A few quick thoughts on Disney's Maleficent

Through facebook, I saw this trailer today.

Now, I'm not as locked-in anti-revisionist as this is going to sound. But I have a big problem with this film.
I've seen some remakes I've enjoyed, and quite a few I have not. In general, it strikes me as lazy filmmaking- rework an old idea just for the sake of marketing, rather than come up with something fresh. That's why I give kudos to Marvel for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. While Marvel is also milking successful franchises like Thor and The Avengers, they're also breaking some new ground, taking some chances.
Maleficent, however, has two problems.
First, it seems to aping the success of recent revisionist fairy tale TV series, which in turn are aping the success of Vertigo's FABLES, which in turn is building on similar notions going back to Gaiman's Sandman and much farther back than that. That's not inherently evil. I'm rather enjoying NBC's current Dracula series, and that's hardly fresh territory.
The other problem is Maleficent's relation to its source material. You can't say Disney and Sleeping Beauty without thinking about that incredible 1950s design work. The film was visually stunning in a new way, reflective of its times, and its look remains iconic.

Yet Maleficent appears to be another live-action effects-heavy take on an old Disney story, like Sorcerer's Apprentice a few years ago. And I suspect that, in the long run, it will be every bit as forgettable. I only hope that people who are first exposed to the characters through this film won't judge the original work relative to it. Lest you think this unlikely, I have students who have used Zak Snyder's film version of Watchmen as the standard by which to judge Alan Moore's original work.
The point: once a watered-down version is out there, it's hard to take it back.
You'd think Disney would have learned that from The Lone Ranger. I still ache for a good and respectful film version of that character! I only hope I'm wrong about this, and that the characters in the 1950s Sleeping Beauty remain memorable.

Best Comics of 2012, No. 7 (tie): Fashion Beast and Lone Ranger: Snake of Iron

Spoilers abound below. Take heed.
Every year, I come up with a tie.
Usually, this is because there's a worthwhile book I've omitted and I can't decide between it and another. Inevitably, this happens after I've begun posting the entries, so no going back and renumbering.
This time out, the tie is between two disparate works.
First up, Alan Moore's Fashion Beast. It's a bit unfair to call it Alan Moore's work completely. Based on a truncated film collaboration with rock and fashion impresario Malcolm McClaren, this is the story of androgynous boys, girls and those seemingly in-between, desperately scrapping for a place in the arbitrary world of fashion in the early days of a nuclear winter.

The book is co-credited to McClaren, and the adaptation is credited to Antony Johnson, who has adapted several other Moore works for Avatar Press, and who wrote Wasteland for Oni Press.
The art is more than sufficient. Facundo Percio gives us a full world with drastically alternating visions of beauty and despair. Another Avatar staple, his past work includes Warren Ellis' Anna Mercury.
The story owes no small debt to Beauty and the Beast. The mysterious master designer and his minions are clear parallels to the Beast and his castle lackeys. There's also a parallel to the villagers hunting Beauty, this time in the form of an angry politicized mob attacking our heroine.
As to the heroine...
At first we're given to presume she's a cross dresser, or a drag queen, possibly a pre-op or non-op transsexual.
However, we learn in issue 3 that she's female.
We learn this from an acerbic dresser, very dykey but of undisclosed sexuality as of issue 3 (again, I'm a couple issues behind on this).
So it's a world of dry wit and desperation, coupled with hope and legend. The latter two run a bit thin, and the urgency runs high.
So many mysteries yet to unfold. We've met the true gender of our heroine, Doll (or have we?), and we may or may not know something of the elusive sharp witted dresser. Here's Doll in action from issue one!

 

In the follwoing sequence (sequins?), Doll is confronted by the mysterious designer.

Doll stands proud and defiant on the runway. No tie in to the stream of thought, I just found it to be a cool page!

Even in the hopelessness and nihilism, there are many kinds of beauty to be had here. I'm reminded of Moore's Halo Jones (oh, for him to finish that one day!), and can't help but wonder if Doll will save the world through fashion.
A very different kind of woman dominates the second book discussed today: a camel riding explorer of the American West.

