The Medusa Chain

The Medusa Chain
by Ernie Colon
DC Graphic Novel No. 3, 1984

'The Medusa Chain' (48 pp) was written and illustrated by veteran American comic artist Ernie Colon (b. 1931), and published by DC Comics as 'Graphic Novel' No. 3 in 1984.

As the novel opens main character Chon ('John') Adams, experienced pilot, is being sentenced - for the crime of conspiracy and murder - to serve six years aboard the deep space cargo transport assembly (or 'chain'), the Medusa.

The Medusa is crewed by the scum of the galaxy, including a healthy leavening of homicidal mutants who don't take kindly to the presence of Adams aboard their ship.

The Medusa's captain, Commander Kilg-9, is herself a mutant, but is too preoccupied with the covert nature of her ship's mission to spend much time disciplining the crew.

Chon Adams is no weakling, however. He's quite able to take care of himself....even when confronted with multiple opponents......

As the voyage of the Medusa progresses, Chon Adams makes a disturbing discovery ......the ship's true mission is not a simple cargo run, but something far more sinister and risky. And it doesn't help that Top Drill Sergeant Basenga and his goons want to see Adams subjected to a special kind of mutilation.......

As conditions aboard the Medusa turn from vile to suicidal, it's up to Chon Adams to come up with the sort of desperate plan that got him convicted of conspiracy and murder in the first place....but this time, the fate of the Federation itself is at stake.....

Colon's artwork for 'The Medusa Chain' is not his strongest; it has a rushed, sketchy quality.........saved to some extent by vigorous, often gory, action sequences.

But Colon's plot is what makes 'Medusa' stand out. 

Chon Adams is not your usual hero; rather, he's more of an antihero in the mold of Cody Starbuck. I won't disclose any spoilers, but I will say that Adams is happy to shift his moral stance when circumstances require that he do so. And while he is willing and able to employ violence to achieve his aims, at the same time, he adheres to his own peculiar, but steadfast, code of ethics.

"The Medusa Chain' is one of the better of the first series of DC Graphic Novels. Copies can be had for reasonable prices (i.e., under $8.00) from your usual online vendors; it's worth picking up.

Book Review: Pluribus

Book Review: 'Pluribus' by Michael Kurland

4 / 5 Stars

‘Pluribus’ (272 pp) first was published in hardback by Doubleday in 1975. This paperback version was released in January 1980 by Ace Books; the cover illustration is by Boris Vallejo.

The novel is set in California in 2080, seventy years after a bio-engineered virus known as ECHO ‘escaped’ from the lab and, in a massive plague known simply as the ‘Death’, killed 90% of the globe’s population.

While a few scattered Enclaves try to maintain a knowledge of science and technology, the majority of the US population live in small towns and villages where technology is at a 19th century level, and Christian fundamentalism is the major social and political force.

Throughout these remnants of the US, there is a disturbing swell of suspicion and resentment against the Enclaves and their inhabitants, as the fundamentalist preachers argue that the Enclaves, and Science, were responsible for the release of the Death. Conflict seems inevitable.

As ‘Pluribus’ opens, the Palisades Enclave receives some disturbing news from the colony on Mars, where technology remains intact. The ECHO virus is due to mutate, and the new strain is likely to wipe out everyone left alive.

A desperate plan is set into motion: Mars colony will send a ship carrying a seed stock of a new vaccine strain of ECHO to the space station still orbiting the Earth. There, the Martian pilot will transfer to a docked space shuttle and fly it down to the Chicago Spaceport, to deliver the seed stock into the waiting hands of a team of scientists. Then it will be up to the Enclaves across the US, to grow and distribute the vaccine before the advent of a mutant strain of ECHO dooms what remains of mankind.

As part of the efforts to prepare the Enclaves to grow the vaccine, an elderly man named Mordecai Lehrer is recruited for a vital, but secret, mission. Under the guise of being a travelling magician, he and his team of young helpers will travel from California, through the Midwest, to Chicago Spaceport, handing out instructions to Enclave representatives along the way.

