Some Sunday briefs.
- Your weird real world reference to that Batman: The Cult mini-series from a few years back:
“If you’re old enough to remember the Jim Starlin/Berni Wrightson comic-book series, Batman: The Cult, you’ll recall the slightly ridiculous, mostly awesome monster-truck version of the Batmobile in the story. Finally, life has imitated art: Batman, the truck, is the reigning Monster Jam World Racing Champion.”
Includes photo of said truck, which may or may not resemble the Batmobile from The Cult. Sorry, been a while since I’ve read The Cult, so I’m just gonna take the article’s word for it.
- NEAR LEGO DISASTER!
- Currently reading volumes 3 and 4 of Hank Ketcham’s Complete Dennis the Menace collections from Fantagraphics…well, okay, I’m not reading them both at once, but rather I read volume 3, and now am reading volume 4. These things are nearly review-proof, in that 1) they’re reprints of the daily Dennis panels, and 2) you know what Dennis the Menace is like, and if you enjoy it, well, here’s a whole lot of it, and if you don’t enjoy it, you aren’t going to be reading this anyway.
The presentation is nearly perfect…nice big ‘n’ clear reproductions of the panels, allowing for detailed appreciation of Ketcham’s linework, at one panel per page. The pages themselves are just slightly bigger than the panels, making for one fat, square book.
A few things I noticed which amused me in my perusal of these comics:
1. Dennis’ pop Henry is kind of a letch, with Dennis always calling him out, nearly always in mom Alice’s presence, on his ogling girls at the beach or in magazines and whatnot.
2. Dennis’ dog Ruff, more often than not, is presented with a thought balloon containing a single question mark, in reaction to Dennis speaking to him, or Dennis doing something terrible right in front of him, and so on. A nice contrast to the army of talking, intelligent animals on the funnypages.
3. There are an awful lot of one-shot supporting characters (or “victims”), and Ketcham gave each one a unique and amusing appearance. If anything, these books give you a new appreciation for Ketcham’s ability for character and caricature.
4. I…ahem…sorta find Alice slightly attractive. SHUT UP I KNOW SHE’S A COMIC STRIP CHARACTER.
5. Also, even at one panel a page, it feels like it took forever to get through these books, so you’ll definitely be getting your money’s worth.
So there you go…if you like Dennis the Menace, here are several hundred pages worth, in about as nice and permanent a package as you can reasonably expect. I wasn’t even that much of a Dennis fan, and after reading these volumes, I want to go back and get the first two, now that I have a newfound appreciation for the comic.