I've made no secret of my admiration for Dynamite's Lone Ranger series, espeically the 25 issue origin series. While I've been less pleased with the current run, largely due to the new artist being less satisfying to me then Sergio Cariello, the stories are still strong.
But the miniseries have really picked up the slack.
From last year's Lone Ranger: Death of Zorro to the current Snake of Iron, these shorter cycles are more satisfying than the current longer arcs. Tighter action, stronger character development, and better stories overall.
This outing offers Tonto and Scout (Tonto's horse, in case you've forgotten) rescuing a train in a storm. Meanwhile, the Ranger is serving as protector for a headstrong young woman, the aforementioned explorer.
While this may seem an absurdity, there was a US Camel Corps in the American West, and it's been revived in Texas, primarily for education and entertainment. Camels played a relatively small but still significant role in "taming" the American West. Some, however, regard this as myth, even invoking the infamous ghost camels. This ties into the "ghost horse spirit" that dirves the Kiowa to jump the reservation, one of the key plot points of this narrative.

Our heroine, and camel, encounter a threat!

I like this story a great deal.
This is surprising, in that I don't usually much care for Chuck Dixon's writing- too much machismo, too much smug, all that self-important "guy" swagger leaves me cold and full of contempt. But here, he's written sympathetic characters in a wide variety of situations, and even the most absurd aspects of it have a gravitas that make it worthwhile.
While i enjoyed Dixon's work on Birds of Prey, his Man With No Name reeks of testosterone, and he will always be remembered as the writer who broke Batman's back in the Knightfall storyline.
But then there's his successful adaptation of The Hobbit (as far as I know, the only official comic adaptation of Tolkien to date). And there's this. So perhaps I've been too harsh in my judgment of his work.
There's some wonderful insight into Tonto here, and while the story risks racism at times, it manages to retain the complexity of all characters, even in the cliched scalping scene shown at right. Scalping was not as widely practiced as often assumed, and is not the sole province of native Americans- ancient Celts also practiced scalping- but Dixon is accurate in the locale and timeframe of use of the practice in this story.
Artist Esteve Polls is Spanish, and began working in European adventure books in the early 1990s. In addition to drawing some Gene Simmons written comics (!), he's done other Zorro and Lone Ranger work, including the aforementioned Death of Zorro series.
Oh, yeah, and he drew this.

I mean really. How cool is that?
Since I'm posting this a day late, I'll post the next installment in Best of 2012 later today.
Ah, the slings and arrows....

The Lone Ranger: A Brief Media History and A Caution

The new page of A Private Myth is giving me fits, and I have a massive deadline tomorrow. So art on the back burner again for the (brief) moment, but never completely off the stove, to torture the metaphor.
I'd like to chat briefly about something else.
The first images of the forthcoming Lone Ranger film are out.

I don't think a logo redesign was necessary....

This on-again, off-again project has the potential to do everything for the Lone Ranger that the other recent film did for his grand-nephew, The Green Hornet. Caught a couple minutes of that this morning by accident, and it is every bit as painful as I feared.
You all knew the Green Hornet and The Lone Ranger were related, right? The Hornet is Britt Reid and the Ranger is his grand-uncle, John Reid.
Ahem. Be that as it may.
This is what the Lone Ranger and Tonto looked like in the original comics. This page is from a bit later, but the style is largely the same, if a bit more refined.

This is what they looked like in the classic 50s and 60s TV series.

Note that Tonto is played by a Native American, one Jay Silverheels. While there are jingoistic aspects to the characterization, Tonto is written and played as smart and honorable.

This is their appearance in the 1966 cartoon.
Note that there's a consistency in costume and overall appearance of the characters. Again, Tonto is presented as secondary but equal in skill to the Lone Ranger. This is as it should be, since the Lone Ranger would not have lived or become the hero he is without the intercession of Tonto.
John Reid was left for dead by a band of raiders. He was the sole survivor, the lone ranger to live, hence the name. Reid was orphaned in the attack. Among those killed were his father and brother, also Texas Rangers.
Tonto restored Reid's physical health, trained him in fighting and survival techniques, mended his spirit and gave his new life direction beyond vengeance.
The model of orphaned masked vigilante has numerous precedents. Batman and Zorro come readily to mind.
The character of the Lone Ranger predates Batman, who is also preceded by Zorro. The chronology is as follows.
Zorro debuted in Johnston McCulley's 1919 pulp novel The Curse of Capistrano.
The Lone Ranger began in a 1933 radio show written by Fran Striker.
Batman  was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. He first appeared in Detective Comics no. 27, cover dated May 1939.

