Timespirits

Timespirits
Steve Perry (writer) and Tom Yeates (art)
Cat Yronwode, Sam Parsons, Tom Yeates, Steve Oliff (colors)
Gaspar Saladino, Janice Chiang, Ed King (letters)
Epic / Marvel, October 1984 - March 1986

In 1979 the English author Douglas Adams published his first book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was based on a comedy series he had produced on BBC radio starting in 1978. At the time of Adams's death in 2001 (at the age of 49), the series consisted of five volumes, all of which had become international best-sellers.

The Hitchhiker's Guide and its sequels took a free-form approach to sf humor, taking well-known tropes in the genre and tossing them altogether into one giant mix of 'absurdist' storytelling.  

Previous to Hitchhiker, full-time sf writers had tried to write humorous sf in an absurdist vein, particularly during the New Wave era. These dedicated sf writers included Philip Jose Farmer, R. A. Lafferty, and Ron Goulart, who wrote a slew of DAW Books all centered on humor. For various reasons, these efforts never progressed much beyond fostering a small, sub-sub genre of sf.

Perhaps it was a case of being in the right time, and the right place, but Hitchhiker - and its considerable success financially and critically - was the inspiration for the quick emergence of all sorts of 'humorous sf' novels, short stories, comics, and movies in the 1980s. 

Arguably the most influential of the works inspired by Hitchhiker was Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (1983), the initial volume in what would become the publishing juggernaut of 'Discworld'.

...............which brings us to Timespirits.

The 8-issue miniseries was released by Epic / Marvel bimonthly from October 1984 - March 1986.

In the first issue, set in Maine in 1633, we are introduced to Doot, a young Indian boy of the Wawenock tribe. Doot's older brother, King Freddie Three Birds, has embarked on a campaign of resistance to the English settlers streaming into Wawenock territory. During a violent encounter with the palefaces, Doot is saved from death by a mysterious apparition: an elderly Indian man wearing a fedora, and toting an array of artifacts and gadgets recovered from all over time and space.

This elderly man is named Cusick, from the Tuscarora tribe. Cusick is a Timespirit, a shaman gifted with the ability to instantaneously travel through time and space, to strange worlds that exist in alternate realities. 

Writer Steve Perry patently models Cusick on Carlos Cataneda's Don Juan Matus, save that Cusick is much more expressive, continually delivering aphorisms and bits of Native American Wisdom disguised as one-offs and wisecracks.

Cusick recognizes that Doot is in fact an innate Timespirit, and recruits him to a life of travelling the time streams. As issue one concludes, the two embark on what will be an array of wild adventures. 

I won't disclose any spoilers, but over the course of the eight issues, Doot and Cusack encounter bumbling wizards; a vampire; dinosaurs; Custer; Yeti; Jim Hendrix; and a blue-skinned cat girl named 'Thornypaws' who wears only a g-string, and is likely the inspiration for the aliens in the James Cameron film Avatar.......

Steve Perry's narrative sticks pretty closely to the humor-centered attitude of the Douglas Adams / Terry Pratchett genre, although there are rather incongruous scenes of violence and bloodshed that pop up every now and then and presumably, keep things from getting too hokey. 

Some installments of Timespirits rather awkwardly stray from the 'madcap' humor approach; for eample, issue 5 adopts an overwrought exposition about how Rock and Roll, and its rebellious qualities, is all that stands between the relentless corporatization of society..... 

I am definitely not a fan of humorous sf nor the Adams and Pratchett novels. But what made me pick up Timespirits was the exemplary artwork by Tom Yeates, who continues to be one of the best draftsmen in comics.

The colors, primarily done by Steve Oliff, are serviceable, no mean feat since it was likely that Timespirits was printed - like many other 80s comics - on a flexographic press. The flaws of this process are too noticeable to be overlooked - Doot and Cusack frequently have dark gray skintones - but it's not Oliff's fault.

