The Nifty 9 of 2012

It's time for a list of the Nifty 9 - reading material you can find in a better-than-o.k. comic shop that premiered this year:

(In no particular order...)

1.  Jim Henson's Tale of Sand:   I found out about this book after it won the Will Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. This GN, an adaptation of an unproduced screenplay written by Henson and Jerry Juhl, is a psychedelic romp through Monument Valley in which an average everyman tries to match wits with his better-prepared, urbane doppelganger while on a quest to "follow the map", have a cigarette, win the woman of his dreams, dodge the mad sheik's army, stay out of the director's shot, be the town hero and cross the dessert while heeding the warning:  "don't trust the map."

2. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #1: the quick-changing robots get the Justice League International treatment, beginning with this issue. Those of you only familiar with these characters (yes, characters) via the Michael Bay films will experience shell shock.

3. Case Closed - Volume #42: this manga series about a teen detective who turns into a kid detective and has to slowly solve the mystery of the clandestine organization behind his transformation, has been going strong for over 15 years, even if any hope for futher episodes of the anime spin-off being brought over to the USA seems unlikely. Anyway, this is the one - the volume I would recommend to someone who would be curious to try it. It's got some strong arcs and characterization, along with appearances and revelations from the semi-recurring characters that tend to pop in and out.

4. Doctor Who - Shada: this was the best read of the summer. Gareth Roberts had to rise to the challenge of cobbling together every draft, fragment and scribble of Douglas Adams aborted Doctor Who epic and reshape it into a proper full-length novel. Well, he did it. He really, really did it. My only question is: What will you do for an encore, Gareth? ... it just so happens that Tom Baker had written a script for a DW film that would have featured Vincent Price as the villain - titled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, the film was almost put into production before the financing fell apart. When I had asked him on Twitter about it, Roberts reply was, "Good Idea." ...

5. The Secret History of D.B. Cooper: Oni published this series that offered a fanciful look into the life of that mysterious skyjacker whose fate has never been solved. The artwork is very Mike Mignola/Darwyn Cooke-ish, right down to the red gummi bear sidekick.

6. Idolized #0: From Michael Turner's Aspen MLT. The special premiere #0 issue of this comic starts off well. It's about the winner of a reality show in which super-powered wannabes compete for a rookie spot in an established team, The Powered Protectors, but there are hints that the protagonist is going to be their bad penny. BTW, this series is also notable for being the only comic book series I can remember that offered variant photo covers (in which they get a model to pose in costume as the lead character) that weren't bikini pin-ups in disguise. Vampirella, Glory, Ally Kat, The 10th Muse - all cheesecake.

7. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, #5: this standout issue is the conclusion to a medical mystery (yes, robots solving medical mysteries!) featuring fan-favorite Ratchet, is very entertaining, with an ending that's a laugh riot. There's a good reason the title of this chapter is not revealed until the last page...spoilers. ;)

8. Burt Ward, Boy Wonder:  the problem with small press companies is that you never know if the premiere issue is the only issue, or in this case, a sneak peek offered on Free Comic Book Day. This was supposed to be a spin-off of a popular series of their hit Misadventures of Adam West series, in which Sir Adam West gets involved in different kinds of adventures in different genres (usually nods to gigs-that-might-have-been, like playing James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service or a Western film without the Three Stooges or a serious Caped Crusader and even appearing as Indiana Jones or The Mad Hatter). Here, Ward gets his own turn. First we get an update of his life right now - running a non-profit animal rescue shelter and walking two amiable pooches around the location of the batcave from the 60s Batman TV series. Then we see him chase a mysterious masked man (looking suspiciously like The Red Hood) into said cave,with the dogs tagging along. Just as John Carter wound-up whisked into Mars,  Ward and  the dogs wind up on another planet. It sounded like a fun adventure - we'll have to wait and see if and when it resumes. An ad featuring a spin-off series about Julie Newmar was also solicited, but has not appeared on stands yet.

9. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century, Part 3: 2009: And this is the one to recommend to everyone - be it the folks who are curious try it or the ones who found past installments inaccessible, and not just because they'll get the references to 30 Rock, Burn Notice, Lost, Heroes, 24, Centurions, Emma Peel, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter, Children in Need, The Dark is Rising and Wizards of Waverly Place - this is the best comic book of the year. 'Nuff said. 'Nuff said.

So there you have it - a Nifty 9 bon-bons from 2012. I'll see you in 2013. :)

In The Spirit For An Xmas Wedding

I had to jump out of the passenger side of Nick's car and land feet first in front of the courthouse steps as it hovered near a fire hydrant.

"Thanks for the lift. Central isn't exactly across the street from the carrier."

He laughed and gave me a thumbs up. "No problem. I'm sure Eb would've gotten you here even quicker - Duggan tells me that cab has booster rockets! And tell Colt the job is still open if he wants it!" He shut the door and took off as I rushed in.

***

The Groom was staring into a mirror in the Commissioner's office, adjusting his mask. I knocked on the door. He saw me through the mirror's reflection.

"The door's open!"

"Hi Denny. You're not wearing your black suit?"

"I don't wear a black suit."

"Right, right. So anyway, I'm glad I made it here in time to be the best man and all, filling in for Eb and such. Where's Sam and Blub?"

His mask secure, he began readjusting his tie. He must have been nervous. "Sam's on a new case with Tracy's kid, Junior - and he talked Eb into coming along...a trio of investigators...sheesh. And Blub is with the Curry's in Alaska, fighting winter zombies. By the way, Eb left his cab behind to serve as our chariot - you'll have to drive it, so that's three jobs I've got for you."

"Three?"

"Yeah - Dolan's doing the ceremony after we caught Mr. Carrion posing as Judge Kitchen. You'll need to give away the bride."

"Busy day?"

He smiled. "Eh..it's looking up. It looked like the bride would be late, but it turned out she found where we left the gown on her own and sent the message to Dolan through one of the bailiffs." Finished, he took one last look at himself. "..and something blue."

***

I couldn't see the bride under the heavy veil, but the gown was beautiful. It also had a very long train that I almost tripped over when I walked around from behind to take her hand.

The organist began to play the wedding march. As we slowly walked up the room, I took stock of how they decorated the area with loads of Christmas and Wedding-themed decor: pink bouquets, a white cake, a Christmas tree, a table full of gifts (I'm glad I remembered to bring something, although most of the gift boxes were the same size as what I had brought with me - a dreadful thought popped into my head)... Dolan stood at the center, with Denny to his left. I wonder what Dolan was going to say? Or did the Bride and Groom have vows prepared?

There were even two of Santa's helpers - though they looked kind of seedy: the first one was acting as an usher and didn't even fill out his suit; the second was slumped in a chair at a far corner with his gloved hands wrapped around a bottle of rot gut on his lap. He was out for the day.

I also took notice of the crowds in attendance: Family, friends and acquaintances of the Dolan family appeared on the Bride's side...the Groom's side was made up entirely of cops and crooks - the crooks in handcuffs, of course. Among that lot I recognized Satin, Wang, Boil, Cossack, Hussein, Lox, Carrion, Paris, Julia, Sand, P'Gell ... I think someones missing..

And then I almost tripped again! "I've got you," the Bride whispered. She did have a very good grip.

"Yeah, thanks," I whispered back.

And then she kept on whispering. She was talking to herself. "I've got you this time, Gainsborough, in front of everyone, now. There'll be no more cat-and-mouse games from here on."

Her grip was getting tighter, that's when I looked at her hand and notice the gloves she was wearing. They were purple with stripes on the back...purple, purple, purple...

***

It turned out this was going to be a very short ceremony. Neither side had anything to say and Dolan seemed keener on re-lighting his pipe.

