Book and Comic Reviews

(2/28/05)

State of Fear by Michael Crichton (Nicky's take on this)  If you are a fan of his other books (which I am) you are sure to be disappointed by this one.  It is complete with his knowledge for science and scientific method and jabs at the "Hollywoodesque" need to make themselves feel better (in their SUVs) by hypocritically supporting sometimes hollow causes for the sake of "humanity."  It hits hardest at the extreme environmentalist (and their lawyers) that use scare tactics to earn public support (and money in their pockets) through uncorroborated and untested "scientific research."  The book takes you through extreme cases and argues...and argues...and argues points on both sides of the environmental spectrum.  Most importantly, it opens your eyes (if they are not already opened) to the idea that the some media contribute in propagandizing any catastrophe (substantiated or not) for the simple need for better ratings(....the snow crisis...the hurricane crisis...the drought crisis...the oil crisis and of course our favorite, the police car chase...crisis).  Unfortunately for Crichton, he should have written an essay instead of a novel.  But what better way to get the point across than to dramatize these ideas through several spectacular events and locations.  He steered his way from continent to continent with a few main characters and neglects to tie up several important loose ends.  After the first couple of chapters, there is no doubt who the villain is and you are not fooled by some obvious slight of hand.  Also, the dialog and characters are written as if it were a hopeful movie script.  Of course, the way he portrays Hollywood, I doubt any producer would touch this with a ten foot pole.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton.  (Chris' take on this)  That loud ripping sound you heard emanating from the Left Coast was a battalion of enraged Hollywood executives tearing Crichton's contact info out of their Rolodexes.  (Yes, I know that most of them have probably long since switched to cell phones… but silent deletion makes for a much less compelling image.)  The author of The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Sphere, and other popular "techno-thrillers" goes merrily a-bridge-burning as he stages a full-scale assault on fear-mongering environmentalism.  A well-heeled, celebrity-studded, "frighteningly certain" environmental group plans a series of fake "natural catastrophes" in order to scare people into believing that the theory of global warming is true.  It's up to a band of motley nerds (and one tag-along lawyer who undergoes the book's one obligatory "conversion" from an environmentalism based on slushy sentiment and ad hominem attacks to one grounded in hard-eyed, illusion-free science) to save the day.  The book's didactic purpose is underscored in bright red ink by a series of dialogues (illustrated with charts and graphs) in which various characters' ignorance as to the dubious and contradictory nature of the evidence for global warming is cruelly exposed for all to see.  Crichton's desire to write a didactic novel may have gotten the better of him in the creativity department: the characters are all one- or at most two-dimensional, the villains are easy to identify, and one extremely major plot "surprise" is anything but surprising.  I've read the transcript of Crichton's important speech at CalTech in which he criticized "crisis"-oriented science.  He probably would have been much better off writing a non-fictional work, on the order of Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist (which he praises in State of Fear's lengthy bibliography), than trying to "reach the masses" with a rather disappointing "thriller."

The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo (Fantagraphics Press).  Dan DeCarlo is considered by many comics fans to be the quintessential Archie artist -- and considered by all comics fans to be the best delineator of Archie's rival girlfriends, Betty and Veronica.  DeCarlo, who died in 2001, also had a prolific career as a pin-up artist for humor magazines, and this little tome collects some of his best work from the late 50s and early 60s.  DeCarlo had a knack for making his women appear funny and sexy at the same time.  While most of the gags aren't much, the girls are simply TOO much.  There's some (relatively tasteful) nudity here, but most gags involve skimpy clothing and lingerie, so I'd rate this between a PG-13 and a "soft" R.

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #654 (March 2005).  Having eviscerated rap music, rock concert promoters, and similar cultural scum in previous stories, William Van Horn engages in yet more curmudgeonly grumbling in "Busy Bodies," wherein Donald Duck becomes obsessed with the odd activities of his new neighbors but winds up getting himself entangled in a reality TV series.  "Silly Billy" really should go after harder targets, but who can blame him for this broadside?…  In "History Re-Petes Itself," Mickey Mouse gets an unexpected opportunity to raise his long-time nemesis Black Pete from babyhood – and, in so doing, lead the old reprobate onto the path of righteousness and truth.  Of course, complications develop.  David Gerstein and Romano Scarpa's tale for Egmont Publishing is a fine tribute to Pete's 80^th birthday (yes, really – Pete even predates Mickey himself!) and features a nicely ambiguous ending that I particularly enjoyed…  We also get a Gus Goose/Grandma Duck epic (also penned by the indefatigable Gerstein) and three vintage reprints: two tales from the 40s and 50s drawn by Paul Murry, plus Carl Barks' early adventure story, "Frozen Gold," which features the "Old Duck Master"'s own take on a semi-original "Pete-like" character – this one with a decidedly nasty (even homicidal!) streak.

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(2/20/05)

Donald Duck and Friends #325 (March 2005). Carl Barks' classic 1949 Donald Duck adventure "Lost in the Andes" is reprinted between slick covers for the first time in 18 years. The saga of Donald and his Nephews' search for the Peruvian source of a clutch of square eggs (yep, you read it right) has never looked better, thanks to Susan Daigle-Leach's exquisitely detailed color schemes. (I just loved the green-gloriously woozy expressions on the faces of Donald and a group of scientists after they've unwittingly partaken of an omelet made from some square eggs that are decidedly past their "sell by" date.) New Gemstone staff member (and Baltimore resident) David Gerstein provides an introductory essay-let. I do wish he hadn't used the tired academic buzzword "subversive" to describe Barks' famous tale. "Cynical," I'll buy. The unsentimental Barks spares no one, from highfalutin scientists to hustling Andean natives who're out to make a buck off of Donald's desire to acquire more square eggs. Anyone who'd like to know why Barks rated a "Disney Legend" award before his death in 2000 couldn't find a better place to commence their acquaintance with "The Old Duck Master."

The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey (Crown Publishers). Curiously, though the event has rated an HBO documentary, a made-for-TV movie, and a full-blown theatrical retelling, the complete story of the "Miracle on Ice" has never been put between covers in a real, live book (as opposed to a tome of the "instant paperback" variety ). Unfortunately, it still hasn't. Coffey does a good enough job of telling the only story that people seem to care about anymore – the February 22, 1980, shocker that the U.S. hockey team pulled off against the unbeatable Soviets – but he reproduces each and every hockey movement of the game to such an excruciating degree that it's all the harder to forgive him for paying scant attention to the rest of the games that the Americans played to cop the gold. The interstitital mini-biographies of the various players and Coach Herb Brooks (whose 2003 funeral following a fatal car crash serves as the book's curtain-raiser) break the game narrative up to the point that the book is a bit confusing to read. It's an OK effort, but Do You Believe in Miracles? (the HBO documentary) and Miracle (the Disney feature flick) remain the best reminiscences of this epochal moment in sports history, now almost exactly a quarter-century old.

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