john and jana

The Starlost

A lot of reviewers choose to bury “The Starlost,” but I’m here to praise it. This four-DVD collection of all 16 episodes of the show may be one of the most awaited releases ever — at least among a certain crowd.

The Canadian television series is largely known as being a high-profile disaster — not a financial one, but a creative one, thanks to the loud mouth of legendary science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who created it. Ellison had a bad break-up with the show’s producers (after writing the first episode), and he began to cry artistic compromise, brandishing the finished product as just south of loathsome.

The show — run in Canada in 1973, followed by a late-night stint in the United States on NBC — has been an obscurity since. In that time, it gained a reputation for being a lifeless, cheap piece of junk, a laughable disaster deserving ridicule. Does it deserve that legacy? I don’t think so.

The set-up is inspired. The show begins in a weird Amish/hillbilly community called Cyprus Corners, where Devon (Keir Dullea) finds himself on the wrong side of the town elders when the girl he loves, Rachel (Gay Rowan), is promised to his friend Garth (Robin Ward).

Rebellious and shunned, Devon makes his way to a site of local worship — a dark cave protected by a massive steel door. He manages to get past the door and discovers that his world is merely one biosphere of 53 onboard a giant spaceship called the Ark, which was launched from Earth 500 years before. It is now without a crew and hurtling toward a sun. Eventually, Devon, Rachel and Garth all find themselves wandering the ship, moving from biosphere to biosphere in an attempt to find someone with the ability to correct the doomed course.

This journey sometimes results in stories that are pretty intriguing — check out “The Goddess Calabra,” which has Rachel captive as the only woman capable of breeding in a biosphere ruled by cryptic religion, or “Gallery of Fear,” which has the trio stumble upon an art gallery where their memories become part of the installation. Other times, the story can be admittedly a bit silly — witness “The Beehive,” in which the travelers discover a biosphere of giant bees. It’s hardly ever boring though.

The show is realized via clunky but sincere performances and sets that look good but suffer, thanks to the use of video, which adds little ambiance to the surroundings — scenes are often just too way too well lit. The production is comparable to British science fiction of the same era — often it looks better than “Doctor Who.”

“The Starlost” seems less like a professional television production and more like a spirited public-access show, but that’s really part of the charm. Slick production values often mask old ideas and this shows’ contemporaries — “Battlestar Galactica,” “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and “Man from Atlantis” — only drive that point home. “The Starlost,” by contrast, was a low-end maverick among standard television fare. If it doesn’t quite match an episode of the new “Battlestar Galactica,” it certainly beats every episode of the original one, and that’s the comparison that counts.

Admittedly, “The Starlost” is not for everyone, but I found it to be every bit as eccentric and diverting and exciting as it was to me as an 8-year-old. If shallowness is the biggest scourge of much of today’s screen science fiction then “The Starlost” stands up very well. The DVD set is a great bit of video archaeology.

The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire

Rounding out his trilogy of rural Canadian life, Jeff Lemire’s “The Country Nurse” examines the history in the choices we make, the patterns in the lives of families and the connections between people that define the lives portrayed. Continue Reading…

Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston

When you’re a kid who doesn’t quite fit in, the art world can be a mysterious and alluring creature. A lot of people go through that phase where you become entranced by Warhol, where you blunder into some art students somewhere and they capture your imagination. You never thought such a thing existed.

The new title from Minx Books captures that moment in life — even the title “Emiko Superstar” is an Andy Warhol reference. The Superstars were his inner coterie of hangers-on who found their way into his films and parties. They were the attraction as much as his work — in many ways, they were his work. Author Mariko Tamaki understands that very often the way young people become interested in art is through the appearance of their local art scene and cache of cool that accompanies the more outrageous in recent art history.

Emiko is a teenage girl trying to get through the summer in with a baby-sitting job when two significant events coincide that will change her school vacation. One is that she is handed an invite to a performance art club called The Factory (like Warhol’s hangout and studio) — the other is that she blunders upon her employer’s secret diary. The allure of the scene at The Factory proves too much for Emiko and the diary becomes her key to performance superstardom.

Tamaki — a veteran of the Toronto art scene — is able to investigate the real issues of such worlds in a way that walks the appropriate line of being realistic without discouraging. The thrill of belonging to an enthusiastic, no-holds-barred creative tribe is well presented, but so is the unnecessary competitive side, the egos, creative dishonesty and laziness and, most important, the occasional incidence of sleazy older guys who just want to insinuate control over creative young gals.

