My New Obsession...Part 2

My first 'part" came when I wrote about the amazing Black Hole, and after doing that, I've decided to keep record of every graphic novel I read in entirety from here on out. I have tons of them in my scopes, ready to start buying and reading ad nauseum. It's pretty genius on my part....for a long ass time now, I've been telling myself, "Man, you have to read more actual books, not just magazine stories and the occasional movie script." But for the time being, I've found a happy medium for myself: the graphic novel.

See, they're not straightforward books in the traditional sense, but rather fully-realized comic book series', compiled together to form the comic equivalent of a book. So for me, its like reading literature, not comic. Whatever helps me sleep at night, but what's cool about this is that these are limitless in imagination, both narratively and artistically, and who doesn't like looking at pretty and demented pictures while knee-deep in a rich tale? I know I do.

But enough rambling. Over the last two days, I've both started and finished a pair of new ones. One I fuckin' thought rocked the shit; the other I was really digging until somewhat of a letdown conclusion. Here goes (keep in mind, this post is kinda long only because its on two new reads):



This is what that Angelina Jolie/James McAvoy/Morgan Freeman-saying-"Kill that motherfucker!" flick, which came out in June, was based on. Honestly, though, I can only say "based on" in reference to the two central characters and title, because the original novel is basically non-existent within the movie, in terms of storyline and visionary complexity.

In the book, the main character, Wesley (who is a dead-ringer for Eminem here, and looks nothing like McAvoy) has the same shitty life as the movie version dude: mundane cubicle job, a bitchy girlfriend who's fucking his best friend, a dependency on prescription drugs to battle stress and other mental hindrances. But then comes along the smoking-hot Fox (Jolie in the movie; a hybrid of Halle Berry and Pam Grier's Coffy here), who opens up a whole new world of guns, murder, excitement, and standing-up-to-those-who've-made-his-life-reek. There's a whole deep backstory involving the death of his father, who was a stud within The Fraternity, the secret society of fiends in which Wesley is moving up within the ranks of, rapidly.

The ginormous difference btw the novel and movie, however, is that the novel is this totally sick flipping-on-its-own-head of superhero mythology. Here, all of the superhero-battling villains have aligned together and completely wiped out all of your Supermans and Dark Knights. So instead of lifeless drone characters like the one played robotically by Common in the movie, you have supporting characters such as Mister Rictus (a deprived criminal mastermind who looks like Skeletor in a pimp's wardrobe), Shit-Head (a monster assembled from the fecal droppings from all of the world's most evil denizens), and others who would've made for insane film presence(s). What's dope is how each of these super-villain characters is a reimagining of famous comic enemies....all of The Professor's gang (he leads the Fraternity) are based off enemies of Superman, while those working for Rictus (the true villainy villain in this story) are based off of Batman's foes.

I do understand, though, that the film version intended to ground the characters in more of a reality, which made all of the far-fetched yet badass action stuff even more exciting ("Holy shit, a dude who looks like me just gunned down an entire building's worth of baddies by using the guns of those he'd just shot to shoot the next batch of baddies. Sweet!"). Doesn't mean I can't prefer this novel over it, however.

In all, both the novel and film are dopeness, but the former is undoubtedly the sicker of the two. Plus, it has such a brilliant and ballsy "fuck you, reader!" ending that I literally giggled like a scared schoolgirl upon reading it.

Now on to....




Here's one I'd heard about several months back, after catching wind of a movie version being held in studio oblivion (probably because it's not very good, that's usually the case for such hold-ups) for some time now. The as-yet-unreleased film take stars sexier-than-all-hell Kate Beckinsale and good-peeps Columbus Short (he's just a good dude, I've hung around with him before and he's one of the most down-to-earth "celebs" I've yet to interview). I read the movie's plot and learned that it's a murder mystery set in Antartica, where there hasn't been a recorded murder in decades, making this particular mystery killing even more puzzling for Beckinsale's U.S. marshall, Carrie Stetko, who is stationed in Antartica after bringing hell down on a prisoner who tried to rape her.

Or at least that's the backstory in the novel. From what I can tell, the film version is totally rewriting the story, to lesser quality, I'm sure. Besides, the novel Stetko isn't an especially good-looking gal; she's sort of a frumpy Janeane Garfolao type who has "sexual identity" issues (gay or straight?), all the more issue-rific when a cute blonde British investigator arrives on the scene to assist Stetko. You can cut the girl-on-girl tension with a knife. But alas, there is no British gal character in the movie, so so much for getting to see Beckinsale flirt with another hottie. Damn you, H-wood!

Like I said earlier, I really like Whiteout, but I just wish that the identity of the killer wasn't given away so early on, and that it was somebody else altogether. It's just not menacing and dark enough for my twisted tastes. But up until the last 20 pages or so, there's enough unseen troubles and clever whodunit suspense for me to ultimately big this one up.

--'tis all, for now. My next graph adventure that I've already started reading is Steve Niles' adapation of the iconic and classic I Am Legend, originally penned by that inspirational writing hero of mine, Richard Matheson. Yes, it's the same thing as that Will Smith blockbuster, only a much better story with a much much darker tone and more of a horror center, not a CGI-suffering sci-fi joint. At least the Big Willie movie was good, overall, so I'm not complaining. But I'm not going out on a limb here by saying that I'll end up liking this graph novel much more than his flick.

Now off to watch the latest guilty-pleasurable episode of I Love Money. And maybe I'm alone here, but as of late, Toastee and Brandi C. have eclipsed Hoopz as the objects of my viewing desire. Go figure.