Lehrer’s mission is not without danger. If the fundamentalists discover what he is doing, at the very least they surely will imprison him and his helpers…… at the worst, they are likely to execute him. But if the human race is to survive, Lehrer must succeed……..

‘Pluribus’ bases its plot on the recognizable trope of the solo (often Jewish) protagonist who, under his outward stance of deference and self-deprecation, uses his wits and guile to outmaneuver the Orthodoxy that is ruining society through its own stupidity.

What sets ‘Pluribus’ apart from other post-apocalyptic novels of its time - for example, David Brin’s ‘The Postman’ - is its underlying tone of cynicism, rather than the carefully layered note of optimistic humanism that is present in some works of the genre. In ‘Pluribus’, the efforts of the dwindling remnants of sanity and civilization are fighting what may be a losing battle against the tide of ignorance and superstition.

The verdict ? If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic sf, then it’s worth your while to obtain a copy of ‘Pluribus’.

Dominic Fortune: The Power Broker Resolution

Dominic Fortune
'The Power Broker Resolution'
from Marvel Preview Presents: Bizarre Adventures (Marvel / Curtis) No. 20, Winter 1980

Dominic Fortune was a character created by Howard Chaykin for the color comic book Marvel Preview in 1975. A second installment appeared in the short-lived comic Marvel Super Action a year later. Both stories were reprinted in graytone in issue 20 of Marvel Preview Presents: Bizarre Adventures (1980).

The character thereafter appeared on a sporadic basis in Marvel's color and black and white comics throughout the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, often with little involvement from Chaykin. A digital comic was produced in 2009. The trade paperback Dominic Fortune: It Can Happen Here and Now (2010) collects much of this newer material.

As Chaykin remarks in his Forward to the reprinting in Marvel Preview Presents, Dominic Fortune was an attempt at placing an adventure hero in a sort of Dieselpunk / Art Deco / 30s Nostalgia -type setting. 

As always, Chaykin's artwork for this comic - even allowing for the fact that the original was in color, and this is graytone -  is very good.

Into the Night by Benny Mardones

Into the Night
by Benny Mardones
Summer 1980

If you were listening to the radio at all during the mid- to late- Summer of 1980, then you must remember hearing - many times - the overwrought vocals of the top 40 hit 'Into the Night' by New York City singer-songwriter Benny Mardones. The song was a single from Mardones' 1980 album Never Run, Never Hide.

She's just sixteen years old

Leave her alone, they say

Separated by fools

Who don't know what love is yet

But I want you to know

I never saw it (MTV didn't exist at the time) but there was a video to the song.........!

You owe it to yourself to view it.......it features a flying carpet..?!  on which Benny and his young love make out......!!!!

The video is low-budget and cheesy by today's standards, but that's part of its immeasurable charm......was there ever any more articulate and memorable a song to communicate the deep angst and emotional turmoil of Teen Love ?!

If I could fly, I'd pick you up

I'd take you into the night

And show you a love

Ooh, if I could fly

The story of 'Into the Night' has an interesting coda....in the Summer of 1989, a re-release of the song, as well as a re-recording Mardones did for his 1980 album Benny Mardones, again hit the charts. 'Into the Night' remains one of the few songs to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 twice.

An audio documentary, in which Mardones relates the inspiration for the song, can be accessed here.

And I would wait till the end of time for you

And do it again, it's true

I can't measure my love

There's nothing to compare it to

But I want you to know

If I could fly, I'd pick you up

I'd take you into the night

And show you a love

Ooh, if I could fly

I'd pick you up

I'd take you into the night

And show you a love

Like you've never seen, ever seen

Yeah, ooh

Book Review: Splinters

Book Review: 'Splinters'
edited by Alex Hamilton

2 / 5 Stars

‘Splinters’ first was published in the UK in 1968; this Berkley paperback (191 pp.) was released in the US in September, 1971. The artist responsible for the striking cover artwork is uncredited.

In his Introduction, editor Alex Hamilton indicates that he intended this anthology to be a collection of unconventional and offbeat ‘modern’ horror stories, written by authors who usually do not work in the genre.

