Netflix sent me A Boy and His Dog a couple of weeks ago (this wasn't just a random event - I actually did have this movie in my queue). I'd heard, years ago, that a young Don Johnson (26 years old when the movie was shot) was the main character in the movie, so I thought it would be fun to watch for that reason, if for no other.
World War III lasted from 25 June 1950 when the Republic of Korea was invaded by 60,000 screaming North Korean troops spearheaded by something in excess of one hundred Russian-built tanks... to January 1993 when the Vatican Entente Cordiale was signed between the Eastern and Western blocs. World War III - hot and cold - lasted forty-three years, though nobody seemed smart enough to realize it was all one continuing conflict. But as the New Year dawned in 1993 it was all over; peace and tranquility reigned la-de-da
For two years and six months and three days
World War IV broke out on American Independence Day, 4 July 1995. World War IV lasted five days, until the few remaining missiles that had jammed in their release phase cleared the various silos beneth the Painted Desert and the Urals and the Gobi Altay; but by then there wasn't much of anything left to fight over. Five days
Then what was left belonged to anybody who wanted it, anybody with a taste for radiation and rubble. But it was a very different world the survivors claimed. The "good folks" sank their caisson cities, their sterile downunders, deep in the earth. And the snaggle-toothed remnants of the aboveground were abandoned to the new masters of desolation: vicious roverpaks of parentless young boys and their telepathic dogs.
From the History of the World, as Blood tells it.
I've never read the Harlan Ellison story that the film was based on, but I do have a comic book from 1987 called Vic and Blood that was illustrated by Richard Corben and consists of three short stories (Eggsucker, A Boy and His Dog. and Run Spot Run) that were adapted to the comic book format by Harlan Ellison. Each story is like a new chapter in the story.
The comic adaptation mirrors the film adaptation pretty closely, but it's not an exact match. This scene with Susanne Benton was one of the few that was exactly the same in both versions.
The last chapter of the comic is one MAJOR difference between the two version - it's not in the movie at all. It was totally cut out, but I'll bet it's in the original book. It reminds me of how the Americanized versions of A Clockwork orange (both the film and the novel) tried to end with shock and awe instead of wrapping things up as the author intended. Or maybe the semi-retarded test audience liked the less dark and sad ending. Either way it was a dumb move. Surprisingly, Harlan Ellison is credited with writing the screenplay, so I'll bet the last scene was shot and its removal was an executive decision above his pay grade. Stupid Americ....er, other Americans. To add insult to injury, the marketing of the movie version made it into a gigantic joke, using "A Rather Kinky Tale of Survival" as the hook. That was the best they could come up with to sell the movie? It sounds more like they were describing porn than sci-fi. Stupid 70s marketers.
Richard Corben
Speaking of Richard Corben, he's been working on quite a few mainstream projects recently. I've read most of them, but my favorites have been Dark Horse's Conan comic (the new Conan series, Conan the Cimmerian that just started), the recent Hellboy series, and H.P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror (published by Max Comics, a Marvel imprint). The limited 3 issue series Haunt comics are especially awesome. It reminds me of the old Poe adaptations Corben adapted so well.
As much as it hurts my nerd-pride, I have to admit that I've never read any of HP Lovecraft's stuff. Until now, that is. Each of the three stories in each issue of H.P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror is adapted (with varying accuracy) from a Lovecraft story or poem (the first comic story of each issue is from a story, the second and third in each are from poems). Being able to see the original prose that inspired the comic adaptation is really cool.
The Lovecraft stories in the comics are: (issue 1) The Scar, Recognition, A Memory, (issue 2) The Music of Erich Zann, The Canal, The Lamp and (issue 3) Arthur Jermyn, The Well, The Window.
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I could probably ramble on about the Conan comics that that Richard Corben is doing or about his older stuff, but I'll spare you the torment and stop here.
Funny. I thought this was going to be a quick, short post.
If this isn't your first time here, you may notice a slightly changed thing or two on the Rants pages. I try to switch things up every now and again just to show you all my skills and to further prove that I really am a L337 h4ck3r.
In non-leet-haxor news, I've started writing posts several times in the past few weeks, but haven't created a long enough post that I felt it was worth the time to...well, post it. So that was the motivation of one of my changes: display multiple postings initially on the Rant page. That way, even if my rambling incoherence is brief, there will be other babbling nonsense below it that will keep the page from looking empty. Problem solved.
So I'll probably be posting something tomorrow about my lovely fish, comic books, craptastic sketches or something equally uninteresting.
I picked up the first issue of the Dark Horse comic book adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull before I had a chance to see the movie. And then, a few days later at Costco, I saw the novelization of the film so I picked that up too.
