{"id":7600,"date":"2011-11-23T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=7600"},"modified":"2011-11-21T18:56:09","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T18:56:09","slug":"the-fires-of-pele","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2011\/11\/23\/the-fires-of-pele\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fires of Pele"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Hollace and Paul Davids<\/strong> & Sergio Aragon\u00c3\u00a9s, <\/strong>assisted by Lee Mishkin<\/strong>, with SFX by M.D. Wolf<\/strong> (Paul Davids Productions\/Pictorial Legends)
\nISBN: 978-0-93903-100-9<\/p>\n

Here’s an intriguing and thoroughly fabulous photo-novel oddity from the 1980s – or as it should be known, the days before Photoshop\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 – that still holds the power to enchant and delight even in an era where recordings of fan-favourite shows can be bought, bartered or downloaded at the click of a mouse.<\/p>\n

For all you youngsters: photo-novels were paperback adaptations of movies or episodes of popular TV shows which used text and film-stills instead of drawn art to reproduce the story. Inexplicably popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they fell from favour with the rise of video, and latterly, laser-discs, DVD and other methods of actually owning the full-sensorium original material.<\/p>\n

Cinema releases included Alien<\/strong>, Grease<\/strong>, Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/strong>, the 1978 Lord of the Rings<\/strong> and many others whilst TV editions included Dr. Who<\/strong>, The Incredible Hulk<\/strong> and an even dozen episodes of the Original Star Trek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A few photo-novels such as Star Wars<\/strong> and Charlie’s Angels<\/strong> are still produced these days.<\/p>\n

At the end of 1986 husband and wife screen writers Hollace and Paul Davids produced this excessively impressive and clever faux-fable blending the mythology of Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands with the peripatetic but well-documented wanderings of reporter-at-large Samuel Langhorne Clemens AKA Mark Twain.<\/p>\n

An oversized 247x305mm, glossy 56 page modern fairytale, the illustrations here are original full-colour special effects cinematic plates (no cheap computer graphics packages or Photoshop, remember?) with a cast of actors creating the scenes in the manner of Fumetti\/photo picture stories, further enhanced with designs and painted illustrations by Sergio Aragon\u00c3\u00a9s and Lee Mishkin – and the pen and ink maestro also provides a wealth of merry monochrome \u00e2\u20ac\u0153marginals\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the Great Raconteur himself\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The story is beguilingly simple: whilst reporting on the Sandwich Islands for his employers the Sacramento Union <\/strong>newspaper in 1866, the adventuresome author encountered a race of magical Polynesian pixies known as Melehulas<\/em> and was drawn into a battle between bold heroes and spiteful gods\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The great Prince Lakekua<\/em> was to wed the foundling princess Analike<\/em>, but the comely warrior had caught the eye of dreadful Pele<\/em>, Goddess of Fire, Lightning, Wind and Volcanoes. After first trying unsuccessfully to seduce and compel the doughty warrior, Pele sent her malign kin, such as The Shark God, Moho<\/em> the steam god and Earth-giant Kona<\/em> to imprison the brave girl beyond the reach of man and destroy all who tried to find her.<\/p>\n

Luckily for Lakekua, his trusty young friend Kakipoto<\/em> knew such benevolent spirit creatures as the Menehulas, bestial master craftsman Kakamora<\/em> and a host of other advantageous allies such as a fast-thinking, smooth talking visiting white traveller from distant shores\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Crammed with exotic scenarios, lush, incredible scenery, mighty battles, true love, talking fish, shape-shifting wizards, Demon Owls, Lizard-Ladies and the unjust wrath of the gods this is a marvellous romp in the grand Ray Harryhausen Bank Holiday movie manner and a splendid yarn long overdue for a modern revisitation.<\/p>\n

Until then however, the original large slim tome is still readily available should you desperately need to explore the dark side of Paradise\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1986 Hollace & Paul Davids. All right reserved. Menehulas Photos \u00c2\u00a9 1985 The Menehunes Group. All other photos \u00c2\u00a9 1983 Paul Davids and Mark Wolf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hollace and Paul Davids & Sergio Aragon\u00c3\u00a9s, assisted by Lee Mishkin, with SFX by M.D. Wolf (Paul Davids Productions\/Pictorial Legends) ISBN: 978-0-93903-100-9 Here’s an intriguing and thoroughly fabulous photo-novel oddity from the 1980s – or as it should be known, the days before Photoshop\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 – that still holds the power to enchant and delight … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Fires of Pele”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,102,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-books-and-comic-strips","category-fantasy","category-kids-all-ages"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-1YA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}