Kolchak The Night Stalker 50 Year Anniversary Graphic Novel

Monster Of The
Week Turns 50

Kolchak The Night Stalker
50 Year Anniversary
Graphic Novel
edited by James Aquilone
Moonstone ISBN 9781946346179

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the TV movie of the week The Night Stalker (reviewed here) and there’s a reason why I didn’t put these reviews up then and felt forced to stay my hand until 2023. The reason was that, at the start of 2022 I put some money into Kickstarter towards this hardback edition of a Fifty Years Of Kolchak graphic novel, with brand new stories featuring Kolchak in different decades from the 1930s to somewhere in the 2000s.

Now, I was a little sceptical of this collection because it was put out by Moonstone. I tried to read some Moonstone Kolchak comics a few years ago because I thought they’d make a good blog review but I couldn’t get through more than about six issues. They’d tried to update Kolchak to modern times, with mobile phones and internet and, it just wasn’t working. Also, more importantly, the style of writing didn’t really seem like it quite nailed it and... I dunno... it just didn’t feel like anything more than a cash grab, rather than the labour of love I was hoping for. However, there were two things about this new collection that made me sit up and take note...

One was that one of the comic book stories to be included would be written by one of my favourite authors, Kim Newman (who lists, among his many accomplishments, the Anno Dracula novels, one of which had a kind of bizarre displaced cameo by Kolchak). The other was that one of the covers I could have chosen (and did) was by Jerry Ordway, who was doing great things with Captain Marvel a couple of decades back... and by Captain Marvel I mean The Original Captain Marvel, who is nowadays known as SHAZAM!, of course. So yeah I ordered the book and, as a bonus reward, also signed up for an extra one-shot comic signed by one of the creators. 

Alas, there was a lot of fizzle in store for me on this particular Kickstarter... although, I have to say, not so much disappointment that I quite regret buying the book in the first place. I’m glad I made the purchase because it’s at least something which is a souvenir of the year Kolchak turned fifty... well kinda.

So my first disappointment was after I’d reviewed the four other things which preceeded this review, making up Kolchak Week at NUTS4R2, when I found out that the printed hardbacks and comics wouldn’t be ready by the end of the 50th anniversary year after all. Instead, we could download a PDF of the book but, yeah, if I’d wanted a PDF I would have ordered the cheaper option. I’m a print person, I want the real deal, not a bunch of ones and zeros dressed up as coloured pixels on a screen. So I took the decision to hold the reviews and push back Kolchak Week for a year, for when I had the book in its proper form.

My next disappointment, when the book finally did arrive earlier this year, was the beautiful looking signed comic that came with it. Hmm... should I read this before or after the main book? It was while I was trying to decide when I noticed that the comic did not house an extra story at all but, was itself also included in the hardback. So, yeah, I needn’t have bothered grabbing the comic book at all... which is annoying.

Thirdly... the book is a mixed bag, to be honest. After two separate introductions... one by James Rice, the son of Jeff Rice who wrote the original novel and another by R. C. Matheson, the son of Richard Matheson, who wrote the original teleplay... not to mention a dedication to Jeff Rice, Richard Matheson and Darren McGavin... the book is split into two sections comprising 12 comic book stories in the first section, followed by a smaller, second section containing ten text short stories. It reminded me a little of the old hardback Christmas Annuals we used to get over here in the UK in the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a mix between strip and text stories (and occasional ‘activities’) but, yeah, it’s a mixed bag.

Let me state the positive first... all the artwork in the pages is fantastic. A whole bunch of artists, mostly utlising fully painted artwork, all in different styles (although, I think some of them owe a debt of influence from the kind of hyper-real comic artwork that people like Alex Ross used to... and still does... indulge in) and all looking really great. If you are into cool art then you are going to dig this book.