Tamaki also slyly points out the fascination of the counter culture with the middle class world they turn their back on — they want to understand why they don’t fit in and Emiko’s monologue’s offer some insight to that world. Tamaki does her job by giving back a little — she obviously crossed worlds and “Emiko Superstar” is like a little dispatch from that other dimension, a little reassurance if you’re that kid that doesn’t fit in to go with your instincts, be curious and open, but just watch your back — the art world’s no less devious than the suburbs, but it can be a lot more interesting.

Nerf Battle

Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati

“Paul Goes Fishing” is a sweet slice of Quebecois life that covers an existence not extraordinary necessarily, but honest in its presentation and likable in its demeanor. Creator Michel Rabagliati invites readers into some very personal space via his apparent alter ego, dealing with that most awkward of spaces — the one where you grow up, the one where you know nothing — without any posturing.

Paul is a graphic designer who takes a couple weeks off with his pregnant wife to stay at a fishing camp with his sister-in-law and her angling obsessed husband. With a baby on the way, Paul finds that all reflection and conversation points to the reality of impending fatherhood — but not in a cliched, fearful way. Paul, rather than shaking at the prospect, is using his experiences and those of others to qualify what it all means.

The pregnancy works as a leveler in the relationship with his more successful old friend Peter — finally something good is happening to Paul even as it does Peter. It becomes a more complicated happening in contrast to his sister-in-law, who tells a harrowing tale of almost-adoption, and from Paul’s own memory of an abused kid he meets on an ill-fated attempt to run away from home.

Through all the trauma presented, Rabagliati’s tale is never overwrought, but rather charming, even at the saddest moments. It also stands as a nice little testament to the great Canadian road trip as a journey of discovery and marriages as a delightful in-joke that two people are lucky enough to share.

This is just one book in a series — Rabagliati has apparently devoted his creative life to have Paul’s unfold in graphic novel form. It’s filled with the kind of gentle earnestness that you don’t often see and I can’t wait to read more about Paul’s entirely normal life.

John and Jana in New Brunswick on the way to get pie

I bring you good tidings from Canada

If there is one thing I figured out in Canada it’s that I’d much rather wake up everyday to read news items about the arguments between Anglophones and Francophones. At least I like both those sides, something I cannot say about Democrats and Republicans.

I also like the fact that Kit Kat bars and coffee are considered an appropriate snack combination.

The snack thing wasn’t the big news in New Brunswick, though — the tussle of early French immersion in schools was. Count this among the things stupid old me didn’t realize - New Brunswick is the only official bilingual province in Canada.

We happened to be there on New Brunswick Day but except for an all NB gush edition of the St. John newspaper we didn’t see any celebrations. And according to the paper NB’s greatest attribute is niceness. With the exception of one waitress I’ll go with that.

And crazy ocean currents. If you like those then NB is the place for you. Seriously. We saw a couple of the most renowned - Old Sow, a huge whirlpool, and Reversing Falls in St John - and also encounter them routinely as we set our kayaks out into the ocean and found swirls of crazy patterns moving us around. The tides are totally crazy - we pulled onto the shore of an island only to come back an hour later to find thm in the middle of the beach. These are not helped any by the crazy weather patterns that I immediately recalled from our trip to Nova Scotia a decade ago - rain, sun, rain, sun, fog, bright, all over the course of a morning. One trip out to the island and then to the smaller craggy rock islands further out saw a sunburnt afternoon transform itself into a cold rainy one with difficult choppy waters and back again by the time we got to shore. More trips into the ocean followed, more craziness with the weather and the tides walked hand in hand.

Everywhere along the coast - simply the entire damn thing - was a scene of stark alien splendor of browns and grays with giant, curiuosly formed boulders, cut through by the tides, and stone beaches made of colorful and speckled egg-perfect rocks. I don’t think I saw one shoreline that wasn’t striking due to it’s own individual geometry.

As usual I immersed myself in Canadian news. Aside from a couple items now and then, not much is reported on the US, maybe a short weird bit of news or some columnist. It’s entirely possible to stay at arm’s length from the US and that’s a very comfortable position for me.
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Therefore Repent! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam

The Rapture has provided adventure fodder for those who believe in it — I’m looking at you especially, Tim LeHaye — as well as those who don’t. To the best of my knowledge, though, it’s never been depicted as anything other than exactly what is happening. God has taken all the Christians away to Heaven and the Earth is ruled by the Anti Christ, with the Final Battle soon to follow.

In “Therefore Repent!” Canadian team Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam depict a post-Rapture world where nothing is for certain. The creator turn the bizarre religious belief into a science fiction scenario that has the characters actually searching for explanations beyond the accepted one while still working within the parameters of popular legend we all accept, either with straight face or with conspicuous snickers.

