TAKE THIS JAW AND SHOVE IT

With Jurassic World Dominion opening this weekend, Your Humble Narrator has been more than usually preoccupied with dinosaurs, which is surely saying something. Thus, going through stacks of my old comics, I've noticed a recurrent motif:

Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle; Dell 1965:

Fantastic Four; Marvel 1975:

Jungle Action Featuring The Black Panther; Marvel 1975:

Marvel Two-in-One, Marvel, 1983:

Judge Dredd; Eagle Comics 1984:

Aquaman; DC 1992:

Shanna the She-Devil; Marvel 2005:

And finally, Superman in Action Comics; DC 1991:

So, just as Anaïs Nin chronicled her erotic adventures in Paris, and as George Orwell recorded his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, I will here thrill you with a tale from the world of obsessive comic hoarding: I had long sought a copy of that Action Comics issue with the beautiful Kerry Gammill cover, and spent hours in various comic stores and junkshops digging through dusty boxes of old funnybooks hoping to turn one up, without success. I resisted the temptation to simply order one from Amazon or eBay on the grounds that it would be far more satisfying to find one through honest rummaging, and that if I cheated and ordered a copy online I would soon face the bitter comeuppance of then finding it, probably for less money.

But one day, with the kind birthday present of an Amazon gift certificate further weakening me, I broke down and ordered. No joke, TWO DAYS LATER, as I strolled the aisles of a junkshop, I spotted a box of comics, idly flipped through the first two or three in it, and...there it was. For about four dollars less.

So now I have two...

TEEN ANGST

Last Friday I presented a Top Ten List for 2019. But let’s not forget that, as of last Wednesday, the 2000-‘Teens are also in the rearview.

Here’s a Top 10 for the ‘Teens:

The Act of Killing (2012) —Joshua Oppenheimer’s shocking nonfiction film, in which participants in killings during the Indonesian massacres of the mid-‘60s re-enact their crimes for the camera, is hard to watch, but probably the movie of the decade.

The Other Side of the Wind (2018) —Released four decades belatedly, the final directorial feature of Orson Welles—shot in the ‘70s, much of it here in the Valley—is a send-up of both old-Hollywood machismo and new-Hollywood artsy posing. Superficially chaotic, it’s full of bravura sequences and fine, funny acting.

The Tree of Life (2011) —Terrence Malick takes on The Meaning of Life through the prism of a midcentury Texas family. A strange, difficult symphony of fractured narrative and beautiful acting.

   
Get Out (2017) —Jordan Peele’s horror comedy-melodrama about race as a hijack-able commodity was a knockout.

Moneyball (2011) —A superbly re-watchable, improbably touching sports movie, about Billy Beane using “Sabermetrics” to rebuild the Oakland A’s. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill make a great Don Quixote and Sancho of baseball.

Fruitvale Station (2013) —This heartbreaking, infuriating drama about a police shooting at the title BART station marked a spectacular debut for director Ryan Coogler and potent star turns by Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer.

 

American Animals (2018) —Bart Layton’s docudrama, about four college-age nitwits plotting to rob the rare books room at a Kentucky library, is unforgettable in its depiction of movie-driven criminal fantasy, and of the privileged status of the conspirators. 

November (2017) —This black-and-white Estonian gothic, directed by Rainer Sarnet from a novel by Andrus Kivirahk, has a low-key magic all its own. 

Black Panther (2018) —Having debuted with Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler went on to direct the most fun of the Marvel movies.

The Lovers (2017) —Hardly anyone seemed to pay any attention to this low-key comedy-drama about adultery turned on its head, so, modest though it may be as a piece of cinema, I’m going to put it on the list. Hope it gets discovered one of these years. 

Here are 10 more that came close: The Skin I Live In, Moonlight, Lincoln, Spotlight, The Shape of Water, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Inside Out, The Town, Attack the Block and Ant-Man. 

By the way, after a nearly twenty-year hiatus, Your Humble Narrator finds himself back on Rotten Tomatoes; you can check out my page here.

THE ORIGINAL COOL CAT

In reading up a bit, to prepare for my review, on the background of Marvel’s Black Panther character, I learned about All-Negro Comics, which ran for one issue in 1947.

 

The brainchild of a Philadelphia journalist named Orrin C. Evans, it’s believed to be the first comic created entirely by black artists and writers. A second issue was reportedly written and drawn, but Evans was mysteriously unable to purchase the newsprint needed to produce it and the project was abandoned.

A reprint copy is available through Amazon, and is very much worth reading. It includes an assortment of stories, from a hard-boiled crime tale to a variety of humor features, but the most startling character is Lion Man, probably the first-ever African-American superhero.

He’s described thusly: “American-born, college educated, Lion Man is a young scientist, sent by the United Nations to watch over the fearsome ‘MAGIC MOUNTAIN’ of the African Gold Coast. Within its crater lies the world’s largest deposit of uranium—enough to make an atom bomb that could destroy the world…Lion Man’s job is to report on the doings of any treacherous nation that might seek to carry away any of the lethal stuff for the purpose of war.”

So, he’s named after a big cat, and he keeps vigil over an African mountain that conceals a mineral of great power. No chance that he influenced the creation of Black Panther?