Jackie Chan

Whenever you're looking for a cheap laugh, just throw a character in a diaper. 

Comic Review: Satellite Sam #1

                I saw a pre-release interview with Satellite Sam creators Howard Chaykin and Matt Fraction a couple weeks ago and the premise looked incredibly interesting.  I love stories that transport us back in time, even if it’s only a few years, and with this one sending us back to 1951 it really piqued my interest.  Let’s see if it lives up to my expectations.

Cover:

                Chaykin’s cover pretty much tells you all about the inciting incident of the series right off the bat.  While we don’t know who any of the characters on the cover are, we have an idea that the “spaceman” is Satellite Sam, so it’s pretty obvious that this starts with his murder at the hands of this random scantily clad woman.  The imagery of blood spatter inside the helmet with just a single bullet hole is gruesome and intriguing at the same time.  It is 100 times more effective of an image than if Chaykin had drawn it more realistically with the mangled face of the corpse visible in the helmet. 

                A couple issues I had with the art were not dealbreakers by any means, but made me pause a bit when I was looking at it.  Satellite Sam himself looks a bit flat.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of weight and depth to the character (which is in direct contrast to all of the revelations we are going to find out over the course of the series).  The foot of the woman is also planted firmly on the hand of Sam, and yet her leg is straight and her foot is flat, as if she is standing on the ground itself.  Chaykin could have moved the hand up a bit and it would have worked better in my opinion.  I would have thought that maybe, just maybe, the suit was empty, but there is no indication that is the case given the weight provided to the gloves and boots. 

8/10 – A striking narrative cover can’t be spoiled by a few graphic missteps.  The woman is well drawn (what little we can see anyway) and the coloring is great.  The attention to detail is incredible as well, especially in the undergarments of the woman.  Chaykin could have made up some silly design that didn’t look as realistic but was easier to execute, yet he went a more authentic route.

Story:

                The best thing about the story is that it starts with Satellite Sam already dead.  That sounds a little morbid, but the reaction to his death, from thinking that he just hasn’t shown up for his job, to realizing that he is gone but his job still needs to be done, is more impressive than a linear narrative that included the act as well.  Being on the periphery of the murder and experiencing it along with everyone else gives us a closer tie to the living than it would if we had just seen the murder happen because we are finding out with them without being desensitized to it.  Their reactions are our reactions and we are sharing something with them as opposed to just reading about them.  The fact that this story starts off with the death of the title character (or at least the guy that plays that character on the television show) serves to throw many wheels in motion that will most likely reveal more mysteries than resolutions for some time to come. 

                While the plot and the overall craft of the story is excellent.  The first twelve to fifteen pages, up and through the reveal of Sam’s death, does not feel like a comic book.  The feel of the story to that point is almost like a movie script.  The frenetic pace coupled with the way that the characters are speaking would feel more at home in a movie setting than in the static world of a comic book.  It almost feels like Fraction is trying to control the pace by throwing as much dialogue as possible at you from the get go, except it’s not really saying much.  I’m not against dialogue heavy comics (hell, I grew up with the X-Men in the early nineties for Christ’s sake) but that dialogue seemed to have a purpose.  The opening half of issue one of Satellite Sam feels like the opening of a movie, before the title card.  You almost expect the names of the “talent” to scroll across the page as if you were watching it unfold on the big screen of your local movie theater.  While I understand what Fraction was trying to do to a point, it doesn’t have the desired effect on me, so I would have to say that it was unsuccessful.

6/10 – The story is good, I’m just not too sold on the delivery system as of yet.  Obviously there is a possibility that it will even itself out (and it kind of did after we got out of the television studio) but if it dips back into that break-neck, throw all these words at you kind of pace, it will revert to the unimpressive nature that it was for the first half of issue one.

Art:

                First of all, I’m all for black and white comics.  Love them.  Second, Chaykin is a master of creating textures in this medium.  Where many comics nowadays are eschewing texture for clean, crisp lines that leave plenty of room for the colorist to work, Chaykin has instead filled up the entire book with texture and character.  This is done in all manner of ways, from zipatone backgrounds to ink splatter, grease pencil and straight up pen and ink textures.  I love it all.  Everything is detailed and realistic, with just a hint of cartoony in there so you realize you are reading a comic book. The characters are not stylized but they are not to the point where they look traced out of a magazine.  The backgrounds are beautifully done and look just like a legitimate backdrop of 1950s New York City. 

                Sometimes the art gets a little odd in terms of proportion (hands being too small and things like that) but the only reason that is inherently noticeable is because the rest of it is spot on.  When you have something that looks incredible, any little wart is going to stand out.  The warts here do not detract from the overall product though, as Chaykin has done an incredible job of utilizing all of the traditional comic-making media to his advantage in crafting a period piece that feels like a period piece.  This is not an easy feat given that it is all in black and white, but he does it, and does it better than I have seen in a long time.

9/10 – Chaykin delivers, showing that he is still one of the better artists out there and that a no-frills, back to basics approach to comic making can work well in the hands of a master.

Overall:  7/10 – The saving grace of the first half of the book is that it is pretty to look at.  When The story catches up to the writing it makes the book incredible.   

