an ending, well worth seeking out, and back issues are pretty affordable, as is the one collection of the first 8 issues.

Notable bits:

#13 is a guilty pleasure, but probably my favourite issue, featuring the debut of Buck Wild, Mercenary Man, an absurd but oddly endearing parody of 1970s "blaxploitation", one comic character in particular. He appeared a few more times (including uttering the immortal line "I refuse to be held down by the White Man's gravity"), up to his funeral in #30, a great finale.

#42 wisely took a break from the unfinished storyline to present another funeral for what became the final issue, and it's really a brilliant story, much better than it has a right to be. You'd think that injecting the unreality of a super-heroic universe into the real world concerns would cheapen it, but somehow it all comes together nicely here.

Doctor Who - "Sea Devils"

"Sea Devils", a Jon Pertwee episode with Jo Grant as the assistant, was unfortunately one of the weaker Pertwee episodes I've seen. A shame as it's the only one I have available from the library which features the original Master, who I remember always enjoying. He's mostly good in this one as well, but the overall story is a bit plodding, takes forever to get started and has a lot of dull bits between the few good scenes. I think part of the problem was that they had the co-operation of the British Navy in the making of this episode, which meant a lot of atypical for DW bits of location shots on the water and naval base, which didn't add much at all. This wasn't helped at all by the director doing a bunch of distracting visual tricks, quick cuts, sudden zooms and such, plus some weird sound effects.

A shame, as there is the hint of a good story in all of this, but it's not at all realized in the production.