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Mary Wept

Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in The Bible (2016): written and illustrated by Chester Brown: Canadian writer-artist Chester Brown (Louis Riel, Ed the Happy Clown) continues his love affair with prostitution in Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus. Brown's previous full-length work detailed his years of hiring prostitutes in Paying for It while also offering a lengthy and detailed argument for why prostitution should be decriminalized (but not legalized) in Canada.

Here, the eccentric and occasionally infuriating genius looks to the Bible for support of his belief that prostitution is spiritually sanctioned by the Judeo-Christian God and Jesus. He does this in a series of adaptations of Old and New Testament stories, all supported by a whoppingly big appendix/afterword outlining his argument, primary sources, and secondary sources.

Along the way, Brown also argues that God and Jesus were both highly supportive of rebels -- specifically, those who were religiously disobedient. It's all very interesting, and the stories themselves are beautifully and simply drawn. Brown's art has never been so perfectly and deceptively simple.

As a religious and philosophical argument, though, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus could be used to teach a specific type of fallacious reasoning. Brown's arguments about religious obedience basically require him to focus exclusively on the instances in which God or Jesus act in such a way as to support his argument -- incidents in which this is not so are either skimmed over or avoided entirely. Scholars who disagree with him are cited in the appendix only as straw men to be demolished. It's a rigged game of argumentation, and seductively convincing until one twigs to it.

Brown's unstinting support of prostitution can almost go without comment here -- it's the same one as in Paying for It, now deployed with Biblical support for the spiritual awesomeness of paid sex, all of it channeled through Brown's deployment of a long-standing theological argument that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was a prostitute and that Christ was conceived during an incident of purchased sex. 

In Brown's world, sex shouldn't be regulated in any way by the government -- hence decriminalization and not legalization. And all problems associated with prostitution, most prominently all the physical dangers to prostitutes from STD's to sex slavery, are a result of the criminalization of prostitution and not prostitution itself.

So here we are with yet another brilliant, frustrating, infuriating comic from Chester Brown. I'd actually have liked more comics -- the graphic-novel portion is almost equaled in length by the appendix, and as much as I enjoy Brown's appendices, it's his cartooning I want.

One of the other philosophical oddities of the text comes with Brown's argument that God/Jesus want people to disobey him. As Brown expands upon this concept in the appendix, complete with a bonus adaptation of the Book of Job, something weird happens. A concept that has its roots in Liberation Theology (thanks, Paul Meahan) mutates in Brown's argument into something almost Satanic: God's message to humanity, like Aleister Crowley's message, is 'Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law.' Though Brown's God (like XTC) probably appends 'unless you hurt someone.'

So go out and buy this book. It's great. It works even better if one has read Paying for It, but that's not a necessary read -- just another good one. Whether or not one agrees with Brown in whole or in part, he's a talent who delivers fine cartooning and thought-provoking arguments. Long may he run. Highly recommended.

Girls!

Or Clark Kent when Lester wears glasses

The Trouble with Girls Volume 1 (1987-1988/Collected 2006): written by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones; illustrated by Tim Hamilton:

The Trouble with Girls Volume 2 (1988/Collected 2006): written by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones; illustrated by Tim Hamilton:

Apparently, one of my local dollar stores just got a crate of 10-year-old comic-book collections from Checker Publishing. And lo, the two collections of late 1980's/early 1990's superhero satire The Trouble with Girls  were among them!

The two volumes collect most of the initial B&W run of The Trouble with Girls from Malibu/Eternity. Only an annual is missing, which is a shame. But what's left, while occasionally a work of reprinting ineptitude (somebody dropped a slip of paper on more than one page...), is also a lost work of comedic comic genius from writers Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones and artist Tim Hamilton.

The Trouble with Girls (the name riffs on an early Elvis Presley movie) features the adventures of globe-trotting superspy/superguy Lester Girls, who is hyper-capable in everything he does, from sex to combat to protecting the world from a wide variety of super-villains and secret cabals.

But Lester doesn't want any of this. He just wants to settle down with a nice woman in suburbia, have kids, and maybe finally get the last page of John Steinbeck's The Red Pony read. But this is never to be. Whether it's a high-school reunion or a trip to the store, Lester's life will always erupt into high-action pandemonium.

Tim Hamilton really was a pleasing cartoonist, capable of comic moments with just enough superhero sheen to keep the satire running. And Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones are very funny writers, especially once they expand the satire from spy movies to pretty much Anything Goes. 

You'll almost certainly wince at some of the jokes, at least a few of which may seem somewhat sexist, though I'd argue that the sources they're satirizing are sexist and the commentary in The Trouble with Girls attacks the sexism of superheroes, Hollywood blockbusters, and the James Bond universe by foregrounding the absolute horror certain action-loving fans (and writers, and creators) have of the female body when it's de-objectified. I'd have loved to see the comic's take on the recent Ghostbusters kerfuffle that ignited fandom's terrible constituency of the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club.

