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Media Tie-In Stories - Page 6

X-Files, vol. 1 (2005 -- Checker Publishing collection)
see my review here

Written by Stefan Petrucha. Illustrated by Charles Adlard.
Colours: George Freeman, Laurie E. Smith. Letters: John Workman. Editor: Jim Salicrup, Dwight Jon Zimmerman.

Reprinting: The X-Files #1-6, plus a short tale from Hero Illustrated Magazine #22. (1995)

Additional notes: interview with series' creator, Chris Carter

Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

Published by Topps Comics

My review is based, not on the TPB collection, but on an earlier printing of these issues. As such, I haven't read one of the stories included in this TPB -- a rare X-Files story published in Hero Illustrated #22.

The X-Files TV series featured a couple of then largely unknown actors as lone wolf F.B.I. agents investigating monsters and UFOs, all the while fighting a shadowy conspiracy within their own government, and was perhaps unusual for taking itself seriously (though it did the occasional lighter episode and, indeed, went increasingly that route in later seasons). Previous series touching on like material were often tongue-in-cheek, or went the Scoopy Do route of having non-supernatural explanations for the cases. The fact that the closest progenitor people can point to was the TV series Kolchak -- some twenty years earlier -- indicates how barren the field was of competitors. But the X-Files became a genuine pop phenomenon, inspiring a whole slew of like minded series exploring the supernatural with a brooding seriousness, and portraying dark scenarios of sinister conspiracies. Most failed, of course, but that hasn't stopped pundits from declaring a populist trend. Even the X-Files ran out of steam long before its end -- I stopped being a regular viewer about half way through the series' nine year run.

But I still have generally positive feelings towards the series, due in part to an unhealthy infatuation with actress Gillian Anderson, and partly because I was smart enough to stop watching before boredom turned to bitterness. Topps -- a trading card company that made a valiant effort to be a serious comic publisher in the early 1990s with glossy comics usually derived from existing properties -- published a successful X-Files comic...and these early issues at least do a remarkable job of evoking the series.

Though the TV series was only about a year old, writer Stefan Petrucha seems to have developed an instant affinity for his material as F.B.I. agents Mulder and Scully investigate various UFO and conspiracy-related cases. My first taste of X-Files related comics was from slightly later in the series' run, when the chief writer seemed to be John Rozum. Rozum, to be fair, certainly evoked aspects of the TV series...unfortunately, he seemed to be emulating the lesser episodes with monotonous stories of the characters just wandering about, quasi-investigating a pretty obvious concept (to be fair, I've only read a couple of Rozum's issues, and that may not be a good sample). But with these early issues, Petrucha delivers pretty good stuff. Telling murky tales where you, sometimes, have to struggle to even figure out what's going on -- just like the series! -- he also keeps the tempo up, making these tales fast, even action-packed, without losing the cerebral flavour of the show. There's also some pleasantly amusing wit and humour.

"Do Not Open Until X-Mas" (#1) perhaps suffers from its shorter length. The story is almost too confusing, and too rushed -- though you get your money's worth of plot crammed into 24 pages. And, conversely, the confusion can be good since, if you've bought this, it's good to have stories that encourage second readings to appreciate the ins and outs. But even better are the two-part tale from #2-3, and especially the highly entertaining three part "Firebird" (#4-6). Reading these, you'd swear you've come upon lost episodes of the series.

Since it's hard to write a concurrent comic that parallels a TV series' story arcs, Petrucha seems to be laying the ground work for his own conspiracy. Cryptic references are made to someone named "Aquarius" that, I believe, are explored more fully in the later issues (collected, I think, in the second TPB). But that's hardly a detriment to enjoying this. After all, part of the nature of The X-Files is the notion of shadowy, open-ended conspiracies. And even if he diverges from the series' established conspirators, Petrucha covers himself. When Mulder encounters a particular cabal of conspirators, they freely admit that, for all they know, they're just one group who only think they control things.

