Two Enemies by Trillo and Salinas

'Two Enemies'
by Carlos Trillo (story) and Alberto Salinas (art)
from Merchants of Death No. 2, August 1988 (Eclipse)

I've previously posted another, two-part comic from this team, from issues 3 and 4 of Merchants of Death, Eclipse Comic's short-lived experiment in a magazine-sized anthology of adventure comics.

'Two Enemies' features amazing artwork from Argentinian artist Salinas (1932 - 2005). I couldn't find out where, in what Continental comic, this strip first appeared. 

I will say that personally, I would have pursued a different outcome to the story's end.........but then, I'm a reprobate............. 

The Inhumans graphic novel, 1988

The Inhumans

Marvel Graphic Novel, 1988 

'The Inhumans' is Marvel graphic novel No. 39, and was published in 1988. The story is by Anne Nocenti, with art by Bret Blevins, inks by Al Williamson, letters by Novak and Saladino, and colors by Michael Higgins.

'The Inhumans' opens with a tragedy taking place in the Inhuman's city of Attilan, on Earth's Moon. The reader learns that the judges of the Genetic Council have implemented a eugenics policy that dictates which members of the race can marry, and reproduce, with others. The justification for this policy is to avoid birthing individuals whose traits may - inadvertently or deliberately - lead to the death and destruction of the Inhumans. Needless to say, this draconian policy is the cause of much tension in Inhuman society.

We learn that Medusa, wife of Inhumans leader Black Bolt, is herself pregnant........and must present herself to the Council and accept their judgment as to whether she will be allowed to bear the child. 

Aware that Black Bolt is capable of destroying Attilan simply by speaking, the Elders decide that it is too risky to permit Medusa to give birth to the progeny of such a powerful being. This stance, of course, causes consternation among the Inhumans.

Determined to have the baby, Medusa uses Lockjaw to teleport herself to a wasteland in the Midwest, where she sets up in an abandoned house. The other Inhumans join her and agree to defend her from any who would try to enforce the Council's diktat.

However, Maximus, Black Bolt's psychopathic brother, has escaped his prison in Attilan and travels to Earth with unsavory designs on Medusa........and the terrain around her hideout has begun to display a disquieting tendency to act as if it is somehow sentient......and dangerous. Events soon are moving towards a crisis, one that jeopardizes not only the Inhumans, but perhaps their entire race as well...............

Marvel produced some pretty awful comics during the 1980s, but this is one of the worst. It's really, really bad. 

Sometimes superior art can salvage a bad story, but Bret Blevins's art has a hasty, half-finished quality, as shown in this panel where little effort was made to render recognizable human figures:

Nocenti's writing relies on a steady stream of melodramatic confrontations between the various Inhumans:

These are so pervasive that at some point Nocenti must have realized that any Fanboys who ventured to read 'The Inhumans' were going to be turned off, so she arranged for some cheesecake to hold their attention. 

Thus we have a shape-shifting girl, named Minxi, who wears the barest strips of black fabric; and some panels of Crystal, taking a bath:

The plot gets increasingly difficult to follow. Story beats are tossed in haphazardly, with little effort at coherence (for example, Triton periodically shows up in a parallel plot thread, says something angst-y, and then vanishes) and the corny, cliche-riddled dialogue fails to improve.

I won't divulge any spoilers, but I found the denouement to be underwhelming, so much so that it renders all of the Sturm und Drang in the preceding pages moot.

Summing up, 'The Inhumans' is an exemplar of what can go wrong when comics writers are given leeway to craft a narrative that serves as a conduit for their aspirations of being a Meaningful Writer. They may have intended to use the medium to say something Profound about society, kinship, responsibility, motherhood, etc., etc., but instead present a stream of theatrical posturings. Stay away from this one ! 

An actual issue of 2000 AD (Prog 449, December 1985)

An actual issue of 2000 AD
Prog 449, December 21, 1985

I've been reading and collecting content from 2000 AD and its sister titles since 1984, but always these were, and are, reprints of material packaged for US distribution. I never held an actual copy of 2000 AD in my hands.

I discovered that my local comic book shop recently had acquired a bunch of actual, vintage 2000 AD comics.......some adventurous American collector must have imported these comics from the UK back in the 1980s.