The downside is... the writing on most of the book - comic strips and text stories alike - is really hit and miss about how well they are feeling like a Kolchak tale. There are a few interesting highlights, though. For instance, Kim Newmans Interview With The Night Stalker, which starts off with a wonderful splash page parodying the old ‘Max Von Sydow under a street lamp’ The Exorcist poster, is a retelling and expanded version of the denouement of the original The Night Stalker movie. You know the stuff where Kolchak entered the vampire’s house but, in this version, the vampire Skorzeny gives a kind of interview into Kolchak’s ever present tape recorder.

Another unusual one, although I didn’t love it so much as found it extremely interesting, is the last comic strip in the book. The book starts out with an elderly Ron Updike being left Carl’s notes which make up the stories in this volume. Kind of like a found footage literature, so to speak. He ominously states that Kolchak has ‘gone missing’ but left this stuff to him. Okay... spoiler territory folks. The last comic in the volume, The Last Byline, written by James Chambers, is set in the 2000s and has the vampiric father of Skorzeny returning to bite Kolchak and turn him into a vampire. After this has happened, Kolchak discovers three vampire armies waiting to emerge to take over the city and so, he kills himself just like the lead character did in the vampire movie 30 Days Of Night (and presumably the comic its based on) , by exposing himself to sunlight... but he also deliberately takes the vampire armies up in flames with him at the same time, sacrificing himself for the city. It’s a nice little story because it remembers two characters neglected from most of the stories here... Miss Emily plus the tragic departure of his girlfriend Gail from the end of The Night Stalker but, to me, it felt like a terrible ending for Kolchak. I really wouldn’t have liked to see him go out this way.

The text section has a better hit rate, as far as I’m concerned and I especially noted a werewolf themed tale which had a passage which said... “That’s Henry Rains. He and Claude Hull make up the other pack members.” I immediately twigged that if you transposed those two names you get Claude Rains and Henry Hull, two actors who have large parts to play in famous werewolf movies. So I went back and checked some of the other character names and, sure enough, there were a couple of guys called Michael Chaney and Lonnie Landon... so, yeah, transpose their names and you get Lon Chaney Jr and Michael Landon, two other actors associated with werewolf roles. So that was kinda fun.

My biggest problem with the book is this, though. There are various stories set at different stages of Kolchak’s life, from the 1930s where he’s depicted as a reporter for his High School classes, through some time served during the Second World War, the 1950s and even the Vietnam War. With all of these supposed tales taking place before the character’s debut in 1972. And, in that 1972 movie, it’s made very clear that, until he sees the vampire Skorzeny, he doesn’t have an interest in such things as the supernatural and certainly doesn’t believe in them until he’s suddenly confronted with the evidence. But all the pre-TV movie stories featured here include Kolchak encountering some supernatural forces... a fire flinging magician, a vampire, ghosts etc. So, really, The Night Stalker more than strongly implies that Kolchak has never had a supernatural encounter before but, here, these stories certainly say the opposite. As far as I’m concerned this is kind of a glaring continuity error and I’m kinda surprised that some of the writers bought into it the way they have here... it’s pretty silly.

So, yeah, sorry to conclude my Kolchak Week on a bit of a downer but, heck, like Kolchak, I always seek to tell the truth... at least as far as I understand it. Kolchak The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel is a beautifully illustrated and presented book and certainly a nice souvenir for the Kolchak phenomenon but, it doesn’t really have all that much substance, it seems to me.

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

Yankee Pankee

A Connecticut Yankee
In King Arthur's Court
by Mark Twain and
adapted by Seymour Chwast
Bloomsbury Press ISBN: 9781608199617

I’ve never read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. I remember seeing the Bing Crosby movie (one of many versions made) and also the kind of ‘inspired by’ 1970s movie The Spaceman And King Arthur (which I recently found out was called Unidentified Flying Oddball in the US, for no reason that I can think of). So my interest was piqued when a friend gifted me a graphic novel adaptation of said work by none other than famous graphic designer Seymour Chwast.