"I left my matchbook in my desk, so if the Groom wouldn't mind putting the ring on her and getting on with it, so I can consider you kids married already.."

"Sure, sure, of course." Denny nervously nodded. His hands were shaking fierce as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket ... and then became eerily clam as he smiled while he revealed a pair of handcuffs and slapped them on the wrists of his bride!

"Sorry, dear, but I'm afraid I've got cold feet to go with your cold hands." He lifted the veil. The face was familiar: white and blue complexion, with matching blue hair and makeup. Actually, there are three or four nasty women fitting that description, so I waited for Denny to say it. This event was cooling up.

"Louise Lincoln, it's been a pleasure." He reached inside his jacket again. "I believe you were looking for these?" He held up a set of gold wedding bands that revealed inscriptions that glowed and became legible when held up to the light. "The Tibetan Yeti Bands - believed to grant unknown power to the bearer of the ring, if I recall the legend correctly. I just thought they'd make good bait when I had this event advertised in the papers."

"What did she do to Ellen?" I asked.

Dolan laughed. "Who? Seriously, this event was advertised as the wedding of Thomas Gainsborough, here. There was no mention of the bride's name."

The purple gloves on Louise's hand began to change. First they began turning into a paler shade, then they formed a heavy coat of frost before crystallizing and shattering, exposing Lousie's free hands. Her handcuffs become useless when she froze them, breaking them off as well. She then froze Denny, Dolan and myself  and grabbed the bands off Denny's palm with ease. All we could do was watch.

"Just because the wedding's off doesn't mean the bride is obligated to give back the rings, Gainsborough! Watch this bride run away!" She turned and began to make her exit. All the crooks seated in the groom's aisle were cheering her, but didn't dare cross her path.

That's when Santa stepped in. "Where's your Christmas spirit? Is that why you're so blue?" He then grabbed the train of her gown and began to spin like a top, forming a tornado that reeled her in. She began using her powers to fight back, but the end result backfired.

Santa took off his suit and revealed another red suit, one with a familiar lightning bolt symbol stamped across his chest.

"Just when I thought I was going to have to pull one of my old tricks and dash for a present, Louise shows up to help me make a gift: an ice sculpture!"

He raced forward and used his powers to thaw out the three of us - generating heat by offering the ultimate pat-down. It would've been very awkward if it lasted longer than 2.5 seconds.

Denny thanked him by admiring his handiwork with Louise - currently serving as a wedding gown tornado preserved in her own ice. "What a pity we'll have to arrest this one and put it in the fridge right away. You do good work, Wally."

"Thanks. I love spending the holidays back home in Central. By the way, those gloves she was wearing..."

I jumped in. "I can answer that one. Those gloves are a big deal this year. I brought a set for you as a gag. And I noticed that drunk Santa wore a pair as well."

Denny's eyes widened. "Santa?" He turned to the corner. There was only an empty chair where the fat man once sat.

Denny looked a bit forlorn. "I missed him...Santa was here...and I missed him."

Wally tried to cheer him up. "Y'know, it might not be who you think it is...I mean, Bats' wore purple gloves, too."


The End

Grey Friday (Slightly Imperfect - May Contain Lead)

You won't find any comic book fans/collectors/hoarders camped outside their favorite/loathsome/middling/mediocre/so-so neighborhood comic shop on Black Friday. If you do see any, feel free to let me know, because it's an unheard of new development.

Some shops might offer a discount on Friday - emphasis on the word some. That's a shame, since I am convinced they would like nothing more than than to actually see stuff move. There are holiday sales, but not  obvious sales. No President's Day sale, but a Memorial Day sale. No Fourth of July sale, but a Veterans Day sale. No 24 Days 'til Xmas sale, but a ChrismaHanuKwanzaRamukah sale during that week leading up to New Year's  Day. No Back-To-School sale (because comics fit nicely in-between the pages of textbooks) but there might be a sale for Back-To-Comicon...(don't-forget-we're-still-here) in neighborhoods within close proximity to any events.