There's more than a whiff of Seth Macfarlane's much-later American Dad! in the DNA of Lester Girls. But Lester is funnier, more charming, and weirdly sympathetic in his endless quest to save the world, discover his secret origins, and read the last page of The Red Pony. 

There's also a special guest appearance by James Joyce's Stephen Daedalus at Lester's high-school reunion, among other literary characters that also include The Great Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan. But then we're right back to the nefarious, miasmic depredations of the super-villain known only as The Wind-breaker. It's that kind of humour. Highly recommended.

Arkham - Scouse

Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971 (2014): edited by S.T. Joshi: Essential, informative, and educational reading for any reader of horror, and especially for those who admire both H.P. Lovecraft and Ramsey Campbell.

August Derleth was a fantastically important editor and publisher in the realms of the weird. He kept H.P. Lovecraft in print, in book form, for decades until the rest of the world started catching up with the Cthulhu Mythos. And he also published the first book by Liverpudlian Ramsey Campbell after Campbell started corresponding with Derleth back in 1961.

In 1961, Campbell was 15. His first collection -- The Inhabitant of the Lake -- would come out from Arkham in 1964. And while the precocious Campbell's early works would be Lovecraftian pastiches not-dissimilar to some of Derleth's own work, Campbell's growth curve as a writer was startlingly steep. By the late 1960's, his voice was uniquely his own and he'd helped pioneer a new approach to visionary horror.

Derleth and Campbell carry on a lively, wide-ranging correspondence for ten years, though the last three years are a bit spotty because many letters have gone missing. While thoughts on horror are the main attraction, Letters to Arkham also offers a glimpse into the cottage industry that was Arkham House. We also learn just how prolific Derleth was as a writer. And a lover, though some of that may be taken with a grain of salt.

As Campbell notes in his afterword, he was something of a fan-boy in his early letters. But that element gradually slips away, leaving the reader with a dialogue between two friends who never met in person. Their debates on the merits of everything from Peter Sellers to Samuel Beckett are lively and fascinating. Derleth functions as a mentor figure for Campbell throughout their correspondence when it comes to writing and, more generally, living. 

And we find out that Derleth took to the Wisconsin woods where he lived every May to collect morel mushrooms. Thousands of them, their number dutifully reported each year. Fungi from Wisconsin. How Lovecraftian is that? Highly recommended.

The Inhuman Condition

The Inhumans: The Origin of the Inhumans: written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; illustrated by Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, and others (1965-68/ Collected 2013): Fun, 400-page collection of the first four years of Marvel appearances of the Inhumans by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. The mainstays of the Inhumans are here, the characters who would become the Royal Family of the group -- Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, Triton, Crystal, and super-giant-teleporting dog Lockjaw.

Medusa, with her crazy stretching prehensile hair, first appeared as a villain in Fantastic Four. Bigger things awaited, as she was eventually revealed to be an Inhuman and one of the good guys. What's an Inhuman? The result of an ancient attempt by the alien Kree Empire to mess with human genetics in the interest of... well, as presented here, simply because. Later retcons would make the Inhumans a weapons experiment, an idea that persisted on the TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season. But here, the Kree are basically interested in the science of genetic engineering for its own sake,

So are born the Inhumans, who form a highly advanced society of super-powered beings while humanity still lives in caves. They'd eventually hide from the rest of humanity until they encountered the Fantastic Four and gradually came out of that hiding.

Ideas and characters come bursting out of Jack Kirby here, most of them still in use by Marvel today in comics and other media. Some issues of Fantastic Four have been carved up so that just the Inhumans sequences are reprinted. That's a good idea in this case -- in several cases, the Inhumans material is a B-plot that only gets a couple of pages in a comic.

Kirby's storytelling is action-packed and occasionally poignant. Two of the great under-rated Lee/Kirby superhero battles appear here, as the Fantastic Four battles two of the Kree, first the long-slumbering Sentry and then the 'public executioner,' Ronan the Accuser. Ronan got burned off in somewhat altered form in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Too bad -- he's a much more interesting character when he's not Cuckoo.

If one owns a collected Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four in some form, this volume isn't necessary (though it also includes Inhumans stories from the back pages of Thor). But even then, this is a pretty good way to encounter the Inhumans, who are sorta like mutants except that they're not. And as always with the Fantastic Four under Lee and Kirby's direction, there's a pleasing and almost unique blend of low comedy, soap opera, action, and cosmic moments. Highly recommended.