I picked up Prog 449, issued on December 21, 1985. Below is a photo showing how it compares in dimension to American comics from the same era (more or less):

One thing that is immediately apparent is that 2000 AD was printed on pretty flimsy paper stock. I mean, it's newsprint..........in its margins, you can see the little holes punched out by the apparatus responsible for folding the paper......... 

The newsprint used by publisher IPC for 2000 AD makes the production values of coeval U.S. comic magazines like Monsters Unleashed, Eerie, and The Rook look upscale. 

Considering the use of newsprint, the resolution of the artwork in the pages of 2000 AD is really quite good.

The resolution of text is less reader-friendly. Maybe it was clear to youthful eyes back in '85, but for me today, as someone over 60, it is hard to make out.

Times have changed considerably since 1985, and in the UK and the US attitudes towards comic books and their production values have been greatly altered, with the advent of newer printing technologies making for much more presentable appearance for the medium. 

And it's also true that the inflation-adjusted pricing for modern-day comic books in both countries is quite high (some might say too high), and back in '85, 24 pence was affordable for UK kids who were collecting 2000 AD on a weekly basis.

In that era, an increase in price in order to increase quality might well have been counterproductive...........but perhaps a UK reader can offer some perspective on what 24 pence meant as purchasing power in 1985 ?

Anyways, below I've posted 'I Am the Lurker', the Judge Dredd story from this prog. 

I've enhanced the contrast in my scans to minimize bleedthrough from the opposite side of each page. However you modify it, at its core, Ron Smith's artwork compares very well to anything being printed nowadays in any US comic books.............

Book Review: Sword of the Nurlingas

Book Review: 'Sword of the Nurlingas' by Gerald Earl Bailey

4 / 5 Stars

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ (180 pp.) was published by Berkley Books in January 1979. The cover artist is uncredited, but likely Wayne Barlowe.

This is the first volume in the two-volume ‘Saga of Thorgrim’ series, with ‘Sword of Poyana’, also published in 1979, the second volume. Whether the series was intended to feature additional volumes is uncertain, as these two books are the totality of author Bailey's output.

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ is set in the province of Bod Dagh, which is modeled on medieval Scandinavia. Our hero, the son of King Thorgill, is serving a stint as foster-son to an elderly couple at the farmstead of Gilistead. Preoccupied with learning the skills of a warrior, Thorgrim largely is sheltered from the political intrigue unfolding in Bodo Dagh, intrigue advanced by the increasing ambitions of Jomunrek, the illegitimate son of Thorgill. 

As the novel opens a witch-woman in Gilistead awakes with an alarming vision of fire and violence, a vision that portends a cruel fate for our hero should he be found by the forces of Jomunrek. Gisli, the bailiff of Gilistead, arranges for Thorgrim to flee to the city of Chiavo, where he can find passage to the Eastern Lands and a degree of safety as a future as a member of the royal guardsmen of Bayan. 

Gisli bestows upon Thorgrim the magic sword of Lark, and the story of a prophecy…..one that may involve Thorgrim and the Spaehelm, a lost artifact of great power, albeit one that brings a curse upon its wielder. 

And so Thorgrim, callow as he is, is forced out into the wide world, with all its perils and promises. But with Lark in his hand, Thorgrim is not one to be underestimated, as his enemies soon will learn…..

‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ was something of a surprise. It’s a cut above the standard-issue Conan pastiche, as good as, if not better, than (for example) the ‘Thongor’ stories produced by Lin Carter. 

Bailey is a competent writer who keeps his chapters short and to the point. The cast of characters is expansive, but not unwieldy, and the narrative moves with alacrity. For his part, Thorgrim is not invincible, thus victory is never foreordained. At the same time, his willingness to use strategy and cunning when the odds are against him keeps the plot from getting too predictable and sustains an interesting narrative.

I finished ‘Sword of the Nurlingas’ with an eye towards acquiring the sequel. This is a late 70s sword-and-sorcery tale that is worth picking up.