Summing up, if you're a fan of humorous sf, and particularly the style of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, then Timespirits will appeal to you. Even if you're not a fan of the humorous sf subgenre, if you appreciate fine graphic art and illustration, then the series also may be worth acquiring. Entire sets of all eight issues can be had for reasonable prices from your usual dealers.

Book Review: The Religion

Book Review: 'The Religion' by Nicholas Conde

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Religion’ was published in hardcover in 1982; this Signet paperback version (377 pp) was issued in March, 1983.

‘The Religion’ was made into the 1987 movie The Believers, starring Martin Sheen, and directed by John Schlesinger.

Nicholas Conde was the pseudonym used by Robert Rosenblum, who, along with Robert Nathan, wrote another novel that dealt with the confrontation between modern life and ancient religious customs, ‘The Legend’ (1984). Their 1992 novel, ‘In the Deep Woods’, belongs to the suspense / crime genre.

As ‘Religion’ opens, Cal Jamison, an anthropology professor, has moved to New York City from Albuquerque, along with his 7 year –old son, Chris. Jamison still is recovering from the tragic death of his wife due to a household accident, and sees the move from New Mexico to the city as an effort to start anew.

While walking through Central Park on a Summer afternoon, Cal and Chris stumble upon a grisly scene of ritual sacrifice involving animals. His professional and personal curiosity piqued, Jamison begins to study the source of the sacrificial tableaux – the ancient religion of Santeria, imported into the environs of the Big Apple by Puerto Rican and Caribbean immigrants.

Jamison’s curiosity leads him into a new and disturbing direction when he chances upon a murder scene in a slum neighborhood. McTaggert, the jaded, cynical, world-weary cop investigating the murder, reveals to Jamison that it involved the ritual disembowelment of a young boy – and that five other such murders have taken place in various locations in the city.

Jamison is stunned to learn that a malevolent form of Santeria is being practiced in the modern metropolis. As he pursues his scholarly investigations into Santeria, he agrees to provide McTaggert with any information that might help illuminate the cultists behind the child murders.

As the narrative unfolds, Cal Jamison’s decision to learn more about Santeria gradually leads him to contact otherwise rational, cosmopolitan residents of the city who practice the religion as part of a clandestine ecology of Believers. These interactions, as well as the advent of supernatural events in his own life, erode Jamison’s skepticism and replace it with a vague, but growing, fear.

For there is to be a seventh and final sacrifice…and his son Chris may have been selected by the Gods to be the offering…….

As a modern horror novel, ‘The Religion’ does some things well. It’s an interesting portrait of New York City in the early 80s, as the Big Apple sank faster and further into decay. As Whitley Streiber did with his 1978 novel The Wolfen, Conde presents the urban wasteland of the South Bronx as an abnormal, cancerous territory embedded in the surrounding metropolis, its abandoned tenements the site of primitive customs and unholy acts carried out under the ignorant noses of the population of Manhattan.

The initial chapters of the novel are well-paced and allow the reader to share in Cal Jamison’s discoveries of Santeria and its customs, all the while gradually building an awareness that underneath the herbs, candles, charms, and artifacts is a real, and potentially deadly, supernatural power.

Unfortunately, the middle chapters of the novel are less engaging. Conde devotes too much of the narrative to belaboring the psychological trauma that grips Jamison, as he discovers his atheism crumbling in the face of the supernatural forces that are acting on him in accordance with the whims of the Gods from ancient Africa.

The narrative regains momentum in the final 75 pages, as the confrontation with the Believers grows in intensity and Jamison finds he must fight the occult with yet another form of the occult. The novel does end on an ambiguous note, but it is not contrived, and stays in keeping with the overall tenor of the story.

[I remember seeing The Believers back in the late 80s and thought it a good film, although it differs in some aspects from the novel.]

The verdict ? I doubt ‘The Religion’ will find many adherents among modern horror fans. As a novel from the early 80s, the book lacks the intensity and graphic violence that marks modern horror media like Saw, Hostel, The Walking Dead, and The Strain. But if you’re a more patient reader, who is willing to tolerate some degree of over-writing and melodrama, then ‘The Religion’ well may be worth investigating.