There was a time when I got my hopes up and thought change was in the air. Not Obama-style Change, but a chance for comics to be sold in a new venue - 99 cent stores. It turned out to be just one big fever dream.

The U.S. Government is enforcing tighter regulations banning the sale of any products containing lead. Lead - the manufacturer's friend, used in anything from electronic devices, herbal supplements, dinnerware, paint and, most important, children's toys and printed media. Could it be that all those old toys and books sold in comic shops were going to have to be rid of at bargain prices? Well...no, because technically, that's all grey market merchandise now. Grey Market merchandise consists of items that are sold anywhere but here, because they don't meet government quality control standards, yet they can be sold here in mom-and-pop discount stores, though not necessarily bargain prices. You can buy screwdrivers with handles apparently made of papier mache, wire and cables that do not fit in any of your electronic devices without a bit of give and take, toilet seats made from cardboard or shower curtains as durable as tissue paper.

Ever buy tubes of Colgate toothpaste with Chinese characters stamped all over? How about off-brand wet wipes/shampoo/detergent with Spider-Man on the packaging? It's all stuff you wouldn't find in your local CVS or Walgreens, but they've got it, along with brands of food you've never heard of, or discontinued candy (Fruitzee Rolls, anyone?). How about Flomo stationary? A Yogi Bear coloring book from 2010?
A High School Musical pencil case? Foam stickers of Spongebob Bluepants? Half-finished coffee mugs with Disney characters missing spots of color? A Hannah Montana sticker set, featuring badly scanned photos of a barely recognizable Miley Cyrus? How about some weird Winnie the Pooh robot toys? A large robot toy with the head shaped like the Ben10 character? Cars crayons? How about a CD case featuring Conan Edogawa and Harley Hartwell from Case Closed, but in pink, because the sweatshop that put the thing together had no clue that this was not a show aimed exclusively at girls, let alone young children. There's no such thing as flawed merchandise, so why not flawed comics? Never mind the high content of lead - how about comics from failed companies? Virgin Comics (Richard Branson and Gotham Chopra's attempt at launching comics as potential movie franchises), Crossgen Comics (Mark Alessi's love note to Roger Zelazaney, purchased by Disney before they decided to go for the real deal and stop being cheap), Topps Comics (The Kirbyverse, Jurassic Park, Duckman, X-Files) and Dark Hors - oops! Um..heh, sorry.

What about back issues? That's a tough one, but I would love to buy a copy of Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man #1 for a dollar - wait, I can actually do that now if I wanted... Actually, if this was 1982, there would still be 88cent stores (with tax, all items added up to 99cents). Most of the clothing in these shops come with a sticker tag that cautions that the item is "Slightly Imperfect" - just like most back issues! It's so easy!

What about direct market "exclusive" toys? The kind of toys that actually look dull out of the box, so we leave them in? That's a tricky one...how about behind the counter? That's usually where the cashier keeps the batteries and off-brand DVD-R/+R/pi-R/(x+y=2x)R discs...and the deodorant. 

There we are ... a socially acceptable venue ripe for exploitation!...and while I keep dreaming, I'll see if the comic shop is offering another 15% off sale. I hope they're not charging tax again...

Except From The Diary of A Nervous Husband...

Hey gang! I was at a swap meet and found a bunch of unmarked blank videocassette tapes that I brought for a buck!

...and then I found out why. I was hoping for someones pay-per-view recordings, but this was interesting ... and disturbing. Here's a transcript from a video diary on one tape dated October 14, 1997...


OK...Last time, I talked about how I was going to different flea markets, yard sales and swap meets - they're all kind of the same, but with different names, I don't get it - shopping for a specific type of lantern. Well, I've got eight so far and I need two more. I've maxed out my credit card and I'm worried if I borrow her card, she'll catch on to what I'm doing.

