MY FAMOUS MONSTERS 57

Someone mucked with the logo again for FAMOUS MONSTERS #119. This abomination may even be worse than the one that appeared on the cover of issue #100. I don't know why someone (Jim Warren? Forry?) felt the need to change one of the most distinctive magazine logos ever but they did so at least twice during the magazine's first run.

The cover images on this issue are from a variety of Hammer horror films and the fact that it's billed as a "100 Page Super Spooktacular Issue" clues me in that's it's an all reprint annual issue (what Forry used to lovingly refer to as a "Fearbook" rather than a "Yearbook"). Features include the usual suspects: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Dinosaurs and NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (!?). 

WASTELAND

Full disclosure time. WASTELAND BOOK ONE: CITIES IN DUST is a book I would have never purchased for myself. If I saw a copy of this trade paperback sitting on the shelf of a bookstore or comic book shop, I would never even pick it up and thumb through it. Why? I dunno, other than it just doesn't grab me at first glance. But since I recently acquired copies of the first two trade paperback collections of this series in a comic book trade with a fellow collector, I figured the least I could do was give it a chance and read it before I put it up for sale on eBay. And that's just what I did today.

The Oni Press series is written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Christopher Mitten , two gentlemen who's work I am not familiar with. The first book, CITIES IN DUST, collects the first six issues of this ongoing series, which has seen more than fifty monthly issues published thus far as well as eight trade paperback collections.

WASTELAND is a post-apocalyptic epic adventure set one hundred years after a disaster known only as "The Big Wet" has occurred in the United States. The country has been reduced to a barren wasteland (hence, the title) and what few survivors there are lead a hardscrabble existence. A stranger comes into the small town of Providence one day and before long all hell has broken loose. The handful of citizens that survive are led by the stranger to Newbegin, the nearest outpost of civilization. But the desert city is under the rule of a mad priest who fancies himself a god.

There are clues and hints dropped along the way as to the secret behind the disaster and what's really going on but Johnston and Mitten play their cards close to the vest. I'm sure parts of the puzzle have since been revealed but after reading only this first volume, I'm still pretty much in the dark.

WASTELAND plays like a million other westerns/post-apocalyptic yarns. It's neither better than average or worse. It hits all of the narrative tropes and has enough action and intrigue to keep readers interested and turning the pages. The black and white art by Mitten is serviceable although at times his figures look too loose and sketchy and many of his male characters are hard to tell apart due to their hair, face and body similarities.

I'll give the second volume a read since I have a copy but I don't think I'll be actively seeking out any additional volumes in this series. It's not bad, it's just not that great either.

MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE

You know you're watching a blatant ripoff of THE GODFATHER (1972) when the film stoops so low as to steal the type font from that Academy Award winning classic. I watched MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE (1975) the other day (recorded off of TCM) and it was not a pleasant experience.

Mario Puzo's bestselling novel THE GODFATHER and Francis Ford Coppola's film version of the book spawned a host of imitators as authors, publishers, filmmakers and movie studios all wanted to cash in on the red hot organized crime mania of the 1970s. Countless books and films were produced and released during this period and it's safe to say that none of them ever met with the degree of success, both commercially and artistically, as did the Puzo and Coppola originals.

Still, that didn't stop people from trying. People like Duke Mitchell who produced, directed, wrote, composed the music for and starred in MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE. Rumor is that Mitchell also catered the film, cleaned the toilets and changed the light bulbs on the sets. The film was originally released as LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON. It didn't do much business under that title and was re-released in 1978 as THE EXECUTIONER. By that time, the mafia movie craze was long over. The film appears to have been re-titled MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE for another go round under the auspices of Grindhouse Releasing.

   Would be auteur Mitchell's talent is not commensurate to his ambition however in this confused and confusing saga of Mimi (Mitchell) a son of Mafia don who climbs his way to the top of the Los Angeles crime organization by killing everyone who gets in his way. As Mimi says (more than once in the film): "You're either in or in the way."

The film opens with Mimi and his partner Jolly (Vic Caesar) brutally killing many of their enemies in an office building massacre. Who knew that so many crooked lawyers, pimps, bookies, front men, muscle for hire and assorted stooges all had their headquarters in the same building? How convenient.