Now, since I don’t know the source, I can’t tell you or make any judgement as to how much of this incarnation of the work actually comes from Twain and how much comes from Chwast. I am going to assume that it’s mostly the design, layout and presentation of certain things in truncated text and visual support that is the realm of Chwast and the rest is completely down to the equally witty, it turns out, Twain.

Now, I also don’t know Chwast, or his work but, his style here seems to be a very flat, primitive representation of things which is, by its nature, quite direct in its communication with the reader. In fact, it rather reminded me of the old Tim Hunkin strip The Rudiments Of Wisdom, which I used to read in the back of the Observer Sunday Supplement magazine as a kid in the 1970s. The illustrations are done completely in monotone with the designer using just two, flat colours... in this case black and pale green... and also the white of the paper where ink doesn’t hit, to highlight certain areas of an illustration that he wants to stand out.

So various add ons to simplify and clarify Twain’s text such as a white highlighted head and shoulders profile of the main protagonist, with the wording “His name is Hank Morgan.” is the order of the day. I especially liked one of the designer’s more interesting choices for one of the splash pages, where a group of knights on horses are galloping flatly in a row, following a path into a castle which does a straight right angled turn. Instead of adding the knights past the turn in the same orientation, he also mirror flips the elements and adds it to the 90˚ turn on the image. Which was kinda neat.  

The story itself, of a man who gets hit on the head and then wakes up in medieval England at the time of King Arthur, is charming but really not as upbeat as the movie versions I’ve seen, which tend to drop a lot of the political commentary and the horrors of the time period that Hank learns to take in his stride. There’s a lot of unjust torture and killing throughout and even Hank is not against killing for the right cause. Yeah, I can kinda see why Hollywood did what they did with it.

Now, I don’t confess to understand the politics of the thing... which should certainly not surprise any of my regular readers... but there seems to be a lot of social commentary in the story and, yeah, that’s fine. Twain is quite witty with it too and I think my favourite comment in the book was, when Hank talks about a small country “as BIG as Columbia”... “You couldn’t sleep with your legs stretched out without a passport.”

All in all, this is a very short review for a very simple looking but, I can assure you, far from simple approach to the source material. Chwast’s page layouts and the way he pushes certain pieces of content are deceptive and, I think, are doing much more than you at first think. Sometimes the illustrations bring a certain sense of fun to undercut the horrors of what they are actually depicting, for example. Such as when some knights and horses gallop over a minefield and the illustration consists of the big onomatopoeia “Boom!” and various human and animal limbs are seen in free fall around it. But then you start to think about it.

So, yeah, in summary I really enjoyed this version of A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and I think I shall probably try to read the original novel sometime before I die (although that may be sooner than I think, the way things are going). Chwast’s adaptation is an excellent introduction to the characters, events and ideas of Twain’s novel, especially if you’ve not experienced any of the movie versions over the years, which tend to play things strictly as comedy, it seems to me. So yeah, glad I got gifted this one and a worthwhile addition to the NUTS4R2 library, I think.

Filmish

24 Panels Per Second

Filmish 
by Edward Ross
Self Made Hero ISBN: 987-1-910593-03-5

Let me just say right from the start that, although I have some pernickety criticisms of this tome, stemming from my personal passion and familiarity with some of the concepts expressed here, this is actually a great book and it’s certainly not intended to be a negative review. I hope it doesn’t come across as that but I thought I should clear that up right from the start.

One of my biggest worries before delving into Filmish, which is a comic strip in graphic novel form on certain aspects of the art of cinema, was that it would be too close to one of the dream projects I’ve been wanting to produce for years… that being a potted history of the cinema and the language of cinema through the medium of the comic book. As it happens, I needn’t have worried because, while there are some overlaps with what I have been wanting to do, the approach offered by the author here is a very personalised one and he doesn’t go about it in quite the same way that I would have (phew… there’s still room for my project in the world someday, maybe).