The tracking started to go on the video at this point. It continues for about ten minutes before the picture and sound come back.

I'm nervous about this. I was willing to believe the house was built on a hillside and the elevation kept us constantly adjusting furniture and anything hung-up on walls and anything on wheels - that type of thing. And when I found all those dead mice in the basement the day after we learned there were mice...and when we came back from our second Honeymoon and that whole family of squatters was found...hung from the ...

Another break, this time the color went to black and white and the whole image bent and at acute angles for a few minutes before the VCR went off. I checked the tape and blew off on odd accumulation of grimy ashes forming along the edges of the tape itself. Then I played it again...


I also didn't mind that she was into scary stories, particularly this Lovecraft guy. She's got boxes of stuff - all books, most of them in different languages, I think. Some of them have pictures of ...I don't know, some kind of  tantric kama sutra voodoo stuff with a guy wearing an Octopus head...My last girlfriend was a huge My Little Pony fan. Michelle, I'm sorry I made fun of you, then. You haven't met Pamela.

The last watchable footage on the tape shows the man, now holding the camera, showing off the lanterns he purchased. They are all laid out on the floor in the formation of the points of a pentagram, with their cords and extension cords connecting to form the completed shape. He is also waving a large unwieldy hardcover book with his remaining free hand.

This is it...the book shows that if I stand in the center with the lanterns powered on, I will be safe for the night. So, I'm going to put the camera back on the stand and let it continue filming while I go to sleep.

He places a rocking chair in the center of the pentagram after setting the camera on its stand. He then plugs in a power strip that is hooked-up to all the lanterns on turns it on. The lanterns light up the area, which looks like the living room of the house. A voice calls out. It does not sound friendly.

"Michael? Are you coming to bed?"

"Michael" rushes toward a nearby desk and pulls out a gun. He then scrambles into the chair at the center of the pentagram.

"I'll be right there. I'm still watching the Late Show."

At this stage the picture tends to fade out and fade in at ten-minute intervals, with "Michael" dozing off in his rocker. The gun appears to have fallen out of his hand at some point...then, the lanterns start to flicker and a weird gurgling noise starts traveling into the room from off screen. Michael is startled and starts to look panicky before staring at something lurching forward...again, off screen. Then the power goes out.

The tape ends there.

...I started searching the tapes for more information. It seems he taped "Full House", "Step by Step", "Hanging With Mr. Cooper" and "Family Matters".

Just when you thought you'd seen the scariest thing ever, there's always something MUCH scarier...

No $#!+ Sherlock!: Elementary School

"..and Sherlock Holmes after all is mostly an attitude and a few dozen lines of unforgettable dialogue."
- Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

Well, I could say the same thing about Phillip Marlowe, but I'd rather talk about Elementary, the new CBS drama that premiered last night, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson, respectively. It was a show pilot, setting up the show's premise - Sherlock Holmes moves to New York - and meets Joan. He also meets Captain Gregson, played by Aiden Quin (Tobias Gregson is a character that sometimes pinch-hit for Inspector Lestrade in the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so, yes, London had more than one cop protecting the city). The mystery was routine - basic Law & Order/CSI/Monk/Mentalist stuff. What was really interesting was Holmes.

In recent years, adaptations of Sherlock Holmes lean toward him as acting like an aloof, misanthropic rock star - if you can't keep up with me, piss off - that kind of thing. Benedict Cumberbatch is like that, Hugh Laurie is like that (yes, I am counting House M.D. - I believe that's how the revival really began) Robert Downey Jr. has that same approach, with the sexual ambiguity thrown in (I'm sure all the mystery writers who thought making their detectives confirmed bachelors with no sex lives and  ridiculous-sounding names are all wearing ice bags on their heads in the afterlife - it used to be a school of thought that the bouquet of roses and magnifying glass were two separate worlds and the genre would be more "romantic psychological suspense thriller" than "puzzle-solving detective story" How could they have known that they couldn't have been more wrong?). At this stage, Gordon Ramsay and Simon Cowell could be Sherlock Holmes.