And a little bit of socio-political satire becomes, unwittingly, even more sharp -- and chilling -- read years later. At one point, villains discuss how to cover up an incident, and one asks who should they (falsely) blame: Iran, Iraq, or North Korea? Given the fact that this comic was written years before George W. Bush's infamous "Axis of Evil" phrase in which he laid blame for much of the world's ills at the feet of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, and even his speech writers subsequently admitted North Korea was thrown in just for balance, the line becomes doubly pointed.

They main complaint about this collection is that, by focusing on UFOs and conspiracies, Petrucha ignores the other side of the X-Files, which was stories involving monsters and mutants.

Artist Charles Adlard has a crude, blocky style that, nonetheless, is appealing and quite effective. There's an energy at work, and he resists any urge to turn the characters into super hero wannabes with bursting muscles, or engaging in ridiculous gymnastics...without sliding too far the other way of making everything staid and static. Curiously, neither he, nor colourists Laurie Smith and George Freeman with their bright, attractive palettes, slavishly imitate the series' dark, shadow-drenched look, yet they still manage to evoke an unsettling world of creepy happenings and half-truths. Perhaps the main weakness with Adlard is that he doesn't exactly evoke the actors. To be fair, you can tell who they're supposed to be (though original supporting characters can be a bit homogenous, resulting in scenes where you aren't sure who's who), but since both actors -- David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson -- became mega sex symbols, it's worth noting there aren't any exquisite renderings of Ms. Anderson. Though she's still kind of cute in a few panels...

There are spots where Petrucha's script seems to jar with Adlard's pictures -- Mulder commenting on radiation readings...when he doesn't seem to have a geiger counter or anything in his hands. Or spots where dialogue balloons aren't clear as to who's saying what.

But, overall, thanks to Petrucha's twisty, fast-paced scripts and Adlard's unconventional, but energetic art, these X-Files stories do a very nice job of capturing the better aspects of the show between comicbook covers. Ironically, they do a better job in comics, than, to my mind, Charles Grant and Kevin Anderson did with their novels inspired by the series.

Interestingly enough, another entertaining comicbook spin-off was also X- Files related: Dark Horse's one-shot "Lone Gunmen Special" -- The Lone Gunmen being a humorous X-Fiiles spin-off that only lasted half-a-season on TV (so it's unlikely there'll be any more comics). But for fans of that short-lived piece of whimsy, you might want to scour the back issue bins for the comic.

The Truth (as the series proclaimed) isn't just "Out There"...but in the comics, too.

This is a review of the stories as they were reprinted in The X-Files Special Edition #1 and #2

Cover price: $__ CDN./ $19.95 USA 

The X-Files Collection, vol. 2  1996 (SC TPB) 150 pages

Written by Stefan Petrucha. Illustrated by Charles Adlard.
Colours: George Freeman, Laurie E. Smith. Letters: John Workman. Editor: Jim Salicrup, Dwight Jon Zimmerman.

Reprinting: The X-Files #7-12 (1995)

Rating: * * * *  (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Published by Topps Comics

This second collection of X-Files comics is actually tricky to assess. The first twelve issues of Topps' X-Files comic book series were intended to form a story arc (one that, cleverly, covered a year in the characters' lives...just as it was published over twelve months). Which means this contains the final half. Now, if you could only get one volume, you'd expect the second half of something like this to be better, or at least easier to follow, than the "open ended" first half. But that's not entirely true.

In the first place, the stories in volume one didn't entirely seem part of something greater. The nature of the X-Files TV series was that many stories were intended to end rather vaguely, hinting at bigger things that the characters, and the viewer, only caught glimpses of. In other words, you could happily read the first volume, only vaguely aware there might actually be a pay-off lurking just a few issues down the line.

But this second volume is the pay off -- and, as such, there are a lot of references to characters and incidents that occurred in the first six issues. References that won't make much sense if you haven't read those stories. So even though volume two provides the answers...the questions won't always make sense if you haven't read volume one.

