Dark Horse Presents (1986) #86

The issue opens with a sci-fi story–from Watt-Evans and Robinson–about a female space traveler who finds a world filled with adorable little creatures out of a Disney cartoon. It turns out they’re very amorous to the human female, which provides for a rather amusing story. Watt-Evans’s story is well-paced and always thoughtful. There are the technical problems of the protagonist, but she’s always around the funny little green guys. It’s too bad Robinson’s art isn’t better.

Star Riders is weak. Everything good about the first installment is missing here. Gagnon complicates everything with technical jargon and sci-fi details. Racine’s art gets real lazy–quite an achievement considering he appears to have photocopied his pencils and called them inked.

Janes and Plunkett’s Eighth Wonder is too short and too slight this issue. Some nice Plunkett art, but unfortunately Janes’s narrative seems to have stalled.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #85

This issue might be the first where there’s nothing great, but nothing bad. Everything is just solid. In fact, everything is ambitious too. Well, except maybe Star Riders, which appears to be a tie-in to a roll playing game.

Johnson and Dringenberg’s opener is about an Imperial Japanese artist who’s a little too good at his work. Dringenberg’s emotive artwork–and especially his panel designs–do well. Johnson’s a little pretentious, but it’s a ghost story set in Imperial Japan appearing in an American comic… not much chance it wasn’t going to be pretentious.

Janes and Plunkett’s Eighth Wonder is about a scientist aiding in the construction of a huge bridge. It’s in a steampunk setting and it’s generally fine. It goes on a little long though.

Star Riders (from Gagnon and Racine) is harmless space adventure stuff. It’s not too technical; it worries more about being fun instead.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #84

Let me try to think of something nice to say about Buoy 77‘s finale. Lopez is back to the weak art, so no compliment there. Boyd’s conclusion is all about how the white man ruins native peoples (I’m shocked they didn’t put in a prose notice of it), so not there either. All in all, it’s a waste of time. I’m surprised Boyd went for a lame, common point.

Barron and Barry have a humor strip–Judah–about a chili cook-off. Maybe it’s funny if you care about chili. I guess Barry’s art is fine for a way too long humor strip.

Swan and Talbot have a two page thing. Pointless, but nice art.

Hermes and the Eyeball Kid wrap up here. Campbell brings it all back to the fight, taking care of all his supporting characters quickly. Not the approach I expected, but it’s a good piece.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #83

Lloyd’s got a very well-illustrated story here. It’s a thriller–con artist out to murder his rich wife–told after the fact (guess what, the husband gets busted through a very Hitchcockian twist). The art’s more important than the story. Lloyd gets the tone perfect. If it were a longer piece, with more characterization, it might be more significant. As is, it’s just a fantastic little exercise.

Speaking of good art, Lopez finally improves on this installment of Buoy 77. It’s the same style, but he really gets more fluidity in his action here. It doesn’t hurt Boyd’s writing is stronger too. The writing approach is different from the second installment, more like the first (it’s no longer following one person in close third-person).

And Campbell’s wrapping up Hermes. Not as many awesome developments, just solid storytelling. The battle scene’s got some great panels this issue; very grandiose.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #82

Well, Hermes’s slump continues. Campbell’s problem might be the villains—the Eye of Fate (or something… the skeleton head guy) is a lot more interesting than anyone else in the story than the Eyeball Kid. So we want the Eyeball Kid to win (even though Eye of Fate doesn’t) and Eye of Fate to win… but he’s a villain. He’s just a really amusing one. Though there’s an actual fight between Hermes and the Eyeball Kid this installment, it’s still not one of the stronger ones.

Geary’s got a couple stories in here. Neither are good. Apparently he learned how to make his Presents stuff formulaic and he does.

Boyd and Lopez’s Buoy 77 disappoints too. Instead of Boyd writing strong characters like before, he writes lame ones here. Disappointing.

Itner’s got a JLA superhero spoof for a few pages. It’s awful. It’s not funny and the art’s really bad.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #81

I’m not sure what happens this installment of Hermes. It almost seems like a bridging installment. Hermes, who hasn’t really had a lot to do since the first installment, is preparing his attack and the supervillains are splintering. It’s a fine installment, but it’s the first one where Campbell didn’t “wow” me.

The opening story, Buoy 77, from Boyd and Lopez, is good. Lopez’s art is a little unfinished, but the concept–a bunch of rural Brazilians trying to find a missing oil company buoy for the reward–is excellent. Boyd handles the Brazilians and their culture better than the oil company (I had assumed, from the oil company verbiage, it was a future story).

Moeller finishes off Shadow Empires. It makes very little sense–a day’s walk outside a war torn future city and you get rural, picturesque countryside? Moeller’s trying to be profound, but still comes off amateurish.