All the stories in the anthology were written in 1968, predominantly by UK authors. As such, many share an understated, reserved approach to their material, and many focus on the impact of psychological distress and discord in the context of everyday British life.

My brief summaries of the contents:

Jane, by Jane Gaskell: A child has a very unusual Imaginary Friend.

The Ice Palace, by Michael Baldwin: incoherent tale of labor-management conflict.

The Language of Flowers, by Hugh Atkinson: a marriage is strained when the husband acquires an unusual devotion to plants. This story has the quality of a Roald Dahl tale.

Grace Note, by Derwent May: slight, absurdist tale of a talented parrot.

Miss Smith, by William Trevor: a schoolteacher’s rudeness to a student brings retaliation.

An American Organ, by Anthony Burgess: a husband’s musical interest generates marital discord.

The Biggest Game, by John Brunner: the anthology’s sole sf tale. A playboy finds himself under surveillance.

The Way the Ladies Walk, by Richard Nettell: a young boy develops an unhealthy fascination with the dead. A genuinely creepy tale, and one of the best in the anthology.

Home Again, Home Again, Jigetty-Jig: a family copes with Pa’s love for the bottle.

Indoor Life, by Montague Haltrecht: agoraphobia taken to extremes.

Don’t You Dare, by John Burke: A husband’s previous marital conflict comes to haunt his second marriage. More of an alternate take on a John Cheever - eque short story than a horror tale.

Isabo, by J. A. Cuddon: a suburban British housewife becomes possessed. The author relates the tale using a detached, almost clinical narrative that gives a sense of verisimilitude to its increasingly bizarre events. Another of the better entries in the anthology, and a story that had me wondering if William Peter Blatty had read it prior to conceiving of The Exorcist .........!?

Mewed Up, by Peter Brent: Brent (who also wrote under the pseudonym ‘Ludovic Peters’) produces an incoherent tale of a prisoner and his jailer.

Under the Eildon Tree, by Alex Hamilton: the editor exerts his prerogative and selects one of his own stories for inclusion in the anthology. In this case, it’s a dud; ‘Eildon Tree’ is a satirical account of witchcraft in Elizabethan England; its relevance to ‘modern horror’ is entirely absent. To make things worse, it’s related in the first person..... in Olde English......which makes it a chore to read.

Summing up ? ‘Splinters’ is yet another horror anthology whose two good entries really can’t salvage the content as a whole. This one is for completists only.

Top to Bottom

Top to Bottom
by Jack Butterworth (story) and Richard Corben (art)
from Vampirella #33, May 1974

Years before the 'Borg Cube' from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and 'Lemarchand's Box' from Clive Barker's Hellraiser, there was the strange cube in this story. It features some outstanding color artwork from Corben......all this in the days before computer-assisted art !

Book Review: Manalone

Book Review: 'Manalone' by Colin Kapp

5 / 5 Stars

‘Manalone’ (197 pp) was published in the UK by Panther Books in September 1977. The cover artist is uncredited, but probably is Chris Foss.

The title of the book, which also serves as the name of the major character, has the allegorical quality of a New Wave era sf novel…..but in every respect, ‘Manalone’ is a ‘hard’ sf novel, devoid of contrivance.

‘Manalone’ is set in a near future UK. Overpopulation means that much of the landscape is occupied by enormous apartment buildings, and the countryside has been converted into the giant tracts of farmland necessary to feed the masses. A large percentage of the population is unemployed and dependent on government largesse. Young people – nicknamed ‘Breves’ – view society with contempt, and focus on pursuing hedonistic lifestyles marked by a propensity for violence. Society, it seems, is continuously on the brink of collapse………..

Manalone (as he is referred to throughout the book) is a computing genius, and enjoys a comfortable life as the chief systems engineer at the Automated Mills Consolidated corporation. Although the term ‘hacker’ didn’t exist in 1977 when the novel was published, Manalone is indeed a hacker: he is uncomfortable in social situations, a loner, someone whose idiosyncrasies set him apart from the masses. But more than this, Manalone is constantly asking questions of the society in which he lives, aware that something, somewhere, is Wrong…but unsure as to why the government has concealed the information that would lead him to derive the nature of the crisis.