Ranxerox meets the Leathermen

Ranxerox meets the Leathermen
excerpted from Heavy Metal magazine, February and March 1984

celebrating Pride Month 2015

In this excerpt from 'Ranxerox in New York', serialized in Heavy Metal in 1983 - 1984, our hero crashes a house party sponsored by one of New York's wealthiest and most decadent personalities, Enogabal. 

While stealing some heroin for his twelve year-old girlfriend Lubna (!) Ranxerox stuffs a red handkerchief into the back pocket of his jeans....which in turn attracts the attention of some Leathermen who are among the party guests........and this triggers a real misunderstanding......

Life and Death of a Robot

Life and Death of a Robot
by Dumas
from Heavy Metal magazine, May 1984

Blood and Iron by Les Edwards

Blood and Iron
by Les Edwards
GW Books (UK) 1989

Les Edwards (b. 1949) is a UK illustrator and artist. He regularly produced artwork for the Games Workshop, including artwork for rule books and the magazine White Dwarf, in the 80s. He also provided cover artwork for both UK and US publishers for mass market paperbacks in the fantasy, sf, and horror genres. In the 90s, he expanded his repertoire to include artwork for comics, such as Eclipse Comic's series of graphic novels based on Clive Barker titles such as 'Rawhead Rex'. 

'Blood and Iron' (98 pp) remains the only book showcasing Edwards's artwork, and while its publication date of 1989 means that much of his catalog is not represented, it does provide some useful information about how the artist goes about working up an illustration, his techniques, and his perceptions of the commercial art world.

Many of the illustrations in Blood and Iron will be instantly recognizable to US readers, especially those who read DAW books in the late 80s, as Edwards contributed a number of cover paintings to The Year's Best Horror Stories. 

Other cover paintings that will be familiar to US readers include Edwards's work for the 'Cadre' trilogy by Robert O' Riordan, the cover painting for Frederik Pohl's novel Man Plus, and the cover painting for the Neil Barrett, Jr novel The Karma Corps.

It goes without saying that Edwards's work is some of the best to ever appear on fantastic literature book covers, and he stands alongside artists like Michael Whelan, Darrell K. Sweet, Jim Burns, Tim White, Paul Youll, David Mattingly, Paul Alexander, and other artists who adroitly combined a high degree of technical skill with an imaginative approach to their craft.

'Blood and Iron' is long out of print and copies in any condition are expensive. In the absence of any new compilation of Edwards's artwork, readers are directed to his website, which features an expansive collection of his older and newer commissions for book covers, private works, CD covers and sleeves, and advertising.

Book Review: Who Wants It ?

Book Review: 'Who Wants It ? by Chris Henderson

3 / 5 Stars

Chris ‘Chubby’ Henderson (b. 1959) died in the Fall of 2013. He had been in ill health, and in dire financial straits, for some time, and expired while sleeping on the sofa of a friend’s house – some media reports and blog posts gave the location as London; others Thailand; and others, the Philippines.

‘Who Wants It ?’ (208 pp, Mainstream Publishing, UK, 2002) is a memoir of Henderson’s participating in hooliganism in the 1980s, primarily as a member of the ‘Chelsea Headhunters’ firm, a group that gained considerable notoriety in the UK press for allegedly perpetrating some of the more unpleasant acts of violence that occupied the UK football landscape of that era.

Chris Henderson

The book is not an easy read for Americans, or, presumably, for anyone not quite familiar with the football scene in the UK in the 80s. It badly needed professional editing before seeing print; as it stands, in the first two-thirds of the book, the narrative has more of a stream-of-consciousness character than that of a memoir per se. When combined with insufficient exposition to orient the reader as to the locations and backstories of the myriad confrontations Henderson documents, it makes the book difficult to follow.

Nonetheless, Henderson’s prose (which also reflects, presumably, the contributions of his co-author Colin Ward) succeeds in giving the reader a good, ‘you-are-there’ rendering of the atmosphere of the football hooliganism at the time. Here’s an excerpt of an October 11, 1986 street battle between the Headhunters and the other ‘hard’ firm in London in the 80s: West Ham. 