Detectives East, Detectives West

Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley #15) (2008) by Elizabeth George: Well, if nothing else, I'd suggest that the first of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mysteries you ever read shouldn't be this one. It was mine. Nonetheless, there's stuff to admire in this over-sized, over-stuffed mystery set in coastal England among the surfers and locals and tourists. George is a solid and detailed writer of characters, even when those characters slowly move from interesting to boring to intolerable, as they so often do here.

Another reason not to make this one's first Lynley would be the after-effects of a tragedy that afflicted Lynley at the end of the previous novel. It might be better to start with Lynley the upper-class Lord who joined New Scotland Yard and not sad Lynley walking the coast and avoiding everyone he knows.

Jesus, though, this is a long novel (and all of George's mysteries seem to be of similar lengths). Do people really want mysteries that are this long and this melodramatically stuffed with a long list of characters whose lives are explored in exhaustive detail? I guess they do. I think mysteries generally work better at shorter lengths, perhaps 60,000 to 90,000 words for  novel (Careless in Red looks to be about 200,000+ and feels like a million by the end).

Well, and the ending is stunningly unsatisfactory. It partially exists to show that Lynley was right all along and that the investigation of one suspect was pointless, but the attendant lack of closure leaves a sour taste. You will learn a lot about surfing, though, and you will marvel at the ridiculous, comic-relief detective-sidekick Barbara Havers. George is an American who's made a successful writing career out of these giant British mysteries. Anglophilia never gets old. Not recommended as a first Lynley adventure.

Chasing Darkness (Elvis Cole #12) (2008) by Robert Crais: A typically zippy Elvis Cole detective novel set in and around Los Angeles, this time during Fire Season. That cynical knight Cole and his occasional crime-fighting partner Joe Pike seek to unravel the mystery of a dead serial killer who shouldn't be able to have been a serial killer. Cole's relationship with the police is typically rocky, the mystery fair and nicely plotted, and the climax slightly less bloody and body-count-intensive for Crais. 

Ignoring the tricks played with large print and line spacing in this paperback, one notes that Chasing Darkness clocks in at just about the typical length for a 1950's or 60's hard-boiled detective novel -- it's short and to the point. There's a lot of police procedural this time around, as Cole follows the LAPD's investigation with one of his own. Solid entertainment. Recommended.

The Horror Out of Space

John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001): written by Larry Sulkis and John Carpenter; directed by John Carpenter; starring Natasha Henstridge (Lt. Ballard), Ice Cube (Desolation Williams), Jason Statham (Sgt. Jericho), Clea DuVall (Kincaid), Pam Grier (Commander Braddock), and Joanna Cassidy (Whitlock): Grungy, grimy sci-fi horror-Western from the great John Carpenter. It's worn really well, possibly because it's the antithesis of today's PG-rated, CGI-heavy action movies. The cast is a hoot. Teaming up the Amazonian blonde Henstridge (Species) with Ice Cube is all sorts of awesome. 

There's some smarts in the movie's back-story, and some thrills in the various explosion-heavy battles with the monsters on Mars. One sometimes wishes for better monsters. So it goes. The premise works as a weird sort-of-sequel to Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit (a.k.a. Five Million Years to Earth). Carpenter worked with Kneale while producing Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, for which Kneale wrote a screenplay that he then took his name off because of concerns about the film's violence. Hmm. Recommended.

Alien: 2003 Director's Cut (1979/2003): partially based on the stories "Black Destroyer" and "Discord in Scarlet" by A.E. Van Vogt; written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shushett; directed by Ridley Scott; starring Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), John Hurt (Kane), Ian Holm (Ash), and Yaphet Kotto (Parker): As a restored, director's cut on BluRay, Alien looks terrific. It's like a whole different movie, with the looming alien ship and surrounding wasteland dominating the proceedings (and dwarfing the puny humans) in the first half. One forgets how gradually things build: it's nearly an hour before the real horrors erupt, but once they do, they come in a flurry. 

The cast is uniformly fine. The Director's Cut adds in several scenes in which the cast interacts, countering the crew's isolation from one another in the original cut. Yaphet Kotto's Parker benefits most from the restoration -- he's clearly the second protagonist now after Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. Like her, he's also the voice of Reason throughout the film. 

The set design and Ridley Scott's shooting of it is another character in the movie. The future has never looked like such a combination of the Gothic and the industrial. And there's the Alien itself in its various manifestations, kept off-screen or only partially glimpsed until the climax. It's still a masterpiece of design based on H.R. Giger's creepy ideas. 

The re-insertion of a scene that prefigures the colonist-stocked alien 'nursery' of Aliens is the most gratifying addition, especially for those of us who first encountered the scene in Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien way back in 1979. A Lovecraftian, haunted-house-in-space masterpiece that's probably still Ridley Scott's best movie. No sequel or prequel has surpassed it in terms of a horror movie that combines the cosmic with body horror. Highly recommended.