The Lone Ranger has appeared in other series and films, most notably the 1981 Legend of the Lone Ranger, starring Kilton Spilsbury and Micheal Horse. Despite some minor modifications, the film was largely successful in its treatment of the characters. Again, Tonto is played by a Native American.
This film's flaws were twofold. Spilsbury's voice was too squeaky to do the character full justice, though he did the job admirably despite that limitation. The big obstacle to this film came off screen, when TV actor Clayton Moore was enjoined from playing his old character publicly in promotional events. He had been playing the Ranger for supermarket openings and events at malls, both as a source of revenue and to keep the Ranger's ideals alive. The studio's action against him left the film with a black eye- kind of a shame, as it's a fairly good film.
The character was largely dormant for a time. Topps Comics (an offshoot of the bubblegum card company) did a fairly good Lone Ranger title in the 1990s, and the Cary Bates/ Russ Heath comic strip from 1981 -1984 remains a largely unsung watermark for the character.

The current Lone Ranger comic from Dyamite Entertainment is superb. While the original 25 issue run is slightly better than the current storyline, both boast a nice balance of character driven story and action. The original artist, Sergio Cariello, was a perfect fit for the book.

And now the forthcoming Disney film, currently scheduled for 2013.

Really?
I know it's unfair to judge an unseen film from one still and a bit of publicity, but come on.
Really?
A black suit and Johnny Depp in whiteface? I know they wanted some name recognition and Depp has long been eager for this project, but are there no Native American actors who could play the role?
This look, coupled with the news that the film is being given a supernatural bent (abandoning the studio's original "vision" of The Lone Ranger as a camp comedy) does indeed give me pause.
Just do the character justice.
He's a noble, plausible character. There's no need to make his story a joke or a magic show. Let the Lone Ranger's nobility shine through.
For a change, I'd like to see a major studio take a chance on doing a superhero right. There are plenty of good bits in some recent Marvel films, and in some of the DC stuff, but as this and The Green Hornet demonstrate, there's still a tendency to misunderstand or ridicule the concept of someone taking off on his own to right wrongs.
Consider the Lone Ranger's Code. These are not platitudes to ridicule, they are words to live by:
"I believe that to have a friend, a man must be one.
That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
That God put the firewood there but that every man must gather and light it himself.
In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
That 'This government, of the people, by the people and for the people' shall live always.
That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
That sooner or later ... somewhere ... somehow ... we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.
In my Creator, my country, my fellow man."

Best comics of 2010: the runners-up

These are the books I thought about including in my list, but demurred. These are all fine books equally deserving of your attention. If I would have turned left instead of right, or eaten a different breakfast or whatever, some of these would be on my Best list.
First, second and third, books from last year's list. These books maintained their quality, but I wanted to give some newcomers more of a chance.
First, The Unwritten.

This book has maintained its intelligence, pace and imaginative art. In issue 17, with our old friend Ryan Kelly getting primary art credits (see link in daytripper post), the story is designed as a "choose your own adventure" comic, making it a meta-narrative, a sort of "nod and a wink" to remind readers that this is a book about books.
Next, Sweet Tooth.

The story continues to evolve and hold its quality. As is often the case in post-apocalyptic narratives, factions have formed and the backstory is revealed incrementally.
Lemire is now also writing Superboy. I've had little use for the smug Superboy of the last few years, but with Jeff at the helm, I'll give the book another chance.
Third up: The Lone Ranger.

The last issue of this eloquent series came out last month, though I've yet to pick it up. I've enjoyed everything about the way this material has been handled: faithful, but not slavish, to its source material.
As my Machiavellian mind began to wrap itself around the idea of creating a custom bind of this book sometime in 2011, Dynamite announced that The Masked Man would be a guest in a new Zorro book. And again with the multiple covers.
Ya can't win.
Other surprises in 2010:
Sweets

This tense, moody noir set in the Big Easy hits all the right notes, and is an enjoyable read to say the least. But it's nothing revolutionary. Not that it has to be. Nothing wrong with a solid gritty murder mystery.
Again, thanks to Image Comics for another great surprise in 2010.


