Month: May 2024

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Human Diastrophism: A Love and Rockets Book

This is a review of Human Diastrophism: A Love and Rockets Book, the second Palomar volume written & drawn by Gilbert Hernandez. If you are new to Love & Rockets, start with Heartbreak Soup, which features the same characters and comes first chronologically. The Brothers Hernandez – Gilbert and Jaime and Mario – have been making great comics for over forty years. Personally, I like Gilbert’s material a little better than Jaime’s, but both are wonderful.

The chronicles of Palomar combine magic realism with an ensemble cast. The setting is Palomar, a village in Latin America cut off from the rest of the world. To clarify: the people of Palomar know the rest of the world exists, they just don’t have much contact with it. The plot is hard to describe, as there are a lot of them. Most of the storylines have to do with people arriving and leaving Palomar – a serial killer, a fashion designer, a woman who sets herself on fire, an aged hitman (?!?!) named Gorgo.

The Love and Rockets series features realistic body sizes and types. There is a frankness about sex, nudity, and bodily functions that might shock a few people. The characters have real problems, and don’t always make the ‘correct’ choices. Parts of this graphic novel are set around the late 1980’s, when everyone thought there’d be thermonuclear war. If you weren’t around then, you didn’t miss much; you can listen to Sting’s song Russians to catch up.

Anyway, highly recommended!  

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Crazy Desires of a Murderer

This is a review of the Crazy Desires of a Murderer, a 70’s giallo that takes place in a gloomy old castle. Yes, that title is pretty strange, but the Italian version of the title gives away the plot. I’m unsure why that’s such a big deal. If you are watching this movie, you might be more interested in the many sex scenes than deciphering the plot.

Let’s turn to that plot, shall we? The Lord of the Castle (LotC for short) is an expert in Oriental antiquities. I call him the Lord of the Castle because after looking at IMDB it’s unclear to me who played which character and what their names are. The LotC has dementia and can’t recall what he ate for breakfast. His retainers are a sexy housemaid and a sinister butler. Together, they keep watch over his son, a mute lad who practices taxidermy in his palatial basement laboratory/bedroom. Yes, the LotC hides his son away in the basement.

Anyway, the LotC also has a party-girl daughter, who does not live in the basement. She comes for a visit and brings along her asshole friends, one of whom uses her as an unwitting drug mule. During the course of their raucous partying and wild fornicating, one of the friends is murdered in bed. Her eyes – a recurring image in giallo – are plucked out of her head. This is the most gruesome scene in the movie.

The Inspector arrives, as the plot morphs from rich young Europeans partying to an exciting game of Clue! He’s as sharp as a drawer of knives, that inspector. Upon questioning a male suspect, he observes that the man had sex the night of the murder. He knows that because of the condition of the male suspect’s underpants. Besides being an Inspector, perhaps he’s also an underwear fetishist?

The characters in this movie do strange, inexplicable things. One of the male guests – the men in this movie seem waaaay older than the girls – puts the drugs he’s risked his life for into a random drawer. When he comes back later, the drugs are gone. Gosh, who would have expected that? Another male guest – or it might be the same one – rufies their hostess. Meanwhile, the maid has sex with the LotC’s son in his basement taxidermy love nest. I think he’s supposed to be a minor, but who knows? I’m bad at guessing ages.

It all boils down to this: who is the killer who wears the squeaky shoes? Now that would’ve been an awesome title! Since most of the characters of this movie are utter assholes, I wasn’t exactly wringing my hands over whodunit. If you remove the plot, you’re left with a bunch of sex scenes – some of which aren’t all that sexy – and one gruesome murder.

I wouldn’t watch this unless you are a fan of obscure giallo. On second thought, just check out The House of Laughing Windows.

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World’s Finest Silver Age Volume Two

This is a review of World’s Finest Silver Age Volume Two. You can read my review of the first volume, here. These aren’t the worst comics I’ve read by any means, which isn’t the same thing as saying they’re good. I plowed through them because I bought both volumes on sale at the same price.

If you want to see Batman, Robin & Superman team up in sci-fic inspired scenarios from the Silver Age, then this volume is for you. A few examples: Superman loses his memory and becomes the chief of a lost Indian tribe. A man with a salad colander on his head (i.e., a crackpot inventor) gains super-powers/uses an invention to torment the Dynamic Trio (there are many variations of this story). After making a million dollars, Batman becomes a big spender, buying looney inventions that don’t work. Superman makes a new friend, a bizarre little alien that goes berserk when it’s not around him. Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk duke it out! Red kryptonite makes Superman behave strangely! Aliens of all kinds: invading earth, kidnapping Batman & Robin, asking the Dynamic Trio for help!!!

If this all sounds good, then by all means buy this volume. If it doesn’t, you’ve been warned.

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Immortal Hulk Omnibus, Part One

This is the first part of a review of the Immortal Hulk Omnibus. I believe this is the first Hulk volume I’ve reviewed. Of course, I have a history with the character. My favorite Hulks are the gentle green giant who wears purple pants and says things like ‘Hulk Smash!,’ as well as the Hulk blasted into space who lands on the planet Sakaar (Hulk the Barbarian). Of course, there’s also Scientist Hulk and Gangster Hulk (aka Joe Fixit).

This volume introduces the Devil Hulk, who only appears at night and seemingly cannot die. Bruce Banner can certainly die; he’s shot in the head at a gas station in the inaugural issue and is dead as a doornail. When night comes, he rises as the Hulk – and this Hulk is very difficult (I won’t say impossible) to kill.