The book is presented in seven chapters and utilises a a crisp, clean and quite simplistic black and white line drawing style. It’s interesting because, although the majority of cinematic samples the writer uses to illustrate the points he wants to make are pretty popular, the style of the illustrations pare down the people depicted in a way that doesn’t always make their likeness that recognisable. That being said, it may be a likeness rights issue for all I know and, because the shots the writer has reproduced are just so lodged in the public consciousness, I'm sure most of the references would not be lost on people.

In the first chapter, The Eye, the author looks at the leap from the dawn of film from when early cinema was about recording and displaying the truth at 24 frames per second to when filmmakers like Melies began to astonish people by showing, in the most extreme ways, that film can be used to take people well beyond the harsh realities of living to be transported to an alternate reality. This is what film as art is all about, I would say.

The chapter then looks at the problems of the legendary ‘male gaze’ and then uses that to lead on to the way the point of view of an individual is not necessarily to be trusted. So, of course, Kurosawa’s adaptation of Rashomon gets a look in at some point. There’s also a nice, unnamed panel which accompanies the criticism of the male gaze which is an interesting side swipe at Michael Bay, if you recognise the shot as being Megan Fox looking at the car engine in Transformers… and it’s the smaller, unspecified visual commentaries such as this which add another nice little level to the author’s narrative.

Chapter 2, The Body, looks at the way the human body, in all its variants, has come under scrutiny as the language of cinema, such as the close up and the zoom, advances to capture it. This brings us right up to date with motion capture performance used as the basis of CGI characters where actors can physically inhabit a role in which they couldn’t practically perform before this technology became available.

There’s also the issue of race and the perception of it by various audiences tackled here, not to mention the way in which Hollywood and other countries use the cliché of the racial stereotype to push various agendas.

Similarly, the author takes a look at disability as a short hand for plot points and the way some films use it to define or highlight the difference of villains, in some cases. Among the examples given are the scarred face of Donald Pleasance’s Blofeld variant in You Only Live Twice, the dwarf revealed at the end of Nicholas Roeg’s version of Don’t Look Now (which is a questionable example for the point being made, I think) and the one eyed assassin played by Daryl Hannah in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. However, one only has to think of the hands of Dr. No, the teeth of Jaws in two Bond films and the bladed legs of the villainess in Kingsman - The Secret Service, to realise just how prevalent this phenomenon has been, and still is, in modern cinema.

And, of course, no look at The Body in cinema would be complete without a look at the ‘body horror’ genre from such directors as David Cronenberg and that’s exactly what we get here.

The third chapter, entitled Sets And Architecture looks primarily at the way these two elements send out important messages to enhance the tone of a movie… such as the hellish depiction of New York in Scorcese’s Taxi Driver or the classic, grimy decay of Los Angeles, November 2019 in the greatest movie ever made (so that’d be Blade Runner, then).

One of the interesting things which comes up in this chapter and which I’d never really thought about before, was how the main protagonists in the Star Wars movies - the Luke Skywalkwers, Anakin Skywalkers, Jinn Ersos and Reys of this world - are basically depicted as growing up in a rural backwater as opposed to the cutting edge technological environment of the bad guys (although I’m not sure that would stand up for characters like Darth Vader or even Lando Calrissian).

Of course, it also mentions the artificially distorted sets of German Expressionist cinema to create a particular statement although, bearing in mind the fact that the chapter is talking specifically about sets and architecture, I found it strange that one of the examples the writer chose to depict here is my blog namesake, the original Nosferatu (if I can get away with calling a movie adaptation of Dracula which couldn’t get the rights to Bram Stoker’s story and then just went ahead and used it anyway… original). After all, the architecture itself is not really distorted in this film due to it being, if memory serves, one of the few German Expressionist films (quite possibly the only one), to use outside locations for its shoot instead of creating them on a set like in The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari (which is, obviously, also cited heavily here). I also can’t quite forgive the writer for confusing thrillers like Psycho and Se7en with horror movies. They so aren’t horror movies, people.

