Big Trouble in Little China #1 – Review

By: John Carpenter & Eric Powell (Story), Eric Powell (Writer), Brian Churilla (Artist), Michael Garland (Color Artist), Ed Dukeshire (Letterer)

The Story:
妖魔大鬧小神州, of course

The Review:
“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” they say. In this case, however, you should absolutely judge this book by its cover. Or, at least, it’s basic, non-alternate cover, which is clearly evocative to the original Big Trouble in Little China and how it exemplifies cult action-adventure films from the 80s. From the title’s font/logo, to characters’ arrangement, to the lighting and texture and caricature, it’s a pleasingly retro homage.

Inside, the caricature continues, with the figures looking cartoony enough for a MAD Magazine story, yet without degenerating into demeaning exaggeration or stereotypes. Or at least, not relying on them. It’s an interesting choice– it helps keep the humorous tone, establishes close ties to the original movie, and, yes, even dates itself a little bit. Speaking of which, I wonder that is also supposed to be the effect of the same-ness of all the dialogue bubbles. They seem to all be the same shape/dimensions regardless of size or position, which again makes things seem more like a MAD Magazine strip but also a bit stale and undynamic.

As the cover suggests, this is a sequel to the movie, and in fact, it picks up merely seconds after the film ends. A hell-beast has followed Jack Burton home (or at least, to his big rig) but not for the reasons you’d expect, which brings him back to Little China/San Francisco where supernatural gangs continue to plague the lives of his friends. It all makes the story feel very “real” as a genuine part of Jack Burton’s story (even if it’s been many years since I’ve seen the movie) but it somewhat relies on the film to have done all the heavy lifting for its characters and their inter-relationships. A little exposition would have been nice, especially if this is to capture a feeling of “new” just as much as it’s trying to be the next chapter of “before.”

The only bit of new character/world building comes from Jack Burton’s 3-page recount of his second marriage, complete with a comicbook-style flashback that takes advantage of artistic montage. In just this brief moment, we get see/read about Mexican bikers, bat-faced luchadores, giant Día de Los Muetros heads, and Babylonian demi-gods in Nebraska. Now THAT sounds fun and offers genuinely new weirdness, but it’s too brief and quite tangential to any other plot development.

The Secret History of DB Cooper #4 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer, artist, colors) & Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: Agent Cooper gets closer to discovering the identity of the Soviet agent.

Quick Review: This has been a very pleasing series.  Back in issue #1, it started with such weirdness that it was hard not to love.  But…..we’ve all seen comics with wacky concepts quickly go off the rails as it becomes clear that there’s no real meat to the tale.

Secret History of DB Cooper #2 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer/artist), Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: More craziness with DB Cooper: Psychic CIA Agent

Recap/Review (with minor SPOILERS): Trippy.  That’s probably the best way to describe this comic.  Now, this second issue doesn’t catch you off-guard quite the way that Issue #1 did…that issue was really something else.  Still, the crazy just keeps flowing in this issue, and we also get a fair amount of background information on the who/what/why/when/where/how of the infamous DB Cooper.

The crazy?  That happens right off the bat as we see DB locked in dreamscape combat against some horrible monster.  It’s this huge slug-thing with a gaping, toothy mouth, no eyes and two scrawny arms.  But the really awful thing about the monster visually is that it has old-lady breasts: long, saggy and with a odd fuzz of hair on them (like eyebrows that need to be plucked).  It’s a really disturbing visual and gives you a sense of, “Ugh…nasty.  I shouldn’t be looking at this.”  Yet…it’s hard to tear your eyes away as Agent Cooper, in trench coat, sunglasses and katana does battle with this horrid thingie.  Finally, he chops its head off and we cut to a scene from a Czech opera house to see some Stalinesque Communist Party big-wig have his head fall off into his date’s lap.  Whoa!  Another psychic/dreamscape assassination for Agent Cooper!

What’s weird about this scene is that it messes slightly with the mechanic we thought we learned about last issue: Agent Cooper goes into a dreamscape and psychically assassinates Soviet VIPs.  How does a Communist dude with a huge mustache psychically manifest as a slug-monster with granny boobs?  Hmmm…  Weird…

So, that’s the crazy in this issue.  But, as mentioned above, we also get a lot more background on who DB Cooper is and how he’s come to exist in this disheveled state where he’s become the top psychic assassin for the CIA.  Turns out he had his young daughter kidnapped and she was never found.  Ouch!  Then his marriage didn’t survive the stress of losing a child.  Double ouch!  And that’s turned him into this hard-boiled guy who just doesn’t give a crap anymore…except that he’s still kinda looking for his daughter and thinks he may be about to find her in the dreamscape world.

An interesting thing in this comic is that we see Cooper from different perspectives.  In the Dreamscape….we’re clearly seeing things from his point of view.  And oddly, he seems much more sane in this dreamscape where he fights massive slug-monsters with granny boobs than he does in the “real world”.  There he’s just an incredibly damaged human being who is being kinda used by the CIA.  But ironically, when we see him in the “real world”, it’s all seen from the standpoint of a neutral observer.  Crazy people never think they’re crazy, right?

The art is very effective.  It’s very blunt and direct and full of classic cartooning.  It isn’t art that you’d call “beautiful”, but it more than fulfills its storytelling mission.

Conclusion: A really good issue that dials back the crazy a little bit to give us more background on the central character.

Grade: B

– Dean Stell

Secret History of DB Cooper #1 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer/artist) & Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: A possible back-story for DB Cooper.

Background: The name DB Cooper is either going to ring a bell for you or it won’t.  The “true story” upshot is that back in 1971 a man using the name DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 in the Pacific Northwest claiming to have a bomb in a briefcase.  He made a ransom demand of (a) money and (b) parachutes.  The plane landed to give him these items and then took off again (as ordered by Cooper).  At some point on this second flight, Cooper went to the back of the cargo area of the 727 and apparently parachuted from the ramp on the back of the plane, never to be seen again.  Seriously, no one knows what happened to him or who DB Cooper even was.  There aren’t even many clues, but the story is fantastic enough to be fodder for all manner of “unsolved mystery” TV shows over the years.  Did Cooper die during the parachute attempt?  Did he get away?  Or was the explanation more fantastical?

Review: This was a wonderfully trippy comic from Churilla.  From a plot standpoint, it tells a possible back-story for Cooper by using a “one week earlier….” mechanic.  We are introduced to “Agent” Cooper, although we are never told WHAT or WHO he is an agent for.  And we see this Agent Cooper as he trudges through a kinda psychadelic wasteland wearing a suit (MiB-style), carrying a katana, cigarette dangling from his lips and talking to… an imaginary teddy bear???  Anyway, he looks very bad-ass in a Reservoir Dogs sort of way.  As the story moves along, we are also introduced to some dastardly Soviet government official eating his dinner and it becomes clear than somehow, Cooper’s weird trip through this wasteland is actually some kind of psychic assassination plot against the Soviet official.  At least that’s what I think is going on.  [Note: Rereading this during proof-reading and it is clear that I’m not doing the story justice.  It’s weird and wonderful.  Trust me, if you like indie comics, you’ll enjoy this.]

Basically, the story dwells in that place where you kinda know what is going on, but it is never made explicitly clear.  There are clues galore, but how the reader assembles the clues together is really kinda up the them.