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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #82
27 December 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
PLEASANT SURPRISES
This was a pretty good week, all things considered.
It was a bittersweet time as the previously-eulogized Gladstone
Comics published its last couple of comics. Yet they were two of
the finest comics they ever produced. Go figure.
UNCLE $CROOGE #318 contains chapter 3.5 of Don Rosa's "Life and
Times of $crooge McDuck" epic, entitled "The Cowboy Captain of the
Cutty Sark." It's rife with history, $crooge mythology, adventure,
humor, and detailed artwork. The other highlight is one of the rare
William Van Horn adventure stories. It's a rather odd tale for
$crooge, actually, aside from just being an adventure. It reads
much more like a hybrid between duck and super-hero comic, but is
still very much entertaining and humorous. Entitled "Secrets," this
one has a little bit of mystery, intrigue, science-fiction, and
$crooge mythology added into it. I will say no more so as not to
spoil any surprises, but it's a wonderful story. There are some
other interesting things in this issue, including a nice Gyro
Gearloose story from Carl Barks. And despite the commercial nature
of some of the articles, I still found them fairly interesting. (I
scoffed at the footnote to one article which noted that the back
issue being referenced was still available to order from Gladstone.)
And mayhaps most interesting and most telling for the future of the
line is the layout of pictures from a big conference attended by
many big-time $crooge fans, including but not limited to the people
from Gladstone and Gemstone Publishing (Steve Geppi, et. al.) Draw
your own conclusions. . .
WALT DISNEY'S COMICS & STORIES #633 starts off with a wonderful
holiday cover. It contains more interesting little articles, with
some nice work from William Van Horn and Carl Barks. However, the
capper to this issue is the inclusion of a story Don Rosa did years
ago which Disney banned from publication in this country. "War of
the Wendigos" finally sees print in America, despite its supposedly
racist portrayal of Indians which Disney claims to see. (Most
people don't see this, but you know what p.c. has done to wreck this
country. . .) I'd love to know how they got permission to print
this all of a sudden. Where'd the sudden policy change come from?
(Actually, does it really matter? Hooray to Gladstone for
publishing it!)
Of course, the crass commercialization kicks back in again. Along
the bottom of all the pages are little Carl Barks trivia bits. On
the back cover, we're told that all the stories referenced in the
trivia questions are still available as back issues from Gladstone!
UGH
Moving back to the super-heroic, HITMAN #34 hit the stands. I've
never read this book before. I have a little bit of an idea as to
what it's all about. And I generally like Garth Ennis' work, what
little I've read of it. (THE DARKNESS comes to mind. I've skipped
PREACHER, thankyouverymuch.) SO when I read the blurb on this issue
I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did and I may have to go
back and get the previous issues.
Simply put, this comic is a better representation of America and
what it's all about, as told through the dialogue between Tommy and
Supes, than any issue of UNCLE SAM or CAPTAIN AMERICA has ever been.
And Ennis is a Brit, if I'm not mistaken. It's a wonderfully-done
issue, exploring some familiar ground of what it means to be
Superman. But it also delivers a big punch at the end to leave you
laughing. John McCrea's art is a little, well, weird for me to see
when it comes to drawing Superman, but he tells the story well and
was consistant. (This puts him about 5 leagues ahead of Howard
Porter.)
Even if you've never read HITMAN before, go pick this one up. It's
worth it.
Scott Lobdell is back and all over the place again. All of a
sudden, he's attached to THE TENTH, WILDC.A.T.s, THE DARKNESS, and
DIVINE RIGHT. I just know I'm forgetting one or two here.
But the important one to consider right now is Jim Lee's DIVINE
RIGHT #7. This is Lobdell's debut on the title and it's the best
issue of the series so far. It's completely different from all the
previous issues, and just tracks the relationship between Max
Faraday and his love interest, Susanna Chaste. (Interesting choice
of last name there, eh?) Have you wondered why a decent-looking
female such as Susanna could be wooed by the "homely" Max? Well,
here you have it.
MOVIE REVIEWS
As an extra bonus, here are some movie reviews: I upgraded to a
set-top DVD box from the computer DVD drive for Christmas and abused
it all weekend. FACE/OFF is a good movie, but would've been better
if it had been 30 minutes shorter. AUSTIN POWERS has some truly
hilarious moments, but not enough of them, and just comes off in the
end as rather stupid. SPEED is a fun thrill-ride. It just never
stops. Lots of fun. And THE NEGOTIATOR is the best action movie of
the year by far.
::sigh:: I have to go back to work tomorrow, don't I? ;-)
STUPID STUPID PIPELINE CREATURE
Well, I actually had a version of this column written back on
Tuesday. I did it while at work. But I left my laptop there this
weekend. So I wrote a new column and that's what you see here. I
also had the chance this week to read the new issues of DESPERATE
TIMES, THE SAVAGE DRAGON, WOLVERINE, and AQUAMAN. So there might
even be an Erik Larsen Special Edition of this column. (I figure
you all are probably sick and tired of me raving about his books
every month in this regular column, so maybe I'll devote a special
column to those.) And I still haven't finished reading the BATMAN
ANIMATED book.
So you may end up with three times as much reading material this
week than usual, assuming they don't ship me back to upstate New
York on business again. =(
Happy New Year!
-Augie
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