An Ultimate Alchemist

An Ultimate Alchemist

(The Vagabond in Limbo)

Christian Godard (writer) and Julio Ribera (art)

Dargaud Canada, 1983

'The Vagabond of Limbo' (Le Vagabond des Limbes) was a French sci-fi comic that began in 1975 as albums de bandes dessinees, 31 of which were issued until 2003. Early strips also were published in a variety of comic magazines such as Circus, Tintin, and Pilote. 

Only two of the albums ever were translated into English; these were published by Dargaud's Canadian imprint. 

'What Is Reality, Papa ?' (Quelle réalité papa ?, first issued in 1980) was published by Dargaud Canada in 1981, while 'An Ultimate Alchemist' (L'Alchimiste suprême, first issued in 1979) was published in 1983. 

Each graphic novel is 48 pages in length and, being long out of print, existing copies are difficult to find.........and rather expensive.

The English version of 'An Ultimate Alchemist' was serialized in 1980 in Heavy Metal magazine, as ''The Alchemist Supreme', which is where I first saw it. Heavy Metal also serialized 'What is Reality, Papa ?' in 1981.

The protagonist of 'The Vagabond in Limbo' is Axle Munshine, who, accompanied by the gender-fluid boy / girl Musky, searches the galaxy for a way to bring a dream to life....... the dream being Munshine's ultimate fantasy woman, a nubile blonde named Chimeer.

In 'An Alchemist Supreme', Munshine and Musky land their starship The Silver Dolphin on a deserted asteroid which turns out to be the home of an old friend named Robson. Sympathetic to Munshine's plight, Robson directs him to the pleasure planet of Bousbbhyr, and a green-skinned courtesan named Frankchik.

With the aid of Frankchik, Munshine and Musky make their way to 'The Forbidden Perimeter', where, it is rumored, God himself - known as the Ultimate Alchemist - makes his home. And if anyone can bring Chimeer to life, it will be the Ultimate Alchemist........

'An Ultimate Alchemist' is first and foremost a more 'adult' comic than its contemporary bande dessinee, 'Valerian'. It's a much more humorous, even absurdist, treatment of the sci-fi theme, relying on a peculiarly Gallic strain of comedy to make its points. 

This means that for those used to Anglophone sci-fi, 'Alchemist' suffers from wordiness, and dialogue that (even allowing for the quirks of translation) comes across as awkward and contrived.

Where 'An Ultimate Alchemist' retains its appeal even after the passage of more than 40 years is the artwork by Ribero, who shows skill in rendering faces and expressions, lubricious aliens, outer space landscapes, and brothels and laboratories. 

If you are a fan of Heavy Metal and have familiarity with the French sci-fi comics of the 70s and 80s, then if you come across an affordable copy of 'An Ultimate Alchemist' it is worth picking up. 

Is the comic worth reviving for a modern audience, much as Cinebook has done with 'Valerian' ? In my opinion, no..........the ideal audience (of Anglophone fans of 70s and 80s sci-fi) for any reprinted series is rapidly graying, and 'Alchemist' is too idiosyncratic to hold the attention of younger sci-fi comic fans reared on the plodding humanism of titles like Saga and Descender.

( For an alternate review of 'An Ultimate Alchemist', readers are directed to this blog post. )

Spock lookalike contest, 1967

Spock Lookalike Contest

World Science Fiction Convention, 1967

photograph by Jay Kay Klein

Book Review: Warlord's World

Book Review: 'Warlord's World' by Christopher Anvil

2 / 5 Stars

'Warlord's World' (207 pp.) is DAW Book No. 168 and was published in October 1975. The cover art is by Frank Kelly Freas.

'Christopher Anvil' was the pseudonym of the U.S. writer Harry C. Crosby, Jr. (1925-2009) who began publishing sci-fi in the 1950s and continued on into the early 1990s. Anvil's best-known works are the 'Pandora's Planet' stories, about Earth under the rule of a race of lion-like aliens.

As 'Warlord's World' opens, our square-jawed hero, Vaughan Roberts of the Federation's Interstellar Patrol, is on vacation at the gambling palace of the Temple of Chance on the pleasure planet Tiamaz. Roberts encounters a swell dame named Erena who is being abducted by some heavies. In the ensuing fracas, Roberts precipitates an interplanetary brouhaha with the Tiamaz authorities, and Erena is spirited off to her home world of Festhold, there to be held captive by the odious Regent, Duke Marius.