No, Not in There

The lesson of the day is: Don't mess with someone that can perform any kind of medical procedure on you, no matter how small, because that procedure can always be performed on your twig and berries.

Interlude

Happy Fourth of July!

No review today, but come back tomorrow for a review of Satellite Sam #1.  

Until then, enjoy this display of patriotism.

You're welcome America.

Heeeeeere's Sluggy

Pick the low-hanging fruit? Don't mind if I do 

(which can probably be misconstrued to mean something a little different than I originally intended).

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Seventeen: Return of the Champion(s)

                So who were the mystery chefs that the remaining “black jackets” had to cook against in their dinner service?  Well if you couldn’t guess by the title, it was revealed that the chefs were all previous Hell’s Kitchen winners.  The task at hand was not only to cook a regular dinner service, but also to come up with both an entrée and an appetizer to add to the menu.  Both the champs and the regular chefs seem supremely confident, even though none of them have worked as a team with one another before.  However, they are all fairly professional (except for blonde girl, she’s the worst) and after a bit of light-hearted trash talk; they retire to the dorms where they determine what they are going to make. 

                Blonde girl is really high on simple food.  While I agree with her in theory, I have to agree with Mr. Mohawk that a slider won’t blow the champs out of the water, and will probably get her laughed out of the kitchen by Ramsay.  The chefs settle on something a bit more complex, steak tartar for an appetizer and duck for an entrée.  The duck requires an addition of duck confit, which takes a long time to cook, so much so that during the initial tasting of the dish they don’t have that element ready to present to Ramsay.  He thinks they’re morons, but then they come back with a revised tasting that includes all of the elements of the dish and he raves about it.  It was a pretty good gamble, especially considering the fact that Ramsay probably already thinks they are morons, and didn’t need a lack of duck confit to tell him that.

                The champs use duck for their appetizer and pork loin (I believe) for their entrée.  The pork loin is on a bed of collard greens because Nona, one of the returning chefs can’t help but say “collards” thirty times in a two minute span to drive the point home when they are devising their menu.  She then talks pretty gangster about it, way more gangster than a southern white woman should ever dream about talking.  Ramsay likes their dish but warns that people in California don’t like their meat to be so bloody even if they do order it rare to medium rare (keep that in mind).

                Dinner service starts off fine.  The champs have a few stumbles out of the gate based more on rust in terms of working in that specific environment at those specific tasks than anything else.  It’s interesting to see how Ramsay treats them compared to the chefs in the current competition.  He offers advice and encouragement, much like MasterChef Ramsay, as opposed to just busting their balls.  It’s fun to watch him lose his shit but there is something about Gordon Ramsay the mentor that is quite admirable and it would be nice to see more of it.  Appetizers for the regular chefs go out relatively smoothly.  Blonde girl in her role as “floater” does a good job on the apps until the very end when she somehow can’t cook a dish in five minutes that should only take two.  That’s the only issue though, aside from squeaky voice freaking Ramsay out by staring at him.  I’ve never seen Ramsay flustered like that and it was funny to see.  Every time he went to call out a ticket, she would stop and stare at him, stone faced.  It took him four tries to call out an order because he was so “freaked out” by the way she stared at him.  It’s kind of weird that we are this far into the competition and this is the first time that a problem like that has come up, but who knows, maybe squeaky voice was trying to be extra attentive and it just came off as extra spooky.

                Entrees went ok as well, with the only problem being that some of the diners had an issue with underdone meat.  The meat was not raw by any means, just underdone for their taste.  It wasn’t that big of a deal, just cook another to the next step up, rare to medium-rare, etc.  Except mixed up Cyndi sent up an exact replica of the undercooked meat the second time (on the last table no less) which made Ramsay yell for one of the only times that night.  The champs were able to correct their mistakes the first time and didn’t repeat any of the missteps in terms of underdone meat.  You can definitely see why they won the competition.

                The dinner services for both sides were very good, so Ramsay decides to let the comment cards determine the winner.  Victory goes to the champs with a score of 95 to 93 in terms of percentage of diners that would return.  The chefs then have to retire to the dorms and decide on two people to nominate for elimination.  Conventional wisdom would say send up the two that got yelled at by Ramsay that night, right?  Regardless of that logic, blonde girl and mixed up Cyndi act surprised to have their names mentioned.  At this point, minute details are what can send a chef home, and yet those two act like they are being accused of pissing in the risotto.  They both go up for elimination and Ramsay sends home…

…no one.

                For the first time this season he uses the “you all did so well that no one gets to go home tonight” card.  Of course that just means that next time he may finally send more than one person home at a time, or, for the first time this season he may boot someone in the middle of dinner service.  Those are always my favorite.  At this point though, you have to mess up pretty bad if you are going to be booted mid-service.  Luckily, someone apparently messes up pretty bad next time, and Ramsay even walks off the line, giving the keys to the kingdom to blonde girl because he can’t take it anymore (surprise, surprise, someone is fed up with blonde girl’s mouth).

                See you next week!

Oh, that meat...

You all knew that's what she meant by meat, right?  Of course you did.  No innuendo here.