With that being said, this second collection is still an enjoyable read. After having read various media tie-in comics over the years (mainly Star Trek, but also a few others) and rarely finding they captured the "je ne sais pas" of their sources, I've actually come across some pretty good media-inspired comics written in the last few years (the few Quantum Leap comics I read, for instance, nicely evoked the series). And Stefan Petrucha's X-Files is at the top of that list. Petrucha really seems to have a feel for the X- Files, for the flavour of the show, for the characters, and for drawing upon a wealth of obscure paranormal tidbits to add "credence" to his stories (the original comics even included annotations, listing books and magazine articles that provided Petrucha with some of his facts). Reading these comics you really do feel as though you're coming across lost episodes of the TV series.

For good and bad. After all, what made the series interesting -- the cryptic, oblique stories and halff hinted at solutions -- could also be its weakness -- wishy-washy plots where things aren't really explained satisfactorily.

The first story, "Trepanning Opera" (#7), involves F.B.I. Agents Mulder and Scully investigating a serial killer who can predict his own future crimes, even down to the weather on the day in question, because it's already happened for him! It's a nicely weird premise, boosted a lot by Petrucha's smart, literate writing (complete with the voice-over ruminations common to the TV show). And, no, this isn't a "serial killer" story in a grisly, lurid way that the series sometimes fell into. The main weakness is that it turns out it's meant to tie into the greater story arc...and because the "how" of the killer's ability isn't fully explained.

The rest of the book is divided into two stories -- "Silent Cities of the Mind" (#8, 9) and "Feelings of Unreality" (#10-12). And though billed as separate stories, they are more intricately connected than that, so that they almost form a single five issue arc. "Silent Cities of the Mind" has Mulder and Scully going to wilds of Alaska, involving a cannibal who believes he can acquire a person's memories by eating them, and a deserted, underground, Aztec city. I mean, how cool is that? As such, the final story line is almost a disappointment, as it involves Mulder and Scully back in more mundane urban centres, trying to root out the Aquarius conspiracy first hinted at back in the very first issue. Petrucha tries to tie together all the stories (in the comics), revealing they were all connected...not always convincingly. Still, it's a decent enough saga. And, again, I'm using as my benchmark the series itself -- the final story really does feel like an X-Files episode.

There is a "smartness" to Petrucha's writing that impresses, as he tackles weird ideas, but tying them into at times provocative themes involving memory, philosophy, and how we perceive reality. Many issues even begin with appropriate literary quotes (H.P. Lovecraft is misquoted in the original comic, though they may have fixed that for the TPB collection -- they also used "imminent" when I thinnk they meant "eminent"). One doesn't get the impression Petrucha is just collecting his pay check, nor that he's a glorified fan boy happy to just imitate the series. As mentioned, I honestly believe some of the stuff here is as good as the better TV episodes. The comics are often faster-paced, and Petrucha even has a slightly lighter touch at times, allowing for more wit and humour.

Charles Adlard's open, craggy art serves the tone of the thing well, capturing the right tone between shadow and light. Perhaps it's the very stylizedness of the thing that makes it work. A more literal, realist style might not seem as spooky. Admittedly, one can't claim he's captured an uncanny likeness of the characters, but you can generally tell who they are (well, supporting characters like Skinner and The Smoking Man not so much). And even though he can't be said to capture the incandescence of Gillian Anderson (be still my heart) I think he does capture an essence of her. And the colours, too, serve well, sometimes by being sombre and brooding, other times by suggesting an openness and light that serves as a clever counterpoint to the supernatural and the dark conspiracy plots.

Ultimately, not quite as strong as the first collection, if only because it's trying too hard to tie up plot threads, this is still a good volume, especially recommended to fans of the TV series. Petrucha would shortly leave the comic, and I'm not sure subsequent writers quite had his knack for it. It isn't just that he captures the series...he brings an intelligence and creativeness to it that makes it more than just a comic book spin-off.