Raven and Mummy are two bohemian performance artists who wander around in their performance costumes. Squatting in an abandoned apartment in a little urban neighborhood, the two become acquainted with their surroundings and the other people left behind. One of the givens of the Rapture is that it would create a world populated mostly by artists and ne’er do wells, at least among the respectable crowds.

Munroe and Salgood also play with the likely post-Rapture psychology in regard to reactionary acting out that provide daily dangers and annoyances to the survivors. The Splitters are a group of people who believe there will be a second Rapture and they have one more chance to follow Jesus. Meanwhile, religious militia with names like “God’s Faithful” roam around spreading dread.

There is one way to read the Bible that is between the lines and that is to ask the simple questions “Who is God? What’s his story? Why’s he so vague about where he comes from and what he wants?” While “Therefore Repent!” may not be moving down that road exactly, it’s certainly in that spirit. The conclusion recontextualizes the circumstances of the Apocalypse in an inventive and fun way — oh, yeah, and kind of corny. But good corny. Real good corny. The kind of corny that twists things inside out and lays out some intriguing possibilities as it unfolds. The kind of corny that’s missing from the eye-rolling corny that infects the belief “Therefore Repents!” lampoons.

A little of this

News that Canadians saw a record number of UFOs in 2007 suggests to me that they aren’t any less whacked out than we are, just much more polite. Which still makes it a preferable country to me.

We will be heading to New Brunswick, after skipping a year in our annual respite to the gentle wilderness to the north. I have a feeling we won’t be encountering any UFOs, just your general Canadian-ness.

Which is a long way of stating that I haven’t put much up here recently and felt like posting. Jana went out on her backpacking trip and relatives were swirling around and I’ve been doing lots of things at the newspaper and it’s very, very hot. And since Jana was taking a week off of The Bob, I decided to do the same on my two more time consuming creative projects, Danger Brigade and The Secret History of El Comics.

Top John news:

Got an iPod Touch. It’s the best gadget I’ve ever had. It replaces my Palm (if anyone wants to buy a used Palm off me, speak up) and it fulfills that need plus some. For one, it’s actually compatible with my Macbook. For two, it’s simpler to use than the Palm. For three, you can go online with it if you find a wireless network. For four, I get to watch snippets of old British science fiction shows that I can’t imagine having the time for other than within the nooks and crannies of my life.

Workwise, I had several excellent interviews these last couple weeks — Nick Zammuto, of The Books, about his Laser Show at the Williams College Museum of Art — love Nick, he’s such a great guy. Also, Ike Sheldon from The Wilders , the best new band that I have encountered. They’re an all acoustic hillbilly band with tinges of bluegrass — they rock the hell out of most the crap that sells these days. Ike was a real nice guy and a great character. Best of all, I had a great chat with comic artist Joe Staton, who will have a gallery show down in Pittsfield. I flipped when I saw he was going to do a show locally — Joe is all over my childhood, he drew practically everything I loved, and now he does stuff that Harry and Hugo love. Couldn’t pass that opportunity.

Oh, the Transcript now has a feed for my entertainment pages if anyone cares to subscribe.

I bought a new needle for my turntable and it broke in a day. I tried to get my money back, but have gotten no answer. I’m back to using the old one, which still sounds fine, but it’s annoying. The damn turntable is 20 years old and works like a dream — best electronics purchase I ever made.

I was getting really frustrated with new music I encountered and pulled out all my old Yazoo comps. Blues, country and jazz from the 20s and 30s has been the majority of my listening these days — seriously. Although I alternate it with artsy synth music — early Simple Minds, Dalek I Love You, Ladytron, very early Human League, stuff like that. It’s a mix that works better than you think it would and, strangely, really captures my North Adams surroundings.

Congorama

“Congorama” did quite well in Canada, winning several awards for best film and found its way easily into their top 10 films of 2006 — this new release gives audiences in the United States a chance to find out why. It’s a delightful film, a voyage of self-discovery via one clumsy visit to Canada, that starts out as one film and then turns itself inside out, becoming something else entirely

Oafish Michel (Olivier Gourmet) is a would-be Belgian inventor who can’t seem to invent anything that fires the imagination — or the purses of big business. His best inventions are a solar-powered robotic lawn mower that no one wants — most people assure him that they like mowing the lawn — and a wire de-icer that doesn’t inspire much in the corporations he tries to sell it to.

When Michel finds out he was adopted in Canada and brought to Belgium, he mixes a business trip with a gratuitous attempt to retrace his roots. He bumbles his way through it until it all ends abruptly, giving director Philippe Falardeau the chance to invert the entire experience and start the film over again, presenting the whole thing from an entirely different viewpoint. It starts out as a slice of life light comedy, but ends up as a comedic conspiracy film criticizing the movement of corporations and countries in co-opting the ideas of the small guy.