 As Henderson and the Chelsea contingent made their way to Upton Park (Boleyn Ground) they were confronted by a larger force of West Ham supporters:

Then it seemed like another mob was coming at us from nowhere….suddenly, someone was down and really copping it. Behind me a shout of ‘Chelsea scum’ and a knife sliced the air and then through flesh. The shout of someone realising that the air slash had sliced human flesh, his flesh. A scream of anguish and terror. The horrible sound of pain filled the air and I turned around to see Jock drop to his knees, his face contorted, pulling his shoulders back. I ran over and kung fu kicked the man with the Stanley blade and he bounced off the wall and retreated, coinciding with West Ham backing off across the road. The wail of sirens in the distance.

I looked at the wound in Jock’s back. It was a gaping slash wound, about ten inches long. Blood was pumping out of it and I held on to both sides to try and stop the bleeding.

Accompanying these recitations of battles and melees, Henderson provides spot-on descriptions of the wasted industrial and urban landscapes of rival cities and grounds throughout the England of the 80s, depressing, cheerless landscapes within which alienated youth looked to their clubs, and the accompanying weekend 'aggro', as one of their main sources of self-validation.

Henderson devotes a surprisingly small amount of his memoir to Combat 84, the skinhead band he founded in 1981 with other Headhunters. The band, which was musically underwhelming but provided its audience with a raw, unfiltered does of the skinhead ethos, saw several potential deals with major labels come to naught in the aftermath of a 1982 BBC documentary that portrayed Henderson as a racist, who used the band as a vehicle to foment violent confrontations in clubs and music halls.

Combat 84

Along with recounting the Headhunter’s activities in the UK, Henderson relates tales of the firm’s debauched forays into mayhem on the Continent, most notably a February, 1987 trip that saw the firm trigger fear and loathing throughout France and Spain.

‘Who Wants It ?’ concludes with Henderson’ account of his arrest and trial in 1987 and 1988, part of a clumsy effort by the UK police to thwart soccer violence by specifically targeting those considered the ringleaders. Following his acquittal, Henderson relocated to Thailand, where he ran a bar that catered to a unique clientele: UK expats with roots in hooliganism.

Summing up, despite its flaws, ‘Who Wants It ?’ is a worthwhile memoir. While readers should be mindful that what they are getting is Henderson’s filtering of events and times and places, and a desire to avoid self-incrimination flavors much of the narrative, there still is enough here to entertain Chelsea fans, and others interested in the football rivalries in the UK in the 80s.

Book Review: Bovver

Book Review: 'Bovver' by Chris Brown

5 / 5 Stars

Before I had a chance to weigh up the options he launched at me, charging down the terrace. I managed to land a punch before he could, straight in his beer-filled stomach, he doubled over, winded. Like a lot of fat bastards he was fit for fuck all. As his hulking mass almost engulfed me I gave him another whack in the face. He lurched over on to one side, his bloated body twisting at an acute angle from his tree-trunk-like legs. He crumpled to the concrete terrace and let out an almighty scream which almost drowned out the equally almighty crack as his leg snapped under him.

“Arrrghh ! I’ve broke my fucking leg !”

He lay there clutching his leg, which was now distorted and looking almost remote from his body.

'Bovver' (356 pp) was published (in the UK) in paperback by John Blake Publishing, Ltd. in 2002.

‘Bovver’ is Chris Brown’s memoir of growing up in Bristol, UK in the interval from 1970 – 1979. During that time he was an ardent supporter of the Rovers, one of the two football clubs in Bristol (the other club being Bristol City, the hated rivals).

Chris Brown (contemporary photo)

The book begins in the year 1970, when Brown was 14 years old, and embarking upon his career as a dedicated fan of the Rovers, taking up his place at the terraced portion of Eastville stadium in Bristol. Known as the Tote End, the terrace was where the dedicated Rover fans gathered to celebrate the feats of their team - and to engage in healthy amounts of aggro.