This is a review of the stories as they originally appeared in X-Files comics.

Cover price: __

Xena
see the previous page -- yeah, xe should probably've come after x-f.

Zorro: The Dailies: The First Year 2001 (SC TPB) 232 pages

Written by Don McGregor. Illustrated by Thomas Yeates and Tod Smith.
Black & White. Letters: John Costanza. Editor: Sandra Curtis.

Reprints the Zorro newspaper strip from April 12, 1999 - April 9, 2000 - dailies and Sundays (plus a couple of new panels)

Additional notes: published in oblong format; intro by McGregor; history of Zorro in movies; creator bios.

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

Published by Image Comics

This is another review where I've amended and upgraded my review after a second reading...so we read on...

I was eager to try this newspaper strip compilation that collected -- not some old, "classic" strip -- but a recent one featuring everyone's favourite Robin Hood of old California: Zorro. Zorro, who began life in a series of pulp magazine stories by Johnston McCulley, and has been translated into movies (among the best are "The Mark of Zorro" with Tyrone Power and 1998's "The Mask of Zorro" with Antonio Banderas), plus serials, TV series, comics, and some recent novels, but might never before have graced a newspaper's page (though I'm not sure). It's written by Don McGregor, an ambitious, sometimes too ambitious, comics writer (his purple prose and philosopichal themes can sometimes go over-the-top) -- McGregor also wrote a short lived Zorro comic for Topps in the 1990s, that produced a few TPB collections, and is -- at the time I write this -- writing another Zorro comic for another publisher). And it's beautifully drawn by Tom Yeates and then Tod Smith (with Yeates on inks) in a style seeming meant to evoke Alex Toth (who drew some much praised Zorro comics in the 1960s).

Part of the problem daily comic strips suffer from is obvious repetition, the necessary recapping of what occurred previously that can be distracting when read all together in a comic book form. But McGregor does an exceptional job of maintaining the flow. Reading the strips together, it's hard to remember that these were originally staggered over many days.

As well, a problem comic strips face is that some newspapers just carry the dailies, and some the colour Sunday pages. The claim is that drama-adventure strips have to be written so someone can follow the story even if he/she is reading just, say, the Sunday strips. Some strips simply tell separate stories in the daily and the Sundays -- probably the best way of doing things. However, most narrative strips stick with one story. Although it's claimed that writers of comic strips can pull off the trick of making dailies and Sundays separate but connected...they very rarely do! Usually reading one without the other results in a choppy, slightly incoherent story. That's not a problem when collected like this -- but I just thought I'd mention it.

If I were to level a criticism at other adventure newspaper strips, it would be to say they tend to be too tight, with the action moving by too quickly, and little time for developing things. But with McGregor's Zorro, the problem is the opposite. Although imbuing the strips with character stuff, philosophical asides, and his patented purple prose, the sequences sometimes just go on and on and on. This collection of the first year of strips (dailies and Sundays) contains only two stories. By contrast, another adventure strip that comes to mind crammed six stories into a 52 week period!

But that would be all right if McGregor offered up complex, Byzantine plots to justify the length. He doesn't. The first story, "Tusk Envy", basically involves Zorro duelling with soldiers, trading quips and barbs (literally) while we keep cutting to a farmer and his son at the nearby La Brea Tar Pits contemplating harvesting the tusks from a Mastodon carcass that has risen to the surface. For the characters, the entire story line transpires over maybe half an hour. For the reader, it was originally published over the course of FOUR MONTHS!

It isn't that it doesn't have its moments, but it's awfully slight.

The second story line, "Dead Body Rising", seems more promising, starting out a bit slower, with more detail paid to Zorro's alter ego of Don Diego, and with a murdered Indian woman discovered in the tar pits -- aha! a murder mystery! -- and the ensuing action involves prejudice and 18th Century mores -- not your usual topics for a newspaper strip. The sinister Capitan Monasterio wants to bury the Indian woman in a Christian grave, while Zorro wants to preserve her beliefs and return her to her coastal Indian tribe, leading to Zorro stealing the body, a carriage, and a macabre chase. But, again, this eight month epic is extremely thin on plot, and even characterization (there's characterization, but it tends to be repetative). The chase sequence alone is stretched out over half the story!