Mitchell strains mightily to give this dreck some semblance of gravitas. He desperately wants it to be as serious and important a film as THE GODFATHER and he does so by hitting many of the same themes: tradition, honor, loyalty, family, betrayal and brutal extermination of enemies. But the low budget, incoherent script and lack of talent in front of and behind the camera all conspire to keep this mess strictly drive-in and urban grindhouse fare.

MY FAMOUS MONSTERS 55

Great painting of the immortal Vincent Price as he appeared in MADHOUSE graces the cover of FAMOUS MONSTERS #109. Other features in this issue include SON OF KONG and television's Monster Hall of Fame.

MY FAMOUS MONSTERS 54

A terrific Basil Gogos painting of the Hideous Sun Demon graces the cover of FAMOUS MONSTERS #106. Features in this issue include THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS and TV's DRACULA starring Jack Palance (one of my all-time favorite actors in an outstanding performance).

I've got an original lobby card from HIDEOUS SUN DEMON framed and hanging on the wall of the man cave. A double bill of HIDEOUS SUN DEMON and INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD, both starring Robert Clarke, was the opening night feature of the Drive-In Double Feature film festival that I was a part of back in the summer of 1994. Remind me to tell you the full story of that illustrious endeavor one of these days. It involves the aforementioned Robert Clarke and the one and only Forrest J. Ackerman. Stay tuned!

DRUG OF CHOICE

Hard Case Crime (my favorite book publisher) recently reissued (in handsome trade paperback editions) the first eight novels that the late Michael Crichton wrote while he was still in Harvard Medical School. Written under the pen name "John Lange", the novels are DRUG OF CHOICE, EASY GO, ODDS ON, SCRATCH ONE, ZERO COOL, THE VENOM BUSINESS, GRAVE DESCEND and BINARY. ODDS ON. Of these eight, two (ZERO COOL and GRAVE DESCEND) were previously published in mass market format by Hard Case. I've read both of those along with BINARY (I had a copy of the original Bantam paperback edition on my shelf for years without knowing that "John Lange" was really Michael Crichton).

I finished reading DRUG OF CHOICE on Christmas morning. I can't be too critical of this book because while Crichton was paid for his work, he was not at the time a full-time author. Bestseller status and major motion pictures were still a ways off in his future at the time he wrote this book (and the others) but even at this early stage of his writing career you can see that Crichton knew how to keep readers turning pages by offering a suspenseful plot based on current (or not too-far-distant) technology.

DRUG OF CHOICE starts out as a medical mystery when Dr. Roger Clark is presented with two different emergency room patients. One is a Hell's Angel biker, the other, a beautiful movie star. Both patients are in apparently drug induced comas and both eventually awaken with no ill after effects. Except for one thing: the urine of both patients is blue.

Clark soon becomes involved with the beautiful movie star as he tries to unravel the mystery of the blue urine. His investigation leads him to a scientific consortium known as Advance Industries, which appears to be involved with research and development of several different cutting-edge technologies. Among them, a Caribbean resort that appears to be a perfect paradise. Before you know it, Clark and movie star Linda are on their way to the island where, of course, everything is not as it seems.

This appears to be the first time that Crichton used the trope of a technologically advanced resort in which the technology goes awry with disastrous results, a theme he would later develop in the film WESTWORLD (1973) and his mega-bestseller JURASSIC PARK (1990). But the island paradise storyline soon runs its' course only to be replaced by a plot element in which Clark (now coerced into working for Advance) helps in the creation of a female pop star and her backing band. Again, this is a story element that Crichton expanded upon in his film LOOKER (1981). But the birth of "Glow Girl" is still not the end of this tale which ultimately finds Clark framed and on the run from his former friends and allies before he finally turns the tables on the evil mad scientists by blowing up the Advance Industries corporate headquarters

DRUG OF CHOICE is a fast paced, quick read although the ending does seem a little rushed. Crichton is already sounding the warning drum against the unintended consequences of modern science and technology  and as I noted previously, he does keep you turning the pages. However his characters are cliched, the dialogue occasionally stilted and just when you think you know what the book is going to be about, Crichton throws in another idea that's never really fully developed. Still, DRUG OF CHOICE is worth reading if only to see how Crichton got his start.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!