Witness: the aftermath of the Hulk’s battle with The Avengers. He’s been chopped into little pieces, which are placed into jars of formaldehyde. It doesn’t matter. The Hulk breaks out of the jars and regenerates himself. It’s a great scene.

The plot involves a Green Door that leads to another place. That other place seems like it might be Hell, but OTOH it might be somewhere else. Whatever lurks behind the Green Door uses Bruce Banner’s dead father as its catspaw. Or is it Bruce’s father? Banner suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder – forty years ago they’d call it a split personality – so maybe it’s Bruce himself.

Anyway, this omnibus features some of the best Hulk comics I’ve ever read. Writer Al Ewing is writing a great body horror comic. The Hulk has a large cast, almost all of them killed by other writers, but most of them are returning. Banner’s wife Betty is a red gargoyle thing, Rick Jones is sort of the Abomination, and Doc Samson is still Hulk’s favorite (read: only) psychotherapist. Can The Leader and General “Thunderbolt” Ross (Red Hulk) be far behind?

Highly recommended!

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Justice League of America: The Marriage of the Atom and Jean Loring

This is a review of Justice League of America: The Wedding of the Atom and Jean Loring. The JLA is a simple concept – seven of the most popular characters in the DC Universe team up – that should be a license to print money. This volume isn’t flying off anyone’s shelf, unfortunately. Most of the stories are written by Gerry Conway, who is a prolific writer. If you read superhero comics in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you’ve read him. I speak as a fan of his work when I say he’s done better work elsewhere.

The first four issues feature Jean Loring, aka the Atom’s fiancée, being abducted by aliens. This leads to her having a nervous breakdown, which is realistic. Jean randomly teleports throughout the universe, bringing natural disasters in her wake, which isn’t realistic but whatever. This storyline first appeared in the Secret Society of Super Villains, and each issue features the Atom teaming up with random heroines/heroes in his search.

After the Atom rescues his fiancée, we turn to the Justice League of America where writer Steve Englehart does a storyline featuring Star-Tsar, who may or may not be disgraced JLA mascot Snapper Carr. Snapper is like a former child celebrity gone to seed – rightly or wrongly, he blames the JLA. We also have a two-issue team-up between the JLA, the JSA (the JLA from Earth One), and the Legion of Super Heroes (far future teen heroes). If you don’t get what I’m saying, don’t worry about it. I am familiar with comics, and I had problems understanding the plot and keeping track of all the characters.

Writer Gerry Conway takes up writing duties soon afterwards, and does serviceable work. There’s no meta story to speak of, but the volume does culminate in the marriage of The Atom and Jean Loring. In between, we get a few classic JLA villains (T.O. Morrow, Doctor Destiny, etc.), Green Arrow annoying everyone, and Red Tornado – who is a robot – moping about what it means to be human. The issues are mostly a slog to read, although the writing gets better. Part of it might be the fact that the stories are 30 + pages and thus do not sync with me personally.

To me, the main point of these issues – because let’s be honest, sometimes comics are obscure for a reason – is to give us Jean Loring’s backstory for Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis miniseries (out in 2004!), in which she plays a role. Say what you will about Mr. Meltzer as a comic book writer, but nobody can accuse him of not doing his homework!

Recommended for JLA fans only.

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Kill, Baby, Kill

This is a review of Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill. Mr. Bava was an influential Italian director in the 1960’s and 1970’s who also directed horror classics such as Blood & Black Lace and Black Sabbath. My review of Blood & Black Lace is here. I thought I’d reviewed Black Sabbath as well, but I guess not.

I do not consider Kill, Baby, Kill to be a giallo; since it has supernatural elements, I’d call it a ghost story with gothic overtones. The movie takes place in a village in the Carpathians in 1907 (thanks, Wikipedia!). Our main character is Dr. Eswai. He’s a sharp dresser, that Dr. Eswai. Young women are dying of mysterious causes, and he has been summoned to the village to do an autopsy of the latest victim. Unfortunately, the villagers view autopsies as violating the will of God. Their solution to this knotty theological problem is to try to murder Dr. Eswai, because killing someone you disagree with is absolutely the will of God.

I should note that the more enlightened characters in this movie view the villagers as superstitious morons, but in their defense the villagers a) know exactly what’s going on; b) are right to be terrified. What’s unspoken here is the idea of divine retribution; i.e., the belief that they deserve what’s happening to them. Interestingly, there are no priests or overt religious imagery in this movie, meaning that the concept of forgiveness is absent.

Kill, Baby, Kill doesn’t have much gore, or violence, or sex – the holy trinity of horror movies. However, the visuals are striking. There’s a sequence with a spiral staircase that looks awesome. The plot is nothing special – young girl killed due to the negligence of the townspeople haunts said townspeople. The cast includes a crazed Baroness and a healer who drives coins into people’s hearts. Dr. Eswai is a certified skeptic and impeccable dresser. His co-star and potential love interest Monica doesn’t have much to do, as she’s just arrived at the village.

A nitpick: since the girl in question is a tween, and not a baby, maybe the title should read Kill, Tween, Kill! Or are we take ‘baby’ to refer to a nubile young woman? Perhaps it’s a reference to the Baroness, who has wild bed head and chews the scenery with great vigor. Anyway, Kill, Baby, Kill is available on Shudder. It’s a solid horror movie that looks great, but don’t watch if you don’t like older horror movies. By today’s standards, it’s tame.