Doom Patrol

Doom Patrol has always been my favorite uber-weird superhero book. This issue, in which the always borderline team leader,The Chief, assumes the powers of Superman despite no longer having even crippled legs, was great superhero energy and big fun. But I lost patience with some aspects of Kieth Giffen's writing. If everything is snarky, cynical and argumentative, it loses its impact.

Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom

Top drawer adventure,  even if not from the mind of Alan Moore. Tight plotting, consistent characterization, and a nicely handled time travel story. Not the revelation that Moore's original Tom Strong books (which tie nicely in with Promethea) was, but still the kind of book that you read and just say "cool" when the plot twists and fight scenes come.


Superman: Last Family of Krypton 

Writer Cary Bates and artist Renalo Arlem bring a 3-part Elseworlds story based on a simple premise. Instead of shooting baby Kal to Earth, Jor is able to bring the whole Family of El!
This has some fascinating aspects to it, but at times resonates of Astro City. It's still well worth one's time, but it suffers from the problem that plagues most Elseworlds stories. Ultimately, the universe ends up more or less the same as it is in regular contintuity.
Even with that, this felt like reading a really good Imaginary Story from the 60s or 70s. A very welcome feeling, that.
Final runner-up:
Superman No. 701

JMS' work on Wonder Woman was engaging, but not spectacular.
I posted on the whole costume thing with WW back when the transitional issue hit. While ensuing issues were better than good, it wasn't as effective as his handling of Superman.
This issue in particular, the beginning of Superman's walk across the US, is big fun. It captures some long-neglected facets of the character, like his populist bent. His handling of this smug blowhard amuses me no end.

JMS also wrote a very well-received Superman graphic novel in 2010. Not having read it yet, I can't in good conscience review it.
That's everything but the two books tied for the No. 1 spot for 2010. I'm not letting the cat out of the bag, aside from saying that the first posts tomorrow!

Best comics of 2010: No. 10: Fevre Dream

Avatar Press has done some impressive, but frustrating, books.
Fevre Dream is no exception.
Based on the George R.R. Martin novel from 1982, this riverboat vampire tale can be seen as a thematic successor of sorts to the Anne Rice stuff from 1976. Beautiful vampires,  a set of vampiric laws revealed to a hapless soul drawn into their sphere (in Martin's case, a steamboat captain; in Rice's, a reporter), and a power play between said vampires. The core elements are certainly comparable.
But that's as far as it goes.
Martin's characters, especially the Captain, are more, dare I say, human, and lack the high-flown trappings of overblown prose that Rice inflicts on her characters, even in their early 90s Innovation comics versions.
Also, Martin writes to be read. Rice seems rather full of herself as a writer, at least to me.
This is a great story, made all the more so because of its twists and turns. It was long overdue for adaptation, with its kinetic and visceral aspects.

Fascinating characters indeed.
Is the Captain concerned for the welfare of his crew, himself, humanity? Yes, but more of his concern lies with his ship.
Are his vampiric co-owners and passengers a threat? Yes, but no so much that they cannot candidly speak of their necessary business, and they may be a greater threat to one another than to humanity.

Rafa Lopez's art alternates between chunky and sleek, with heavy elements of caricature (and lots of rather large hair for 1857!). I wasn't mad for his work on Lady Death, but then I wasn't a big fan of the book in general. The writing integrates smoothly with the images: a classic blend of show, tell, show and tell, and all the permutations thereon. Daniel Abaraham's "sequential adaptation" is consistent with the source material.
As alluded to earlier, the publisher, Avatar Press, is a mixed bag. They produce books of consistent quality (though I was quite disappointed in Alan Moore's Neuronomicon). They publish some fine Warren Ellis works- I really liked last year's Ignition City, for example, and this year's Captain Swing was wild steampunk fun. Some of their stuff, like Miller's Robocop books and the George Romero stuff, does nothing for me, but I recognize their quality even if they're not to my taste.
Every issue of Fevre Dream is offered with multiple covers, as are most Avatar books.
Multiple covers? Really? How 90s pre-bankruptcy Marvel of you.
I think the wraparounds are just fine, and see no need for other covers. Why go to the extra expense of printing multiple covers?
Avatar has a fairly chunky ad section, all house ads, all conveniently put in back of the book. Damned decent of them.
However, the ads are mainly a back issue shop, and offer back issue prices on books not yet available, as well as multiple "special" editions of their books.
This is a mite confusing, and I can't believe this practice helps their orders any. Dynamite used a similar strategy on a slightly smaller scale with its Lone Ranger line, which ends this month, I'm sad to say.
Fevre Dream is not Martin's first foray into comics. His Hedge Knight series has been servicably adapted by Marvel, and his Wild Cards anthology was adapted as part of Marvel's Epic line more than a decade ago- fitting, as it's a "real world" superhero anthology. There was a Dynamite revival of the title recently, but I can't speak to its quality, having passed it by at the time.
Here's a bit of the Marvel/Epic stuff.

