SO....what's a PorPor Book ?
'PorPor' is a derogatory term my brother used, to refer to the SF and Fantasy paperbacks and comic books I eagerly read from the late 60s to the late 80s.
This blog is devoted to those paperbacks and comics you can find on the shelves of second-hand bookstores...from the New Wave era and 'Dangerous Visions', to the advent of the cyberpunks and 'Neuromancer'.
Void Indigo by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik issue 1, November, 1984 Marvel / Epic
After reading the Void Indigo graphic novel, I decided to search out and investigate the short-lived, 2-issue comic book series that Epic comics released in November, 1984 and March, 1985. The reason for the series' cancellation after the first two, of what were intended to be six issues, apparently had something to do with the outcry from comic book critics over what they perceived as 'Void's' portrayal of sadistic violence and misogyny (according to the 'Void Indigo' Wiki entry, a comic book critic named Bob Ingersoll called the comic 'a crime against humanity). The plot, which picks up at the end of the graphic novel, is barely coherent: Ath Agaar, a barbarian warlord who was killed eons ago by a cabal of four evil necromancers....
......has been reincarnated in the body of a red-skinned, shaven-headed alien space pilot named Jhagur......!
After his spaceship crash-lands in the desert of New Mexico......
Jhagur - who has a variety of superhuman powers, including the ability to alter his appearance - takes on the form of a young man named Michael Jagger.....!
Jagger / Jhagur takes up residence in L.A. with a shapely blonde named Linette, and embarks on his mission of vengeance. For the Dark Lords who murdered Ath Agaar have been reincarnated, as denizens of southern California no less, where they are enthusiastic participants in all manner of evil acts. As 'Void Indigo' issue 1 opens, Jhagur has eliminated one of the four Dark Lords, and is actively seeking the other three....who have no intention of going quietly...... Posted below are the contents of the first issue of 'Void Indigo', the comic book. It's an awful comic. Val Mayerik's artwork is horrible - little more than preliminary sketches hastily reworked to meet an obviously too-close deadline. The color printing is the worst I've ever seen in a major publisher's comic published in the 80s......even making allowances for the poor quality of the color separations, which in the 80s relied almost exclusively on cheap, plastic printing plates, Void Indigo's colors are truly awful. But, looking at the contents of the first issue of 'Void', well....I broke out laughing when I finished reading page 2 ! Looking at the comic 30 years after its initial publication, 'Void Indigo' is not a 'crime against humanity', but garish, freewheeling, exploitative mess of a comic book. A mess that, despite the dysfunctional plot, artwork, and coloring, has some real entertainment value...particularly in its crazed depiction of California culture of the mid-80s, its gratuitous nudity and violence, and its cheerful violation of every one of today's standards for politically correct comic book content.
Stand by for the contents of issue 2, coming soon to the PorPor Books Blog !
‘Roofworld’ first was published in 1988 in hardback by Ballantine; this mass market paperback edition (307 pp) was published in April, 1990. The cover artist is uncredited.
It’s London, December 1988. The weather is miserable: continuous cold rain pelts down from low-hanging dark clouds. The early evening darkness contributes to the depressing atmosphere brought on by the coming start of Winter.
Robert Linden is a disaffected young man who works as a clerk in a small London firm. The firm acquires the licensing rights to novels, then sells the rights for profit to interested film studios. He is tasked with tracking down Charlotte Endsleigh, the authoress of a critically praised, but obscure novel titled The Newgate Legacy.
Linden’s investigation leads him to Endsleigh’s flat in Hampstead, where he meets Rose Leonard, a young 'West Indian' (i.e., black) girl who manages the building. To Linden’s dismay, he learns from Rose that Charlotte Endsleigh is dead, murdered by a prowler who broke into her apartment. Linden is now faced with tracking down Endleigh’s next of kin, her daughter Sarah.
Linden, with Rose Leonard’s help, sets off to find Sarah Endsleigh, a search that takes him into the ‘goth’ subculture of London’s poorer neighborhoods and more eccentric gathering places.There, Robert and Rose make a startling discovery:
For generations, an entire community of outcasts has made the rooftops of metropolitan London their home. In this ‘roofworld’, a network of nylon and steel cables, attached to anchor points on the rooftops of London's multi-story buildings, forms a clandestine transportation network. The denizens of roofworld don specially-made harnesses equipped with pulleys, and zipline from one rooftop to another with ease. They make their homes in the small shacks and sheds that are placed upon the larger rooftops; some nevermore descend to the streets, which are looked upon with contempt as the habitat of the ground-dwelling ‘insects’ of conventional humanity.
A code of secrecy, and a habit of restricting their activities to the night hours, has made the majority of London’s population unaware of the existence of roofworld and its population. But as Robert and Rose soon learn, this is about to change. For war has broken out in roofworld between the two major blocs representing its residents.
As the cold, dark, and drizzly days of December unfold, Robert Linden, Rose Leonard, and detective chief inspector Ian Hargreave find themselves drawn into the increasingly violent conflict taking place on roofworld…..a confrontation that may decide the future of not just London, but England itself……
‘Roofworld’ is the second novel (the other being ‘Rune’, 1990) by Christopher Fowler that I have reviewed at this blog. Like ‘Rune’, ‘Roofworld’ is essentially a mystery novel, written in a very accessible, very readable style. There are multiple plot threads, but these are competently handled, aided by the author’s use of short chapters. The story’s major villain is suitably evil, with Fowler’s prose venturing into splatterpunk territory when describing the deaths of those with the misfortune to offend his sociopathic sensibilities.
