So Many Reviews...So Little Time

Spike it! "The Men of Tomorrow" by Gerard Jones

"Here Lies Mort Weisinger--As Usual." p. 131

If ever there was a cautionary tale, it is this one: What can happen if you follow your bliss and chase your heart's desire, without considering the bottom line or getting a good lawyer. It's the story of the young sons-of-immigrants who created, developed and exploited the new invention of the comic book industry--that strange concoction of the pulps, science fiction and funny papers that spawned the superhero craze, started when two jewish kids from Ohio created "Superman." The story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster is the main subject of "Men of Tomorrow" by Gerard Jones, a past comic writer himself, who understands the psyche behind the superhero, and the various creators--some shy, some bullies, some trying to avoid a regular job, all of them geeks--who dreamed them up, up and away.
This was the bed in which the comic book was conceived: counter-cultural, lowbrow, idealistic, prurient, pretentious, mercenary, forward-looking, and ephemeral, all in the same instant. p.62

But Jones delves into the whole era--not just Siegel and Shuster, but also the history of DC comics, the home of "Superman," which began life as the antithesis of "Truth, Justice and The American Way," at least not in the way that Way was percieved. The original printer-publishing house of Harry Donenfeld was also a cover for bootlegging gangsters like Frank Costello, as well as distributing pornography. The philosophy was not "what's good for America"(that would be considered when public officials and police started snooping around), but what would bring in the most sheckels.

So much of comic-bookishness is based on mythology, and so, too, is its history. After all, the folks telling their stories were fantasists writing about delusions of grandeur. But Jones bursts through the hyperbole, the accepted truths and industry legends with tight, beefy, compact prose full of good ideas, vivid attitude and no room for sentimentality. For instance, the familiar story of Siegel and Shuster was that "Superman" was stolen out from under them and they were left to live in poverty by the indifferent money-men of "Superman's" publishers. Some of that is true. But it's also true that Siegel and Shuster (and certainly Siegel)also, out of arrogance or their own hubris wouldn't hire lawyers when questions first arose, and were willing to let "Superman" go, thinking that they could come up with even better properties. It's a book full of professional success and personal failings, about what it takes to succed in America, and how ideas become commodities.

The comics was not a meritocracy. Call it an opportunocracy, a fluke-ocracy, a dumb-ass-luck-ocracy. The truest kind of American enterprise. p. 203

It's a pleasure reading this book. Not just for the refreshing clearing of the musty air of comics' origins, but also for the way Jones tells it. There is a tight precision to his prose that brings a smile to the lips (even if you're moving them while reading) and a satisfaction to the heart. Jones likes to tell his story, and build up incident and then hit you with a zinger, as here in his description of one of National Periodicals' contributors, Major Wheeler-Nicolson:

The major wore a French officer's cloak, a boulevardier's sharp moustache, a supercilious glare, and a beaver hat always perfectly brushed. He also had bad teeth. He claimed to have been a hero in the world war and a cavalry commander in the undeclared war against the Bolsheviks in Russia. Upon the end of hostilities, went his story, he's grown troubled by the "Prussianism" rampant among his superiors and saw threats ahead to our domestic institutions. He wrote a letter of warning to President Harding and was rewarded with a court martial, a trumped-up charge that he tried to escape his cell, and a gunshot to his head. After his dishonorable discharge he's come to New York and become a sought-after magazine writer with stories based on his own knowledge of the hell of war. The major couldn't have shoveled half as much horse manure in the cavalry as he did in New York. p. 101

Jones begins one segment with a perfectly precise. cogent and clear-eyed look at the Second World War and its aftermath globally, societally, socialogically and psychologically without any "Greatest Generation" sentimentality. It's one of the best summings-up of the conflict I've ever read, and its just three pages of the beginning of one section of this enjoyable book. Along with the Siegels and Shusters and Donenfelds and Leibowitzes, it talks about the stories of other sons of immigrants and how they waded through the treacherous waters of "work-for-hire." Some, like Bob Kahn (or "Bob Kane") as he became known simply lied to get a better deal. Stanley Lieber ("Stan Lee") ingratiated himself with his superiors. Jacob Kurtzberg ("Jack Kirby") toughed it out like a street-kid. And some, like Mort Weisinger, the subject of the Julius Schwartz quote above, just bullied and berated and lied through his teeth.