Anyway, Johnny Lee Miller does give his performance that same rock star vibe - I'm surprised they haven't thought of playing Sting's "An Englishman In New York" or maybe they're getting to it and I'm jumping ahead again - but he also comes off as a gentlemann - we haven't seen that in a while! That was Basil Rathbone's Sherlock - calm, composed and careful. There's also some of Jeremy Brett in Miller's performance - the scenes where Homes is going over the details of the various living quarters and draws inferences from how the layout influences how the people who lived in it would have moved about. And yet, he uses his gentlemanly demeanor to deliver backhanded compliments, so their is an edge beneath the surface. It'll be interesting to watch how he stands out from the pack.

As for Lucy Liu, I think this the first time she gets to really play a character who isn't emo or a prop of some sort. There are hints that she'll get to blossom acting-wise. We'll see, we'll see.

As for the production values, I would like to see them have more fun with the New York locations. It's shot the way most films are shot in New York - flat and grainy. Terry Gilliam made New York look like a Medieval fantasy world in The Fisher King.  London was Sherlock's playground in the BBC series, but it's actually smaller than New York. Think about it, guys, just think about it...

Silver Dollars: Ducktales at 25 Part 4

Time to play a game...or watch someone else play it HERE . I got a chance to promote Chris's blog and show both of the Ducktales NES video games at the same time. Yay me. That Australian commercial for McDonald's Happy Meal toys smacks of the 1980s! I assume it must have aired with an epsiode of "Mr. Belvedere" or "Growing Pains", followed by "The Facts of Life".

I'm happy to report that my NES still works. My Game Boy is a different story altogether. It's the strangest thing - you do your best to keep things in good shape...and entrophy makes sure that it still falls apart. Anyway, I was knee-deep in the Sega Genesis (and playing Quackshot, which is a kind-of sequel to Ducktales, really - there's no other way to explain it) to get Ducktales 2. Besides, I don't remember the first game being easy to find, anyway. I recall my mom brought it from one of those small toy shops that had backpacks hanging outside the entrance from the awnings. I remember smacking my head against the wheel of a low-hanging stroller once...

I also remember the issue of Nintendo Power that had Scrooge on the cover. And that I don't have it anymore. :(

The Ducktales game was a big improvement by Capcom after the hideous Mickey Mousecapade game...the less said about that, the better. Ducktales was actually an add-on to the pre-existing board for Mega Man, (not unlike how Ms. Pac Man was an add-on created by students at MIT and submitted to Namco) so there is a
fair amount of deja vu in the gameplay. If you've played the game before, or seen the footage provided, you can see the appeal of it. I think the highest compliment paid was an epsiode of Icons on G4 devoted to the NES - a few seconds of the Ducktales Game and title card appeared in a montage of the Nintendo Entertainment System's "Greatest Hits"/highlights. Nice.

Mickey Mousecapade - this made me run and hide behind the sofa...after my mom saw how this $50.00 game that her "intelligent" son made her buy looked on the tv.

Donald Duck in QuackShot  - I recall seeing a guy selling his Sega Genesis at a yard sale and this was the only game he offered with the system. Not Sonic, not Altered Beast. Quackshot. That makes a lot of sense to me.

To the surprise of many... Scrooge made an appearance in Kindom Hearts 2, but it was in pantomime. Squareenix made up for this egregious error by bringing back Alan Young (!) for this special appearance...

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep ... I wonder what that series would have been like if it began with Sora teaming up with a certain tycoon from a town where life is like a hurricane, full of racecars, lasers and airplanes.

A Lost "Last"/ Last "Lost" Tale...