‘Roofworld’ isn’t perfect; at over 300 pages in length, the middle section of the book tends to drag, and the villain is one of those types who tends to launch into philosophical discourses before visiting mayhem upon his victims. But overall, its offbeat backstory, and its setting in the gritty, not-yet-gentrified London of the late 80s, give the book an imaginative quality that makes it worth searching out.
December, 1984, and on MTV, it's Wham, with 'Last Christmas'. Great 80s hairstyles and fashions are on display.....
The December issue of Marvel's Epic Illustrated is out, and all things considered, it's a pretty good issue. There is a fine front cover painting by Clyde Caldwell, and inside, a showcase of the art book 'Castles'.
A lengthy part of the magazine is devoted to running several episodes of the dire, grossly over-praised Vaughn Bode comic 'Cobalt 60'. There is also too much space given to a promotional section for the Sergio Aragones comic 'Groo the Wanderer'. But there are some good single-episode comics, including the satirical 'Corporate Wars' by Mike Saenz, which I've posted below.......
Book Review: 'The Tartarus Incident' by William Greenleaf
3 / 5 Stars He tugged on a shoulder, and the body flopped toward him....and he saw raw flesh, shards of white bone, empty eye sockets oozing gray stuff held to together by white, stringy filaments. He fell back, vomited, and came up gasping for air. Then he heard the creature mewling its way down the corridor like some monstrous cat. He grabbed for his sizzler, and realized he no longer had it. Then he was running. Something up ahead - the end of the corridor. He pounded toward it, the sounds of the creature coming up close behind him. This excerpt from 'The Tartarus Incident' (202 pp., Ace Books, May, 1983, cover artwork by James Gurney) certainly has some grisly excitement to it. Could 'Tartarus' be that rare thing: a sci-fi horror novel that really delivers the creeps and cold chills ? Unfortunately, while 'Tartarus' comes close on occasion, overall, it misses the mark. The plot is straightforward: the shuttlecraft Jack-A-Dandy, with a crew of four, is assigned to travel to the wintry planet Sierra, there to audit the colony outposts's finances. However, when the shuttle emerges from its hyperspace 'jump', its crew is bewildered to find themselves on a desert planet, where the air is breathable, but a roasting 125 degrees Farenheit, and the shuttle is pelted by sandstorms. The Jack-A-Dandy is able to get off one garbled distress call before their comm link goes out, stranding the shuttle, with a broken navigational system, on an uncharted world . The novel provides two alternating narratives. One deals with the efforts of the Space Command to discover where the shuttle went, and how to retrieve it. Author Greenleaf here focuses on the incompetency of bureaucrats, contrasting their ineptitude with increasingly dire straits of the shuttle crew.
As the bureaucracy sluggishly moves to investigate the fate of the Jack-A-Dandy, the other narrativedeals with the travails of the shuttle and its crew. Captain McElroy struggles to improvise a functioning nav system. But things take a turn for the worse when a crew member becomes deranged and runs off into the hills....where an ancient, long-abandoned city lies under the searing sun. The remaining crewmembers of the Jack-A-Dandy have no choice but to set out to find their missing colleague. But, as they soon discover, not everything in the ruined city is dead and buried....... As a novel written in the early 80s, 'Tartarus' borrows to some extent from the blockbuster film Alien, and this is not surprising, nor necessarily a bad thing. But the main problem with 'Tartarus' is that, while its narrative does deliver some rewarding 'alien monster' action, it is often interrupted and diluted by lengthy passages in which the author explores the interior psychology of his crewmembers. As well, it doesn't help matters that the crew exhibit the same carelessness and stupidity as the lubricious teens who serve as victims in slasher movies. In fact, by the book's midpoint, I was rooting for the monsters to make quick work of the idiotic crew....... I won't divulge the book's ending, except to say that it did pick up sufficient suspense to impart some necessary momentum to the narrative. The verdict ? As a sci-fi horror novel, 'Tartarus' is comeptent, but not extraordinary. It's worth picking up if you happen to see it on the shelf, but I can't say it should be the object of a dedicated search.
Friday, November 28, 2014
'Heavy Metal' magazine November 1984
It's November, 1984, and on MTV and on FM radio, you're more than likely to hear the latest single (off the Big Bam Boom album) from Hall and Oates: 'Out of Touch'. The video is deliberately cheesy, and it's a great song.
The latest issue of Heavy Metal magazine features a front cover by Olivia, and a back cover by Voss.
Nonetheless, HM's Editor-in-Chief Julie Simmons-Lynch is preoccupied with running this sort of material in the magazine. It soon comes to dominate HM in 1985 and after. The content that made the magazine so noteworthy in its first few years of publication - content from stalwarts like Druillet, Nicollet, Suydam, Caza, etc. - was to be dropped in favor of long-running installments of these new 'Art Deco' strips.
The best of the comic / graphic features in the November, 1984 issue is Paul Kirchner's black and white strip, 'Critical Mass of Cool', which I previously have posted here. Rather than re-post 'Cool', I thought I would instead post two of the interviews that appeared in the November, 1984 issue; there is one with Tanith Lee, and another, with director John Waters.