None of them knew how everything would begin to change when that first issue of Action Comics came out. None of them could have foreseen how they would change the popular culture of America. None of them could have imagined how different their own lives would become, how huge the money and the fame and the ruination would be. p.125

A good read, a fun read, and a sobering one.

Finally, I'm grateful to this book for re-introducing the term "schmendrick" into my life, courtesy of Art Spiegelman's back-cover blurb.
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Tales From the Red Envelope:


Dreamgirls (Bill Condon, 2006)
Think "The Color Purple" in sequined gowns and moved north to Motown and you've got it in a nutsell. Or the story of "The Supremes" but without the good music. I've always liked the material provided Motown's premiere girl-group (the singer, not the song/the singer, not the song) even though they were vamping cross-gendered "Pip's," but I've always had a feeling like chewing aluminum foil when it comes to uber-diva Diana Ross. In fact the only concert I'd kept a record of was the one in Central Park that was interrupted by a freak thunderstorm of such magnitude that New Yorkers started leaving in throngs (cabs and coaches being presumably unavailable), while the rain-pelted, wind-whipped Ross was exhorting "Please! Stay! Just sing with me! It'll blow over! " (It didn't. Sometimes reality can overwhelm ego) That one always gave me a chuckle. Poor drenched Diana. Nobody loved her enough to risk electrocution. Musta been hard.

So to see a fictionalized version of their story, even one not to Ms. Ross' liking, might have had some sort of crass-enjoyment to it. But the songs have none of the agressive bop of Motown pop, the conceit of songs in concert/songs as commentary doesn't work and most of the performances try to trudge through the treacle unsuccessfully. Who'd have thought that Beyonce, child of Mariah, born of Whitney, out of Diana would prove to be such a non-entity on-screen, even when the movie is made to order for her. And the very talented Jamie Foxx can't play a bad guy when all his life he has sung like a good guy. It is his sorry fate to be cast as "Mister" splitting up the women, then banished to inconsequence when we end with The Big Reunion.

But...the things that make the movie watchable and of any interest at all are Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy. Hudson won the Oscar for the over-wrought "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going," but her bad-attitude acting and her quieter singing are what really make you miss her when she's off-screen. And Murphy proves that, despite the schlock that he's attached his name to, he's a man of unqualified gifts. His fictionalized riff on James Brown shows the athleticism, the brio, the stage-power and the inherent puffery of "A Hardest Working Man in Show Business." Not a false or contrived-cute note in that performance. And he sings good, too. He shoulda won that Oscar.
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Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick, 2006)
E.B. White's children's classic comes out in a live action version (there was an animated musical in 1973 with Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte the spider, Paul Lynde as Templeton the rat, and Henry Gibson as Wilbur the pig--Rex Allen narrated), which could just as well be called "Babe II," if there's wasn't already one. Not to worry, though. As movies of children's classics go, this one's really good--a bit awash in celebrity voices, but the kids won't care, and it does give the parents something to do ("Who's doing the cows do you think?") Since I've given you the '73 version, I'll tell you who does the same for 2006--a very sober Julia Roberts as Charlotte, Steve Buscemi as Templeton, and kid-actor Dominic Scott Kay as Wilbur--Sam Shepard narrates. Dakota Fanning ably shoulders the role of Fern, and while she's not as scarily real in this one, she's not annoyingly sugar-coated , either. Director Winick keeps the special effects unflashy, although there are some intricate CGI spider-web moves (left over from Sam Raimi story-boards, no doubt) that are over quickly. It feels properly home-spun, and Danny Elfman's score, though it brings on the "Edward Scissorhands" Choir, still manages to evoke the joys of simple gifts without beating you over the head with them. I remember one of my grade-school teachers reading "Charlotte" in class, and at one pivotal point, the entire class weeping. That point in the movie brought tears to K., so it did its job. The bonus is you get to hear Robert Redford doing an out and out comedy turn. How rare is that?
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Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

This is the first Miyazaki animation I have seen, and it's a little off-putting to be hit with so much in one film--a bit like "Yellow Submarine" but with crystal meth instead of mushrooms--everything's just a little bit threatening. And one has to get used to the sudden shifts in motivations of characters at times, and the almost constant sense of dislocation. Puts one in sympathy with the main character, certainly, and keeps one mindful that we're back in Oz, again, except the Emerald City is a bathhouse, and the Great and Powerful Oz is also the Wicked Witch of the West. Better take "Howl's Moving Castle" off the queue, and replace it with "My Neighbor Totoro." K. lost patience with it 90 minutes in, and went to bed.