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994, Don Coscarelli)

I watched Phantasm III because I wanted to see what Coscarelli would do without studio interference on a Phantasm sequel.

Apparently, what he decided to do was add an annoying little kid who kills people (they’re bad people, but they’re people just the same–and it’s never clear he was in any physical danger) and a black kung fu girl then turn his mostly absent from the screen protagonist (A. Michael Baldwin returns to the role after losing it to James LeGros for the previous sequel) into some sort of Luke Skywalker stand in… right down to the black outfit.

Most of those additions could be forgiven, I suppose, had Coscarelli gotten good actors. The little kid–played by Kevin Connors–is awful. But the girl, played by Gloria Lynne Henry, is worse; so it seems like Connors is giving a better performance. And Baldwin isn’t any great improvement over LeGros. Phantasm III might be interesting to look at in comparison to the first, in terms of Baldwin’s performance as a kid and as an adult.

I’m not even sure it counts as a horror movie. Without the yellow blood, occasional zombie and the flying spheres, it’s just an action movie. Reggie Bannister makes a hilarious lead for such a film, but it’s clear in a lot of scenes he’s a lot better than the script.

Coscarelli apparently has said he was out of ideas for this film and it shows… his demystifying of the Phantasm lore is particularly unfortunate.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written, directed and produced by Don Coscarelli; director of photography, Chris Chomyn; edited by Norman Buckley; music by Fred Myrow and Christopher L. Stone; production designer, Ken Aichele; released by Universal Home Entertainment.

Starring Reggie Bannister (Reggie), A. Michael Baldwin (Mike), Bill Thornbury (Jody), Gloria Lynne Henry (Rocky), Kevin Connors (Tim), Cindy Ambuehl (Edna), John Davis Chandler (Henry), Brooks Gardner (Rufus) and Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man).


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OTHER 1994 RELEASES

Palookaville (1991) #6

I think this must be the first issue where Seth doesn’t feel the need to show his protagonist nude from the waist down. He did it in every previous issue at some point or another.

Honestly, I can’t remember anything from this issue and I just finished reading it a minute ago.

It ends with an extremely trite reflection on memory and I now wonder if it ever occurred to Seth his readers might be familiar with Proust and his madelines. Oddly, it never occurred to me Seth might not be familiar with him.

The more I read Palookaville, the less likable I find Seth–the character. He’s an annoying, pretentious hipster. Maybe my biggest problem is the job thing.

Seth never mentions working. He just magically has enough money to travel on jaunts. His character seems to spend his entire day doing nothing.

And he’s terrible to his girlfriend.

Palookaville (1991) #5

This issue continues the story started in the previous one. Well, no, it doesn’t. Not exactly.

Seth seems incapable of resolving a cliffhanger, so this issue spends about half its pages just being another story about Seth, the character, following the last issue. There’s nothing to make it a chapter in the same story. Even the approach to the art changes.

Last issue, Seth had all these lovely illustrations. This issue, Palookaville goes back to being as indistinct as the first three issues. Seth’s opener is completely unrelated to the finale of the previous issue.

It’s like he assumed his readers wouldn’t have read the previous issue so he’s going to win them over again.

The issue becomes a laundry list of Seth’s rather uninteresting complaints. His single interesting observation is about himself. The Seth we met in the first issue is now, issue five Seth has decided, a tool.

The Tale of One Bad Rat (1994-95)

I read The Tale of One Bad Rat in one sitting. It was originally published as a limited series, but it’s in three parts and the first part is too long for an issue so it didn’t seem like a natural stopping point. Talbot weighs the book uniquely, with the first act taking far longer than the second two. In some ways, it’s in two acts, with the second and third parts comprising the second act.

It’s not something I’d traditionally read in one sitting–it’s very serious and very depressing and the first part–and most of the second part–seem like they could easy end very badly for the protagonist. But without a good stopping place, I found it impossible to pause.

In the collected edition, Talbot talks a lot about the creative history behind One Bad Rat, but I only skimmed that essay. I’m not really sure if I want to know the source of the story. It’s both heartbreaking and glorious, with Talbot producing a work far more significant than the more popularly lauded comic books (those with mainstream success).

Much like Bruce Springsteen’s 9/11 album, “The Rising,” Talbot’s in the precarious position where he cannot fail. He can’t make any mistakes or his book becomes cheap and exploitative.

And he doesn’t fail. He succeeds. And The Tale of One Bad Rat is an incredibly good, incredibly unpleasant graphic novel.

Talbot’s artwork is wonderful, the photorealistic faces (not scenery) encompassing the beautiful with the horrific.