I'm posting this link to one of the blogs I follow:

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of...: The Witches: The Real Deal.: BEWARE! SPOILER ALERT! The scariest film I ever watched as a child was Nicolas Roeg's The Witches (1990). There were many scenes in films...

I had commented that "The Witches" was one of the last projects Jim Henson worked on before he died, but in truth, it was one of the last he oversaw. Henson was a very, very, very busy man for most of his adult life. In some alternate reality, he's the guy on Ed Sullivan's show who spins dozens of dinner plates. There are a lot of things that never saw the light of day and exist only on paper in file cabinets. For example, "Tale of Sand", a screenplay for a feature-length film which he co-wrote with Jerry Juhl.  It was adapted into a graphic novel with art by Ramon Perez and won an Eisner award. It is not the last screenplay that he worked on, but it was "lost" for a while.

We do love discovering lost things, don't we? We all thought "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" was Dr. Suess's last book, but then his wife found "Daisy-Head Mayzie", "My Many Colored Days" and "Hooray For Diffendorfer Day!". We thought "Go Slowly, Sands of Time" would be the last Disney Duck tale written by Carl Barks, but then came "Hang Gliders Be Hanged", "Horsing Around With History" and "Somewhere to Nowhere". We thought "Curtain"  was the final Hercule Poirot novel, but then Charles Osborne adapted the play "Black Coffee". We thought "Shoscombe Old Place" was the last Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but then came "The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", which collected all the apocryphal material we never thought existed. We thought "Salmon of Doubt" was all the material Douglas Adams had left behind, until Gareth Roberts adapted "Doctor Who: SHADA" into a full-length novel that is required reading for anyone curious about Doctor Who now.There's always something "lost" - never "last", or "One of the last", or something to be rediscovered...


In the 60's Jim Henson directed, wrote and starred in a short live-action film , "Timepiece", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short. The film is a series of jump-cuts to different sequences, all featuring Jim: Jim as a caveman running in the streets, Jim as a housepainter painting an elephant pink, Jim in a top hat and tuxedo jumping off a high diving board and into a pool, Jim as an escaped prisoner in stripes on the run, etc.. Then there's "The Cube" an hour-long drama that aired on NBC around the same time as Timepiece. "The Cube" is "Portal" without the portals - a man is stuck inside this white cell while others enter and exit freely, even interacting with him briefly. Both films have the potential to be pretty dark, but Jim seems to be enjoying it, so we're enjoying these meta-parables along with him.

"Tale of Sand" is "Timepiece" and "The Cube" for the widescreen. "a surrealistic comedy-drama", the introductory note describes, with most of the screentime set in the Southwest - the same battleground where Chuck Jones imagined those private battles between Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. There's very little dialogue. The protagonist of "Sand" is Mack, an everyman who walks into a densely populated western town with the diverse townsfolk celebrating his arrival. He is drafted by it's kindly Sheriff into a quest: it is not clear what that quest is. He is given a map and a rucksack full of supplies, is instructed to follow the map, but don't trust it, then sent on his way.

Throughout the journey, Mack is pursued/bedeviled by "Patch", a tall, dark, suave, well-dressed, wealthy and better-prepared antagonist, who is always handy with a bribe and almost-always accompanied by a mysterious blonde vixen. Strange things happen: signs pop up, wild animals pop up, buildings that are smaller on the outside/bigger on the inside turn up. Mack meets more enemies than friends and his quest devolves into a chase. Toward the end, the tale unravels and we start to get answers...maybe.

Had "Tale of Sand" been filmed, it probably would have been filmed earnestly at a quarter of the budget it demands, yet come off as a camp psychaedelic experience to anyone who saw it - it would have been "a groovy trip" spaghetti western. As a graphic novel, we get a chance to taste the images more and look for the meaning of what's happening - that is, if you would like it to have a meaning. It's not casual spending and I'm lucky the library had a copy, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to read it (it's not in any comic shops I've been to). It's worth a look.