“Congorama” is also a film about identity and how a person forges his own. Are the shadows we live under those of biology or culture — or are they a mix of both that take strange forms and cause us to react in ways we don’t even understand — and might never? It’s a film that investigates secrets and realizations and how those conspire to create events with the illusion that there is a plan, rather than a series of interlinked accidents.

White Rapids by Pascal Blanchet

When it comes to picture books, industrialism just isn’t cool anymore — environmental concerns have taken over.

There was a time, however, when the archetypes of industry were scattered throughout children’s books — just take a look at the landscape as viewed by Scuffy the Tugboat in the old Golden Book of the same title. Steamshovels, factories, lighthouses made to feel small next to sprawling bridges that heralded in the engineering triumphs of the new age of man — all these things were routinely celebrated in picture books of old.

Revisiting that territory is Pascal Blanchet’s “White Rapids.” Blanchet, a Quebecois cartoonist, has fashioned a stylistically impressive tale of the communities raised and destroyed by the movements of industry. There is no animated, sentient heavy equipment here — instead, a dam, power plant and workers’ community built on the St. Maurice River, making mankind’s stamp on the wilderness in a haughty attempt to tame it for our comfort. It does not go as expected — but rather than a disaster, mankind’s failure is a whimper and a retreat.

Blanchet’s artwork is gloriously retro, but stylized with a smart hindsight that straddles affection with a knowing glance. He can tread the same territory as any other illustrator who depicts the pre-1960s world of commercial style and suburban socialization, but the breathtaking moments here are reserved for the trappings of big business — the retro-futuristic control room at the dam, the tunnel and township maps, boardrooms, train bridges, skyscrapers — all as exotic in their presentation as the wilds of Canada. This frontier, however, is tamed by outdoorsmen brandishing the latest gear, by housewives and block parties, by modern products flying off the grocery store shelves, of that old chestnut of a word that we don’t think about anymore because it’s no longer a novelty, progress.

Blanchet’s work is a paean to progress as nostalgia, a time when industry was a code for mankind moving forward, an era when the future was an exciting fad for people to buy into. The ultimate lesson is that we dream big and build big, but the mammoths of our ambitions are actually as delicate as the nature we trample over in our fury to move ever onward.

Northwest Passage by Scott Chantler

In Scott Chantler’s “Northwest Passage,” the glory of the western genre is taken to a new place for graphic novels — Canada. Chantler’s tale of a wilderness outpost in 1755 has all the thrills and grit of any novel about men taming the wild, but adds to it a cartoonish charm and a good helping of fascinating Canadian history — with informative annotations

The graphic novel tells the tale of archetypal he-man Charles Lord unfolds, warts and all. Lord is in charge of Fort Newcastle, a remote British-run trading post in what was known then as Rupert’s Land. This area, which included a good deal of Canada including portions of Quebec and Ontario, was under the control of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It was given to them by Charles II and essentially handed over to the company a massive monopoly on the fur trade.

With such profits to be had, obviously the company wanted its men to stay put and keep bringing in the money.

As Chantler points out in the annotations, it’s important that the story takes place one year before the Seven Years War, a.k.a. the French and Indian War, which lead to the creation of modern Canada after the seizing of Quebec by the English. Chantler describes the period as “a time of complacency that is about to be shaken up by violence and change” and “Northwest Passage” functions as a gripping parable for the wider movement of Canadian history.

Charles Lord is about to step down as governor of For Newcastle — a replacement is on the way and Lord is struggling with what to do with himself after a life of adventure and service. He also has familial issues to contend with — his son, Simon, part Indian, struggles with the confusion that his parentage offers. At the same time, an old Indian friend of Lord’s shows up at the Fort having been attacked by a mystery party.

Lord must not only defend himself and his men against French privateers ready to seize the fort, but also align himself with remnants of his past, before he was a governor, when he was a wandering adventurer, unleashed on the land with other foolhardy and brave souls and dreaming of finding a northwest passage to the Pacific.

The French, however, also hold specters, most notably in the person of their leader, Guerin Montglave, who keeps terrible secrets of his own that create personal hatred between he and Lord. Chantler proves himself not only a sharp writer whose characters draw a reader in, but a fluid and amiable illustrator. His pen work holds a cartoonish fluidity that lends the characters a feel of movement and personality and he’s great at period details without be fussy about it. In Chantler’s hands, simplicity evokes great depth.

“Northwest Passage” is a fine choice for anyone who loves frontier adventure and is looking for something very different, yet appealing to tradition — it’s packed with bravado and pluck, but also tenderness and danger. It’s a graphic novel for all ages, certain to enlighten and engage people who never considered the real possibilities in the comic book form.