In those early days Brown was a skinhead, more precisely the quintessential ‘bovver’ boy, with a short haircut, suspenders, turned-up Levis, and hobnailed boots made just right for kicking. Brown and his mates eschewed rock and folk music in favor of reggae and Caribbean music. Among his favorite songs was the ‘Skinhead Anthem’: ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ by Symarip. Also favored was ‘The Liquidator’ by the Harry J. All Stars

As for the aggro……despite his youth, Brown set out to be a valued member of the hard-core Rovers fans, standing beside them during confrontations in the street, and on the pitch, both Home, and Away. Even when they were outnumbered by rival supporters, the Rovers fans gave as good as they got, often coming away from combat clutching prized booty: the scarves in team colors carried by their victims. 

According to Brown, in the early '70s the police (‘Old Bill’, in the British vernacular) were poorly prepared to deter the massive brawls taking place in the stadiums, and by the time combat was forcibly halted,

The aftermath of battle lay all around: bloodied bodies, scarves, shoes and youngsters crying. Did I feel sorry for them …? Did I fuck, should have gone in the enclosure with your old man, shouldn’t you ? Besides, he’ll be doing the same to us in a few year’s time no doubt.

As Brown relates, he and his friends were ever-conscious of their personal clothing style, spending much of their hard-earned money in an effort to stay abreast of the latest fashions, some of which could change within the span of just a few months (or less !).

One of the more entertaining features of ‘Bovver’ is its meticulous overview of the songs that served as the soundtrack to the activities of Brown and his friends during the decade. There are a host of bands and singles mentioned in the book that I was unfamiliar with, and some of these tracks deserve investigating.

The book’s high point – and arguably that of the teenaged years of Chris Brown – came November 5, 1977. The day started with Brown’s mate Iggy being injured by Millwall supporters (they struck his arm with a beer glass, and caused a laceration that sent Iggy to the hospital), putting the Tote End crew into the mood for vengeance as the match with Millwall unfolded. Iggy in fact came from the hospital just in time to join Brown and the other Rovers fans in battling an attempt by the MIllwall supporters to take the End. The Millwall supporters were repulsed, with the television cameras capturing their ignominious retreat back to their section of Eastville for all the UK to see.

That evening, at the Bristol Exhibition Centre, Brown and friends took in a great Punk / New Wave concert: opening acts Richard Hell and the Voidoids, followed by……the Clash ! Both bands put on great shows to the jam-packed mass within the Centre.

After the concert, on the street outside the Centre, Brown and the Rovers fans found themselves facing off with a large contingent of Bristol City fans in the mood for violence. The opposing forces met in a melee that rapidly involved nearby pub-goers and concert attendees, and turned into, in Brown’s words, a ‘full-blown riot’.

The final chapters of the book take on a melancholy note, as the advent of 1978 saw the UK economy collapse even further, and the entropy-laden nature of life in Albion drove more and more of its populace – including Brown – into a sort of sustained depression that no amount of drink or violence or music could dissipate. A trip to the US, which Brown undertook with the goal of perhaps resettling in the States, turned out to be a disappointment, as Brown was unable to handle the insipid music landscape of the US, with its Grease soundtrack and disco over-exposure.

In 1979, Brown turned 23 and was gradually ageing out of the ‘hooligan’ life, although he remained a true follower of fashion, dyeing his hair blonde, wearing straight-legged denim jeans, and wearing white trainers, as per the style of the Police. But that year saw the fortunes of the Rovers fading fast, and their fans along with them. Chris Brown found himself in the unlikely role of the valiant, but overwhelmed, underdog in the face of the increasing domination of the Bristol football scene by the hated supporters of City.........

Summing up, 'Bovver' is a great read, even for those without a marked interest in football fan memoirs. It's a great overview of popular culture in the UK in the 1970s, a valuable social analysis of that era, and a fond remembrance of the Rovers. 

This one is well worth picking up.