Infatuated with Erena, Roberts schemes with his superior, Colonel Valentine Sanders, to free Erena and in so doing liberate her brother, Prince Harold WIlliams, from the control of Duke Marius. This is accomplished by an unusual technology that allows Roberts, from the headquarters at the Interstellar Patrol, to implant his consciousness into that of Prince in Festhold. 

Unwittingly equipped with this beneficent version of schizophrenia, Prince Harold / Roberts rouses from his drug-induced idleness to fervidly embark on a quest to overthrow the Duke, rescue Erena, and bring peace and prosperity to Festhold.......a rather tall order. But to Vaughan Roberts, all is fair and love and war............... 

Although it was published in 1975, 'Warlord's World' very much reads as a rather lame comedic sci-fi novel from the 1950s or early 1960s, similar to those (for example) written by Robert Sheckley. 

'Warlord's' prose style has the stilted, awkward character that was commonplace in mainstream sci-fi of the 50s, which, when combined with clumsy efforts at humor, means that the reader has to plod through these types of passages:

From the police cruiser came the warning: "You are sighted ! Decelerate at once to zero ! Stand by and open your hatches for boarding !"

From the patrol ship came the answer: "Interstellar Patrol Ship 6-107-J, on Official Patrol Business under Mandate Override Command Authority Paragraph 1064b, Subheading 44 p through z, relevant Emergencies to Patrol Personnel on Active Duty, Enabling Authority Subsections J through Q......THIS IS A RELEVANT EMERGENCY ! Stand by to render assistance on request." 

On the police cruiser, grim purpose dissolved into chaos.

"Holy - it's an I.P. ship !"

" Don't touch it !"

"Wait, now ! How do we know it's I.P. ? Just because they say - "

" - What's 'Mandate Override Command' ? I never heard of 'Mandate Override Command'. Did anybody here ever hear of Mandate Override Command ?"

'They're outdistancing us !'

"Standard regs say we've got to stop any ship showing in the inner ring. It doesn't matter if it's the Space Force !"

"Look, what's a 'relevant emergency' ? Did anybody here ever hear of a 'relevant emergency' ?"

"I'm telling you, you don't mess with the I.P. !"

"But how do we know for sure that it is the I. P. ?"

"Pass the message to HQ and let them figure it out !"

In its favor, 'Warlord's World' has brief chapters, many infused with a Ruritanian atmosphere, making it a quick read...........at least, when author Anvil stays away from trying to be humorous.

The verdict ? 'Warlord's World' was obsolete at the time of its publication and certainly hasn't aged very well in the ensuing 45 years. I would pass on this one............. 

Playboy Book Club advertisement, June 1980

The Playboy Book Club

advertisement in Questar magazine, June 1980

Things were pretty tame back then.

Among the racier selections are:

Phenomena: A Book of Wonders: observations on the supernatural

The Girls of Playboy: a rather chaste clunker first published in 1973

Bruce Jenner's Guide to the Olympics: thanks to Jimmy Carter, the U.S. did not participate in the 1980 games, lessening the value of this manual

Cruel Shoes: Steve Martin was the epitome of late 70s humor: very hip, very ironic, very sarcastic, very overrated

In the fine print: The Visual Dictionary of Sex, which was a distant also-ran title for those book clubs that couldn't get an agreement to offer The Joy of Sex.

Adventure and the Yacht Rock sound

Adventure by Rupert Holmes and the 'Yacht Rock' Sound

With the approach of Memorial Day, Sirius XM has revived its Yacht Rock channel, returning a soothing brand of 70s and 80s sound to the ears of its listening subscribers.

Among the more prominent artists on the Yacht Rock channel is Rupert Holmes (the stage name of singer-songwriter, producer, and playwright David Goldstein, b. 1947). 

In 1980 Holmes released his sixth album,  Adventure, the lead single of which was 'I Don't Need You'.

'I Don't Need You', which can be listened to here, entered the Billboard Hot 100 at slot 84 in the week of April 4 1981, and peaked at slot 56. It's a great example of Yacht Rock: well-crafted, well-produced, and made in the era well before Auto-Tune and Karl 'Max Martin' Sandberg transformed songwriting and producing into exercises in digital wizardry.

