Now Read This!

By Various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN 0-7851-0843-2

I can understand capitalising on big screen success if you’re a publisher with a desperate eye to the bottom dollar – and even if you’re not – but this collection of disparate tales must be quite a shock to any movie-goer that hot-foots it out of the cinema or off the couch to scoop it up from the bookshelves.

Firstly it is indeed in monochrome, which I personally favour, but is still considered somehow less acceptable to the general public, Manga sales notwithstanding. Secondly the art, by the likes of Tony DeZuniga, Rico Rival, Gene Colan and even Ladronn – comic masters all – is far from the contemporary main stream.

The writing, if truth be told, is also not the best from Marv Wolfman or Chris Claremont, whose multipart magazine epic The Legion of the Damned (which first saw daylight in Vampire Tales #8 & 9 and Marvel Preview #3 & 8 ) is woefully clichéd, even for the mid 1970s. The problem is further compounded as they get caught up in hopelessly kitsch “white-boys writing Blacksploitation” mode (“Enjoy Hell, you motherin’ piece o’ scum!”).

James Felder’s short story, taken from Marvel: Shadows & Light #1 is silly and unsatisfactory, whilst Christopher Golden’s tepid team-up (Blade: Crescent City Blues #1 1998) with Brother Voodoo (another painfully clichéd black hero – let his name be all the hint you need), is a listless shamble – even by Vampire-Zombie standards – that only wastes Gene Colan’s impressive drawing skills. Moreover, the story doesn’t even complete in this volume. That’s an absolute crime for any book, which is what we’re reviewing here.

Finally, the biggest problem with this as a tie-in is that the character here, created as a contemporary antagonist for the excellent Tomb of Dracula comic series in the 1970s, bears no real similarity to the half-vampire super-being in the films and TV series.

Blade here is a mouthy Jazz musician who is immune to vampire bites (yes, I know, how feasible is it to be immune to bleeding to death?) whose mother was killed whilst he was being born, not an ultra-cool costume-wearing force of nature. It seems to me that nothing but confusion and frustration await herein…

© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1997, 1998, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

By Harvey Pekar & various (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-024-7

Harvey Pekar has been a continual source of great comics writing for adults since 1972 when fellow Jazz and underground comix enthusiast Robert Crumb offered to draw some scripts he’d been shown. From then Pekar’s work, mostly autobiographical, and mostly in his own American Splendor publication would appear at irregular intervals, illustrated by a broad band of artists.

The highly personal musings of a man who collected books, records, facts, opinions and worries whilst living the life of an ordinary blue-collar Joe in Cleveland, Ohio, made for highly regarded if not commercially acceptable comic strips. Dry, acerbic, introspective, often funny, and above all absolutely human in scale, his work was always at the fringes of the comic consciousness, and consequently never particularly financially rewarding.

This collection of stories is culled from a variety of sources and recounts the long and bewildering journey of Pekar’s work from comic page to the movie screen, as a twenty year ambition was realised with the eventual release of an independent film based on his comic. The documentary American Splendor not only happily captured his work but some critical awards too, and this volume recounts the peculiar whirlwind that followed its success and the world-wide promotional tour that the creator and his family had to endure in its wake. Also included are a selection of the “Lost and Found” vignettes that highlight lives, careers and works of people and things that the intellectually omnivorous Pekar periodically produces.

As usual, a large number of artists were involved. Handling the pictures here were Crumb, Gary Dumm, Mark Zingarelli, Josh Neufeld, Gerry Shamray, Greg Budgett, Frank Stack, Ed Piskor, Joe Zabel and Dean Haspiel.

As with his powerful breakthrough volume My Cancer Year, this is often an uncomfortable book to read, but it’s great to see the little guy finally get his share of the limelight in a medium that so often concentrates on the outlandish and superhuman. That makes this a great choice for those who treasure humanity and like the chance to ponder upon it every so often.

© 2004 Harvey Pekar, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Wang Shifu of the Yuan dynasty

Adapted by Hong Zengling, illustrated by Wang Shuhui & translated by Zheng Kangbo

(Hai Feng Publishing Company Hong Kong)
No ISBN

This beautiful fable uses the ancient plot of the hard path to true love to examine the nature of aspiration in a hidebound culture as well as the greater quest for personal freedom. The Western Chamber is adapted from a classic work of the Yuan dynasty, attributed to the dramatist Wang Shifu, and was produced in pre-Reunification Hong Kong.

The story tells of a bright, ambitious scholar named Zhang Gong, who called himself Junrui, and his fateful decision to go to the Capital and gain a government position. En route he visits a monastery where he accidentally glimpses Cui Yingying, sequestered daughter of the recently deceased Prime Minister.

The seemingly insurmountable obstacles of rank, wealth, pride, rivals, politics, potential mothers-in-law and even a marauding rebel army and its libidinous General all prove ineffective. We know that eventually love will conquer all and that the ending will be a happy one, but fans of beautiful drawings will delight in the fact that the adventure is delivered with the seductive mastery of line and black ink that epitomises all that is great in Eastern picture storytelling.

As with most oriental graphic novels The Western Chamber has been in print continuously since its release, and should be readily available from most shops in your local Chinatown.

© Hai Feng Publishing Company 1982. All Rights Reserved.