The fourth chapter is entitled Time and here the author talks about the way time can be 'captured' and transformed… although he appears to cling to a rigid belief in time as something more than just a way of looking at a perceived, man made measurement of linear consumption. Mind you, he does talk about the reliance of the mechanical process of film to establish that measurement and the inevitable way in which the audience perception of such can be altered through techniques such as editing and the way a linear chronology can be happily thrown out the window so… there’s that

In addition, he throws in a quick look at how the content of certain films can alter the way the story is perceived... such as in movies which use time travel as a central plot device, for example.

Chapter 5, Voice And Language, starts off with a look out how the human voice can be altered to enhance the feeling of what a character is all about. By way of examples he mentions Heath Ledger’s truly astonishing performance of The Joker in The Dark Knight and Linda Blair’s famous portrayal of Regan in The Exorcist (voiced by Mercedes McAmbridge if memory serves).


He also goes on to tackle the case of when the entire character is literally just a voice, such as the neutral, measured tones of the HAL 9000 computer in Kubrick’s 2001 - A Space Odyssey. Interestingly, the written language follows on from the audio of the original here in that the lettering used on the illustrations of HAL 9000 is in a much more neutral and formal typeface than the rest of the book… which is nice.

Next for this chapter is a look at how the voice can take on a life of its own and be the main driver of the film. He uses Coppola’s excellent The Conversation here but he also uses one of the lesser know but pretty cool horror movies of recent years, by way of demonstration. That being the language as lethal killing virus ‘zombie’ movie Pontypool (reviewed by me here).

In Chapter 6, Power And Ideology, Ross starts off by going straight for the throat and highlighting John Carpenter's look at the way messages of control are hidden in They Live. He then goes on to cover stuff like soviet propaganda (using all the usual suspects such as Eisentein’s Battleship Potemkin), Chinese nationalism as portrayed covertly in films like Hero and the western as a patriarchal ‘antidote’ to burgeoning feminism.

Included is the almost inevitable section on Reaganist cinema which also makes the point that female characters who don't want to fit into the traditional male stereotype of what they should be are depicted, therefore, as deranged killers such as the antagonist in Fatal Attraction. Another trend which Hollywood doesn’t seem quite ‘done with’ yet.

Another thing covered here are the financial incentives offered by the Pentagon, in exchange for censorship, which  can reward the film maker but with the added string of always showing the military in a good light. Which is nice and informative until the writer makes the big mistake, in my book, of referring to a much loved 1981 movie by the false (no matter how much Lucasfilm want us to adopt this unnecessary retrofitted nomenclature) title of Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I’m sorry but that’s just wrong.

The final chapter on Technology And Technophobia makes the point that, for an industry that’s increasingly reliable on technology pushing the boundaries of what we are able to imagine, a majority of cinema exists by demonising technical progress with killer robots and such like. Even films like the beautiful Japanese ghost story Ringu seem intent to use our technologies against us (in that case, the watching and copying of a VHS tape are used to spread a virulent ‘supernatural terror’ amongst its victims).

It then goes on to explore the pervasive negative portrayal of biological technology too, such as films about organic creation gone wrong like Splice and, well... Jurassic Park. As a counter to this, of sorts, it also briefly talks about films which lionise the concept of consumer friendly technology, especially around the time of the home computer boom of the early 1980s. So there’s that too.

All in all, the clean lines and selective topics scattered throughout Filmish make the book an interesting proposition. I would say that, in some ways, the book is more for the novice in film rather than someone who has at least as much love and passion for film as the author. However, for people who have previously been less inclined to study film as a medium of artistic power, there are a lot of good ‘starting point’ ideas brought up and, thankfully, the writer includes an index of references used throughout to get you looking in the right directions. A good little tome to kick start an interest in the art of cinema and a solid recommendation from me.