Inkthinker
09-01-2004, 06:33 PM
Written by our very own Benito J. Cereno and illustrated by Graeme MacDonald, this one-shot book from Image comics hit the shelves this week.
And it is weird. I mean Adult-Swim weird (in fact, at several points the humour and the plot direction reminds me of the Williams Street cartoons, with the plot turning corners like that car in Automan or the bikes in Tron, just when you think it's going one way, *VWIP!*, left turn, we're going to Mars!). Starring the legendary Teddy Roosevelt, the ghost of Thomas Edison and a host of Nazis, Martians, and Neo-Nazi Martians, Benito and MacDonald have crafted a story set to take your ass and shake it upside down until the nickels drop out.
Set in 3 chapters, (i'm unsure of the page count, but I'm guessing around 64 pages), the plot begins as the original Rough Rider sneaks into the abandonded home of Thomas Edison. Roosevelt has come to the future seeking a way to move through space as well as time, and begins his search in the year 2000, where he's disappointed by the lack of flying cars (me too, Mr. President, me too). He encounters the ghost of Edison, and through a series of twists discovers Nazis in South America and battles alongside some of history's most legendary heroes against Hitler (because it's always Hitler, isn't it?) and a host of history's most dastardly villians to defend the freedom of Mars.
The writing is pretty distinctly Benito, but I say that with full familiarity with his prose, after almost half a decade of reading his ramblings here and elsewhere. Essentially that means a wild swing between bombastic style and bitter wit, usually personfied by the respective characters of Roosevelt and Edison. The dialogue is rife with the idiosyncrasies of the respective characters, keeping each one alive and constantly amusing.
The plot is, as I mentioned, composed of the sort of bizarre goofy-ass never-pause plot twists that remind me a lot of the best improv comedians... no matter how absurd things get, you just keep running with it. And as a result, possibly by virtue of being so damn nonsensical, it actually works. It's as if by going far enough into the realm of the bizarre you can come out the other side and are left with, amazingly enough, a cohesive story. Certainly Benito never pauses to try and make sense of anything that happens... as Edison says at one point, "this is the most retarded science I've ever seen". Whether he's smacking down Nazis or settin fire to Martian forts, Teddy Roosevelt never allows something as mundane as impossiblity slow him down, and in the fashion of the best pulp fiction contemporaries of the characters our heroes use loose logic and bombastic attitude to emerge victorious where lesser characters might have allowed themselves to become quagmired by such unecessary issues as "facts".
MacDonald's artwork meshes well with the story, each character being uniquely reconizable and expressive. I'm not as familiar with Graeme's work as I am with Benito's, but I have to admit that it's not the sort of style I'm usually attracted to (then again, I'm a picky bastard about illustration). The backgrounds are simple but serviceable, and the characters tend to match. The graphic storytelling is very strong, though, and his style is clear and easy to read. I'm especially amused by the expressions of the characters, which MacDonald illustrates very effectively, and which do a lot to sell the characters themselves. The sequential timing here works really well, and overall I'd say that the artwork is well-suited to the material.
Tales From the Bully Pulpit clocks in at (again, a guess) 64 pages, squarebound, for $6.95, which struck me as a bit expensive at first glance... but it's served better by the format (I almost feel as though it might have originally been designed as a 3-issue miniseries, but it's much better as longer, single story), and the price is eqivalent to other books which provide a lot less laughs and a lot less pure fun. And that, more than anything, seems to be what the book is all about. It's about having fun, about enjoying a story, no matter how outrageous it gets, and laughing the entire way.
More books should be so pure in their purpose.
And it is weird. I mean Adult-Swim weird (in fact, at several points the humour and the plot direction reminds me of the Williams Street cartoons, with the plot turning corners like that car in Automan or the bikes in Tron, just when you think it's going one way, *VWIP!*, left turn, we're going to Mars!). Starring the legendary Teddy Roosevelt, the ghost of Thomas Edison and a host of Nazis, Martians, and Neo-Nazi Martians, Benito and MacDonald have crafted a story set to take your ass and shake it upside down until the nickels drop out.
Set in 3 chapters, (i'm unsure of the page count, but I'm guessing around 64 pages), the plot begins as the original Rough Rider sneaks into the abandonded home of Thomas Edison. Roosevelt has come to the future seeking a way to move through space as well as time, and begins his search in the year 2000, where he's disappointed by the lack of flying cars (me too, Mr. President, me too). He encounters the ghost of Edison, and through a series of twists discovers Nazis in South America and battles alongside some of history's most legendary heroes against Hitler (because it's always Hitler, isn't it?) and a host of history's most dastardly villians to defend the freedom of Mars.
The writing is pretty distinctly Benito, but I say that with full familiarity with his prose, after almost half a decade of reading his ramblings here and elsewhere. Essentially that means a wild swing between bombastic style and bitter wit, usually personfied by the respective characters of Roosevelt and Edison. The dialogue is rife with the idiosyncrasies of the respective characters, keeping each one alive and constantly amusing.
The plot is, as I mentioned, composed of the sort of bizarre goofy-ass never-pause plot twists that remind me a lot of the best improv comedians... no matter how absurd things get, you just keep running with it. And as a result, possibly by virtue of being so damn nonsensical, it actually works. It's as if by going far enough into the realm of the bizarre you can come out the other side and are left with, amazingly enough, a cohesive story. Certainly Benito never pauses to try and make sense of anything that happens... as Edison says at one point, "this is the most retarded science I've ever seen". Whether he's smacking down Nazis or settin fire to Martian forts, Teddy Roosevelt never allows something as mundane as impossiblity slow him down, and in the fashion of the best pulp fiction contemporaries of the characters our heroes use loose logic and bombastic attitude to emerge victorious where lesser characters might have allowed themselves to become quagmired by such unecessary issues as "facts".
MacDonald's artwork meshes well with the story, each character being uniquely reconizable and expressive. I'm not as familiar with Graeme's work as I am with Benito's, but I have to admit that it's not the sort of style I'm usually attracted to (then again, I'm a picky bastard about illustration). The backgrounds are simple but serviceable, and the characters tend to match. The graphic storytelling is very strong, though, and his style is clear and easy to read. I'm especially amused by the expressions of the characters, which MacDonald illustrates very effectively, and which do a lot to sell the characters themselves. The sequential timing here works really well, and overall I'd say that the artwork is well-suited to the material.
Tales From the Bully Pulpit clocks in at (again, a guess) 64 pages, squarebound, for $6.95, which struck me as a bit expensive at first glance... but it's served better by the format (I almost feel as though it might have originally been designed as a 3-issue miniseries, but it's much better as longer, single story), and the price is eqivalent to other books which provide a lot less laughs and a lot less pure fun. And that, more than anything, seems to be what the book is all about. It's about having fun, about enjoying a story, no matter how outrageous it gets, and laughing the entire way.
More books should be so pure in their purpose.