Since I hadn't seen the film version of the story yet, I resisted the temptation to peek into either the novel or the comic book versions.
I did eventually go see the film (a few weeks after it was released and in a surprisingly still crowded theater) and read the comic version immediately after. After reading the comic book adaptation, I started the novel and finished a couple of weeks later (not because it's that long or a difficult read, I just don't spend that much time reading these days).
"So," you ask, "how do the story told in three different mediums compare? Are they completely different stories?"
No. They're exactly the same stories...they just each go into different levels of detail. The comic adaptation, surprisingly, actually skips a lot of the scenes from the film and doesn't bring anything new to the table. So, of the three, it was the least fulfilling...but the covers of the two-issue series were very well done (and Dark Horse has gone forward with another new Indiana Jones adventure with equally well-done covers, so that's good news).
The movie version - which has to be considered the baseline version of the story, since it's the version everyone will be familiar with - isn't my favorite Indiana Jones story ever, but I liked it better than The Temple of Doom (which has never felt like a true "Indiana Jones" movie to me) because it includes all the essential (to my mind) Indiana Jones elements: puzzle solving, treasure hunting, resentful natives, exotic locales, and hints of government conspiracy. If not for the Area 51 angle, it would have been a perfect movie.
Not that I'm against stories/movies involving the Roswell/Area 51 angle (I did buy all the seasons of Roswell when they were put on DVD)...it's just not an Indiana Jones thing. Atlantis, maybe...but ET? It just doesn't seem like the right fit. And speaking of ET, this movie left an interesting impression on me - it was like American Graffiti meets Close Encounters of the First Kind meets Indiana Jones.
So that leaves me with the novelization of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was my favorite of the three versions. Why? Because without the special effects, the story did feel an awful lot like a real Indiana Jones story. And it didn't start with kids racing across the desert in a 1950's hot rod. It started in 1546 with Francisco de Orlellana. We get to experience first hand what happened to the explorer/looter/despoiler in the Yucatan Peninsula. And then we jump forward 450 years to Indiana Jones exploring the same site in 1957 and the events that leads up to Indiana being dumped in front of the hangar in Area 51 (and the aforementioned cheesy hot rod racing across the desert from the film).
It's 330 page to the same ending, but there are several questions answered along the way. A few that stand out are a pretty lengthy explanation of the Spalko character's background, an explanation for why Mutt is able to hold his own against Spalko's fencing abilities, and the descent into the pyramid - which I don't remember as a pyramid in the film version - that is much more detailed and seems to encompass a lot more territory and exploration.
Even with the story being more fully-fleshed, it still doesn't explain all of the head-scratchers from the movie. Like "how were these cars able to race through the jungle without the lawnmower/deforester clearing their path?" or "how did Spalko get into the temple with the stairs retracted?" Complaints aside, the author of the novelization did do a good job. If you're a fan of the Indiana Jones character, the book will probably satisfy you more than the movie will (or did).
Where's the Comic Book Love?
You'd think, with my admitted love for comic books in my once-a-year-Comiccon rant that proclaim my love for the medium, that I'd have more to say on the subject throughout the rest of the year. And, for the record, I do pay a weekly visit to my local comic shop, Artifex, which gives me a discount on every issue I buy because I'm a subscriber to about twenty titles (all but a few of which are from independent publishers).
Every now and then, I do read a comic worthy of my adulation, but even then...I just don't write about it. And so, as I was pondering this disparity in my super-boring-news-reporting, I decided the reason for this is probably pretty simple. I blather on about books (every now and then) because it takes me days or weeks to get throug them. A comic book takes me a few (if uninterrupted) minutes. A really good comic book may take me a little longer, but not always. So I just don't put in the time to write about something that - even though it tooks its creators a lot of time and effort to create - is so quickly concumable by me.
That being said, I heard about a comic book at the Comiccon that Mike Kunkel was doing for DC (I think Kandrix or Laurie B mentioned it) that I hadn't seen yet: Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam (actually, I only heard about the "Shazam" part of the title at the Con, it wasn't until Kelley at Artifex gave me his hold copy of the comic that I saw the full title). Mike Kunkel is an awesome illustrator and storyteller who's probably best known for his Herobear and the Kid comics. My kids know him for the Land of Sockmunster book he did a few years ago, the art for which is very similar to the new Shazam book.
This is probably my favorite series of panels from the first issue of the Shazam comic.
The expressions on his characters' faces are priceless.
Maybe, if I feel the urge, I'll mention some of my other favorite reads in the future (the Shazam comic was just one of about ten issues I picked up that week, so I could have really bored your socks off, if I had felt the urge). And speaking of boring your socks off, there's super-exciting fish tank news (another one bit the dust) and might even be another thing or two worth mentioning...if I can get around to it.
