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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Jayembee Reviews
Message-ID: <611@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 01:50:26 EDT
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Posted: Tue Oct  1 01:50:26 1985
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Reviewed this time around:

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #10	HELL ON EARTH (DC SF GRAPHIC NOVEL #1)
DAREDEVIL #226			KELVIN MACE #1
DETECTIVE #557			SABRE #14
THE FUTURIANS #1		SCOUT #1

Ratings for the comics reviewed are as according to the Mad Armenian Scale, a
shameless rip-off of the Moriarty Scale, stolen out from under the very nose of
the Napoleon of Crime. Nyah-ah-ah!!

"For a critic, it's better to have wrong standards than none at all."

						-- Elmer Allyn Craft

********************************************************************************
|=>A+< A veritable Classic. One of the best of All Time. Example: THE SPIRIT   |
|==>A< One of the best of the year. Ex: TEEN TITANS #38: "Who Is Donna Troy?"  |
|==>B< A very good issue, one of the best of the month. Example: CEREBUS       |
|==>C< A well done, entertaining issue.  Satisfying.  Example: JON SABLE       |
|==>D< Rather boring, or a few good spots mixed with more bad ones. Ex: ROM    |
|==>F< Boring AND stupid or childish.  Example: MARVEL SUPERHEROES SECRET WARS |
|==>Z< Actually offensive.  Example: DAZZLER --- THE MOVIE GRAPHIC NOVEL #12   |
********************************************************************************


CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #10	[DC, maxi-series, $.75]		C

	Things are really going now. A few more (minor) characters have bitten
the big one, the magic-wielders finally make their stand, and it looks like
everything's been wiped clean, ready for a whole new timeline to be set up.
	Oh, and did I forget to mention it? Earth-Prime has been wiped out.
Isn't nice to know that we don't exist anymore?


DAREDEVIL #226		[Marvel, $.75]		C-

	Well, the big news is that Frank Miller is back to writing this for
an indefinite period of time. As to what's happening, Matt & Foggy's law
partnership has gone down the tubes, and it looks like Matt's sanity is going
to follow. I'll be very interested to see what happens next.


DETECTIVE COMICS #557		[DC, $.75]		C

	Whew! That was close!


THE FOOZLE #3		[Eclipse, $1.75]		C

	I guess Eclipse got tired of waiting for Marshall Rogers to finish
the third issue of CAPTAIN QUICK AND A FOOZLE, so they decided to reprint
the original Foozle story by Rogers and Steve Englehart from ECLIPSE MAGAZINE.
It's quite a bizarre and silly (but amusing-silly, not stupid-silly) story,
and it was nice to see it again.
	This story was originally meant to be a Superman/Creeper story but
Englehart withdrew it when he left DC many many moons ago. If you try reading
it as a Superman/Creeper story, it's even more fun than it is otherwise.
	I should also mention that for art that was originally done for black
and white reproduction, this is colored exceptionally well (by Tim Smith). It
doesn't look muddy at all, which usually happens when b&w stories are reprinted
in color.


THE FUTURIANS #1	[Lodestone, $1.50]		D+

	I wasn't very impressed by the original (Marvel) graphic novel of
Dave Cockrum's new group of heroes, and I'm still not impressed. It's OK, I
guess, if you really want to read yet another super-team comic book. But I
found it to be rather dull, with nothing that really made it distinctive from
other such comics. It's not my cup of tea, but it may be yours, so you might
want to give it a try if you have an extra buck and a half when you hit the
comic store.


HELL ON EARTH [SF GRAPHIC NOVEL #1]	[DC, $5.95]		C-

	This is the first in a series of graphic novels that are adaptations
of classic science fiction and fantasy stories. "Hell on Earth" is from a
Robert (PSYCHO) Bloch story, adapted by Robert Loren Fleming and Keith Giffen.
The story is that of a writer who is hired by a team of scientists to record
their research into the realm of the supernatural. They are attempting to find
a scientific basis in black magic, and they succeed all too well. Conjuring
up the Devil, they find it rather difficult to keep him confined. I have not
read the Bloch original, so I don't know how faithful the adaptation is, but
Giffen's layout and Fleming's script read well.
	The art is my one quibble. Giffen has continued in his experimental
vein, producing a rather new-wavish style here, even more so than he did in
the Superman/Creeper issue of DC COMICS PRESENTS. The style rather surprisingly
fits the story, but I still have problems with it. The trouble is that it isn't
outre' enough to be really catchy (such as Sienkiewicz's art was in THE NEW
MUTANTS), while being too outre' for the average comic reader.
	Not what I would call an auspicious debut for the series, but if you're
looking for something different, here it is.


KELVIN MACE #1		[Vortex, b&w, $1.75]		C-

	Well, *I* thought it was entertaining. It's not the scream that STIG'S
INFERNO is, but it's good fun nonetheless. Excessive violence? Of course, but
it's what they call "wretched excess" --- so much that it becomes funny. The
only thing I'm not sure of is how long this type of humor can be kept up. I
think that it can get pretty tired pretty quick. But the opening sequence that
pokes fun at the hard-boiled cliche of the neon sign is worth the price of
admission.
	And I also liked the "Tale of Lenny's Bar and Grill". It was nice to
come across the reference to the Vikings that appeared there from whichever
issue of STIG'S it was.


SABRE #14		[Eclipse, $2.00]		C-

	There's good news and bad news. The good news is that this is the last
issue of SABRE for the nonce. The bad news is that it leaves off right in the
middle of the latest storyline.
	SABRE was always a strange duck for me. Between issues, I'd think about
how self-indulgent McGregor's writing was. But each time a new issue came out,
McGregor managed to catch me up into the story and characters. I never liked
this dichotomy. I want to dislike this comic, but I can't bring myself to do
so. That's why I think it's good news that the comic is folding, so I won't be
faced with this dilemma.
	To McGregor's credit, he did produce a very different sort of comic in
SABRE. It's not every day one comes across an existentialist comic book. And in
that respect, it'll be missed.


SCOUT #1		[Eclipse, $1.75]		D+

	Can't say as I'm impressed. Indian mysticism, post-collapse future
setting, gangsters, and monsters tossed into one story that fails to excite or
interest. The art's nice, though. I may give it another issue or two to see if
things pick up, but I'm not expecting anything to come of it. Besides, I have
to see if every story title is going to derived from a blues tune (the title
given for issue #2's story, "Little Red Rooster", is a Willie Dixon song that
is probably the blues song performed by the biggest number of different blues
singers).
	The back-up feature, "Fashion in Action", is a bit better, but not by
a whole lot. The gimmick is that we have a all-woman protection agency. And,
so far, it seems to be just a gimmick. It reads rather like an average tele-
vision show.


--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA)

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