Here's a link to an interesting essay at the 'Picking Up Rocks' blog on the birth and development of the songs that typify Yacht Rock radio, with an in-depth review of Adventure.

The reviewer concludes:

........it is a truly seminal Yacht Rock-West Coast-Adult Contemporary-Soft Rock-Pop classic that deserves it’s due because, let’s get “1980” for a second, it’s just totally bitchin’.

You can't beat that sort of endorsement to kick off Yacht Rock season !

Book Review: Heatseeker

Book Review: 'Heatseeker' by John Shirley

3 / 5 Stars

'Heatseeker' first was issued by the small press publisher Scream/Press in 1989; this mass-market paperback edition (364 pp.) was published in the U.K. by Grafton in 1990. The cover art is by Chris Moore.

The 19 stories collected in this collection all first saw print in the interval from 1975 to 1989, in magazines, digests, and anthologies like Interzone, Omni, and New Dimensions. Accordingly, they represent Shirley's progression as a writer of the freeform, 'speculative fiction' material that exemplified the New Wave ethos, to the more defined prose of the cyberpunk era.

Rather than critique each of the entries, I'll state outright that the best stories in 'Heatseeker' are those with Shirley's singularly street-level sensibility, written with a clear and unadorned prose style and a willingness to depict humanity in its less-than-salutary moments:

'Under the Generator' is a 1976 story from Terry Carr's Universe 6 anthology that displays a Harlan Ellison-esque flavor in its treatment of the commodification of the process of dying. With its downbeat atmosphere, 'Generator' thoroughly rejects the humanism that, as of 1976, still persisted in the pages of Universe and other New Wave collections of the era. 

'Sleepwalkers', from 1988, showcases cyberpunk themes with its depiction of a group of junkies (the opening pages detail the process of cooking, and shooting up, meth) living in squalor in a bad neighborhood of a near-future Los Angeles. Needing money, would-be rock star guitarist Jules decides to temporarily rent his body to the Sleepwalkers Agency. Upon waking from his 'rental' period, Jules leaves the Agency 200 dollars richer.........but with an ache between his legs..............

'Six Kinds of Darkness', which appeared in High Times magazine in 1988, features a near-future New York City where the 'Hollow Head' drug den offers users a genuinely life-changing experience. The first page of the story is quintessential cyberpunk and, I would argue, an exemplar of how to begin any story, novelette, or novel in the genre.

'Wolves of the Plateau' (1988), from the highbrow literary journal Mississippi Review (!), places recurring character Jerome-X in a prison setting. A breakout attempt involving the collective use of inmates' wetware 'chips' may be successful......or a quick path to a group lobotomy.......this story is another example of Shirley's ability to take the tropes of cyberpunk and work them into something memorable.

Serving as a change of theme from the grim vistas presented in the above stories, 'Quill Tripstickler Eludes a Bride' deploys ribald humor in its tale of the eponymous hero's diplomatic mission to a planet ruled by a female entity with a decidedly........Freudian........ manifestation.

The remaining stories in 'Heatseeker' are less impressive. A number of tales fashioned around New Wave-era prose stylings have aged poorly: 'Tahiti in Terms of Squares', 'Silent Crickets', 'The Almost Empty Rooms' (which features a chapter titled 'Part III of Secondary Syntax'), 'Equilibrium', and 'Recurrent Dreams of Nuclear War Lead B. T. Quizenbaum Into Moral Dissolution'. 

'What Cindy Saw', 'The Unfolding', and 'The Peculiar Happiness of Professor Cort' are absurdist tales that didn't strike me as particularly effective, while the more structured narratives of 'I Live in Elizabeth', 'The Gunshot', 'What It's Like to Kill a Man', 'Triggering', and 'Ticket to Heaven' suffer from less-than-convincing denouements. 'Uneasy Chrysalids, Our Memories' tries to meld psychological drama with the concept of 'injectable memories', but is overwritten and difficult to follow. 

Summing up, as with 99% of anthologies, there are more misses than hits in the pages of 'Heatseeker'. That said, in my opinion there are sufficient memorable tales in its pages to justify the effort to acquire this Grafton edition from UK booksellers, particularly if you are a fan of cyberpunk from its early days in the 1980s.