Comics have long been accepted by those "in the know" as a viable vehicle for adaptation, in some cases more so than film, or at least on a par with it, as evidenced by Jon Muth's version of Fritz Lang's M.
I hope they do a decent trade of this series. If not, I'd happily have my issues bound.
Tomorrow: No. 9 of 2010, as we go from drinking blood to....

Top 10 Comics of 2009: # 9: The Lone Ranger #18

How far have we come, if the most exciting books are about the oldest characters?
Dynamite's Lone Ranger series (and its offshoot mini, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, which had a very satisfying circus story for its last issue) have been full of sensitive, insightful writing by Brett Matthews, Joe Kubert-esque art by Sergio Cariello (a very nice guy I met  about 3 years back at San Diego- I'll post the Lone Ranger and Tonto sketch he did for me when I have scanner access again) and some of the best coloring I've seen in comics in a LONG time.

This story is the start of a new arc, and has the stuff in it I like about this comic, the thing that others seem to dislike. It's quiet. the characters have very real conversations about things, while things happen, before they happen, and afterward. The dialogue is sparse and heartfelt. The book takes its time making its points, which makes the ensuing mayhem all the more powerful, even if you do have to wait two or thee issues for it. To me, this is very pragmatic writing. In real life, things don't happen to people at a breakneck pace. With rare exceptions, something huge happens, you have some time to live and reflect on it, and something else happens. The accelerated cataclysms of the superhero world are rarities in human reality. And to see that reflected in contemporary narratives of a character created over 7 decades ago is quite refreshing.
And Tonto is an amazing character here. Centered, self-aware, skilled, and unwilling to suffer fools gladly, even the Lone Ranger himself, who is often a fool in this book- not in a mocking way,  but impetuous. In this storyline, the Lone Ranger is a driven young man whose impulsive nature befits his age. Strong character portrayals all around.
There are some elements of this book I'm not mad for. The romance involving the title character's brother's widow feels a bit forced, despite the new direction it was given in the issue following this one. And I'm so tired of multiple covers, which appear to be done for every issue of every Dynamite book (I couldn't say for sure, since I only read one or two other books of theirs- the Project Superpowers line leaves me cold).
But even with all that, this is a very strong book. I can easily see Matthews' Lone Ranger uttering one of my favorite Harlan Ellison quotes: "If you want consistency, look for it in the grave. I'm just a flawed, miserable human being, doing the best I can."
Tomorrow: #8 on the hit parade.

Ah, yes, the superhero Western

I'm usually not much on the whole mash-ups thing ( do we even still say that?), but this was too much fun.
Mind, there have been some decent superhero Western comics.
There's Denny O'Neill and Jim Aparo's mini-epic for Charlton, Wander (okay, more of an SF story than a superhero, but still elements).
The original Ghost Rider comes to mind. A Western supernatural superhero (say that three times fast!).
The Western Batman, Zorro, is a perennial favorite. His current incarnation from Dynamite is quite strong, with subtler characterizations than might be expected.
The most appealing to me remains The Lone Ranger.
There's DC's Vigilante and El Diablo, Marvel's flawed by ambitious Red Wolf, the SF superheroine Dawnstar in the Legion of Super-Heroes, and arguably, the Man With No Name revisioned by Vertigo as Preacher.
I feel like I should have something quite profound to say about all this, but it's late. Let's just tickle the idea for tonight!