And the murder mystery is barely developed at all. It was even less developed in its original form where, apparently, editorial skittishness required McGregor to be rather ambiguous about certain aspects; this collection contains a couple of new panels that clarify motivation.

But here's the thing: I'm kind of flip flopping in my opinion. All the above was my reaction when I first read it and, yes, I was disappointed. But then I recently re-read one of the story's (the longest: "Dead Body Rising") -- and I liked it more. I've noticed before that one's opinion can change, that you can be disappointed by something the first time but then, prepared for the shortcomings, you can appreciate the strengths the second time. In the case of "Dead Body Rising", it's still a bit thin, and the "who killed her?" aspect is still rather secondary. But that's because I first went into it expecting -- wanting -- a complex plot full of scene changes and plot twists, and I thought the chase, though imaginative, went on too long.

But read a second time, I realize: that's because the chase isn't just something inserted into the story, it is the story, in many ways. Just like there are some movies from the '70s ("The French Connection" or "Bullit") famous for their lengthy chase scenes, McGregor and company set out, rather audaciously, to try and do the Zorro chase sequence. So once I read it a second time, and realized the chase wasn't a minor action scene but was, in a sense, the climactic sequence, I enjoyed it more.

I read a lot of the scenes, at first, as things meant to carry me along into the next scene. But, the second time through, I read them as just things to be enjoyed for their own sake, less concerned with whether the "plot" was being advanced. And, again, I got more out of it.

McGregor introduces original supporting characters, in addition to regulars like Monasterio, and the comic relief Sgt. Garcia. Although one can appreciate the larger-than-life, James Bond-ian aspects of villain Quickblade, equiped as he is with gadgety swords, as a personality, he's rather dull and unimposing. And shouldn't he have a Spanish name to add to the strips' ethnic flavour? Also tossed in is Eulalia Bandini, a feisty Senorita who occupies much of "Dead Body Rising"...only to just kind of disappear from the story. Perhaps McGregor continued with her in later strips? (If there were later strips...I don't know how long it ran).

There's much to like here. Yeates and Smith's effective, dynamic and evocative art. And McGregor tries hard in the writing, mixing philosophical asides with sophomoric humour; as well as unconventional ideas that broaden the scope of a Zorro story, while still staying within the milieu: touching on prejudice and Christian-egomania. Some of his action scenes are truly imaginative and even spectacular: the carriage chase as it slowly loses wheels, or the flight across hoodoos. Good stuff. There are also shortcomings. McGregor's mixing of comedy and drama is admirable...but it isn't always as funny as he thinks it is. Too many of the characters are written the same, and the deliberate lapsing into modern (and un-Spanish) colloquialisms doesn't fully work. Nonetheless, McGregor is definitely tying to write an adult, thinking man's comic strip.

So I'm torn -- the first time through, though I applauded the strengths, I felt without complex plots, it started to collapse under its own thinness, with action scenes that are cool for a few days worth of strips...but get overdone after a month. A second time through -- demanding less from plot, and taking more from the spirit -- I enjoyed it more. But even now, deciding I enjoyed it more, and don't begrudge it a space on my book shelf, I still feel that, for such an expensive collection, it delivers a little less than the reader has a right to expect. But -- yes, I guess I'm now forced to say I did, at least moderately, enjoy it.

But given the strengths, I can't help thinking how great it could have been.

One final aside: Image really needs to invest in a proof reading department. The reproduced strips are fine, but there are numerous typos and mistakes in the introductions and creator bios (at one point referring to McGregor's Lady Rawhide as Lucy Rawhide) and even on the back cover (using "it's" when they meant "its")! Yikes.

Cover price: $29.95 CDN. / $18.95 USA.

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