As the novel opens, Manalone has been contacted by his friend, the investigative reporter Paul Raper, who urges him to attend the clandestine showing of a film made in the 1970s. Malone does so, and makes a startling discovery: the activities in the film – which is a television cop drama – appear to contradict the laws of momentum and gravity. Astounded, Manalone concludes that either the physics depicted in the film are part of an elaborate show of special effects, or the laws of physics have been changed with the advent of modern society.

Troubled by the implications of the film, Manalone decides to follow up on more discoveries that Paul Rape has made....discoveries that reveal a host of problems afflicting society, problems that the government has taken pains to avoid discussing openly.

Manalone soon discovers that his and Paul Raper 's inquiries will bring them into conflict with the government – and the government is quite at ease with using violence to eliminate people who are asking the wrong kinds of questions.

Despite the increasing threat to his life, Manalone pursues his analysis of the society around him. But as he draws closer to uncovering the underlying reality of life in this future UK, he makes another, even more disturbing, conclusion: the government believes that its actions, however cruel, are justifiable......... if Mankind is to avoid self-destruction………

‘Manalone’ is part of the subgenre of sf in which a persevering, intelligent individual refuses to accept the status quo and embarks on an often hazardous journey to discover the truth behind the façade of ‘normal’ society. Many such novels, when they arrive at the long-sought Ultimate Revelation, are a disappointment, as the Revelation usually relies on a contrived, unconvincing plot device: it was 'All a Dream', or a 'Planted False Memory', or maybe 'An Illusion Created by Malevolent Aliens', etc., etc.

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that I found that the Ultimate Revelation in ‘Manalone’ to be un-contrived, clever, and fully supported by the narrative.

Summing up, ‘Manalone’ is one of the better sf novels of the 70s, one well worth picking up.

The Beast Within: The Art of Ken Barr

The Beast Within: The Art of Ken Barr
SQP Inc., 2007

‘The Beast Within: The Art of Ken Barr’ (48 pp) was published in 2007 by SPQ Inc.

SQP is a publisher of oversize trade paperbacks devoted to cheesecake, pinup, and porn artwork (‘Vincent Stephens’ Big Ass Book’, ‘Chicks and Monsters’, ‘Alazar’s Fetish Fantasies’, ‘Treasured Chests 4’). A few of their titles are showcases of fantasy and sf art; one of these is ‘The Beast Within’.

If you were a Baby Boomer, and during the 70s and 80s you were into sf, fantasy, and horror pop culture, then it’s highly likely that at least one of the magazines, comic books, or paperbacks you purchased had a cover by Ken Barr....... Barr was very prolific, but at the same time, able to deliver quality artwork.

In the Introduction to the book, Sal Quartuccio, the owner of SQP Inc., reminisces about meeting Ken Barr at the 1970 Comic Book Convention in New York City. Quartuccio, then “……..a very young and energetic kid from Brooklyn” commissioned Barr to provide the cover art for Quartuccio’s 1971 self-published sf comic book, titled Phase I. Barr also provided cover artwork for the inaugural 1974 issue of Quartuccio’s other venture into indie comics publishing, Hot Stuff.

‘The Beast Within’ provides an overview of Barr’s artwork for various sf, fantasy, and horror publishers, including the Warren magazines and Marvel Comics / Curtis magazines. The reproductions are of good quality and well-served by the book’s 9” x 12” dimensions.

Seeing some of the these covers is certainly going to trigger nostalgia….and that, unfortunately, is where ‘The Beast Within’ reveals a major fault: none of the paintings are identified ! I recognize some of them – for example, the covers for the Richard Meredith ‘Timeliner’ trilogy paperbacks released by Playboy Press in 1979 – but others are a mystery.

In an ideal world, Barr’s career would be represented by a 250- page hardcover art book that provides a truly comprehensive overview of all his work…something along the lines of the high-quality pop culture art books that UK publisher Titan releases. But, despite the absence of any sort of annotation, and its limited length, ‘The Beast Within: The Art of Ken Barr’ still is a worthwhile volume to have in your collection if you are a fan of 70s sf art.