Big Trouble in Little China 2 (July 2014)

Big Trouble in Little China #2 Powell continues to show he gets it with Big Trouble. He and, presumably, Carpenter, give Churilla a bunch of crazy stuff to draw. Not right away. Right away is more comedy stand-off stuff with Jack Burton being an idiot but a well-intentioned one. The crazy stuff starts when Jack and Egg’s quest starts; they’re driving through a mystical Chinese sort of underworld… it’s phenomenal.

What’s great about Churilla’s art is how he doesn’t compose the same way he illustrates. He’s a cartoony artist, but his composition is detailed and thoughtful. It’s a great combination and it works perfectly for Big Trouble.

There are a lot of great tangents. Powell introduces a lot more genre into the series’s mythology–actually, he’s kind of creating it–and it definitely works. The idea of Jack Burton as an unaware magnet for supernatural trouble? I’m hoping Big Trouble will truck on for a good long while.

CREDITS

Writers, John Carpenter and Eric Powell; artist, Brian Churilla; colorist, Michael Garland; letterer, Ed Dukeshire; editors, Alex Galer and Ian Brill; publisher, Boom! Studios.

Big Trouble in Little China 1 (June 2014)

Big Trouble in Little China #1 With John Carpenter breaking out the story with Eric Powell (who does the scripting), one has to wonder if Big Trouble the comic sequel is the same as a movie sequel would have been. Because it’s an odd opening, directly continuing the movie and then kind of going in reverse (to get protagonist Jack Burton back to Chinatown).

For that course correction, the comic is amusing. Brian Churilla doesn’t have the realistic style for an adaptation but then it becomes clear Powell’s going to go out of his way to make Big Trouble a comic book and not an attempt at a movie. The humor, for instance, reminds of the film’s humor in content, but Powell and Churilla know how to make it fit the comic medium.

The comic goes from mediocre to excellent in its well-paced twenty-some pages. It shouldn’t work, but it does and gloriously so.

CREDITS

The Hell of the Midnight Road & The Ghost of Storms, Part One; writers, John Carpenter and Eric Powell; artist, Brian Churilla; colorist, Michael Garland; letterer, Ed Dukeshire; editors, Alex Galer and Ian Brill; publisher, Boom! Studios.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986, John Carpenter)

Although Big Trouble in Little China takes place in modern day San Francisco and has a whole bunch of awesome special effects, it’s really just John Carpenter doing another Western. This time he’s doing a light comedy Western and he’s got the perfect script for it. W.D. Richter (credited with an adaptation no less) has some great rapid fire expository dialogue. Practically everything Kim Cattrall says in the film until halfway through is exposition, but Cattrall and Carpenter sell it.

It works because Carpenter’s already established Big Trouble’s tone with star Kurt Russell. Russell’s doing a John Wayne impression, but John Wayne as a goofball who can’t figure anything out. He ends up playing sidekick to Dennis Dun. Carpenter, Russell and Richter take every opportunity to use the character for laughs. But Russell’s able to play the obnoxiousness as likability. It makes for a constantly entertaining film.

There’s also the James Hong situation. Hong plays the villain, both as a seven-foot tall sorcerer and as a wizened old man. Even though the villain’s obviously dangerous–something the film establishes right off–most of his scenes are played for outlandish humor. Carpenter’s big on getting physical humor out of his cast. Cattrall’s especially good in those scenes.

The film’s got excellent production values–particularly the editing. Dean Cundey’s photography is nice, but the fight scene editing is just phenomenal. Also essential is the frantic and playful score from Carpenter, in association with Alan Howarth.

Trouble’s a lot of fun.