Review: The Good Inn, by Black Francis and Josh Frank

-
My familiarity with the Pixies' music is shallow at best, and nonexistent when it comes to Black Francis' solo work, so I can't speak to The Good Inn as a work reflective of any lyrical tendencies. In fact, when the characters break into song (as they do occasionally), the tunes I found myself reaching for to make words into music in my head were nursery rhymes. Nonetheless, this is an interesting work, taking on shades of Stoppard and Gilliam in following Solider Boy as he traverses newly-minted fiction, lost fiction, speculative reality, and known reality. Based on what the introduction claims is the first known narrative adult film, now known only from stills and remakes, this tale in screenplay form fleshes out the skin flick by giving the male character a life before he comes on screen, and continues as he tries to move beyond it. It's convoluted and even confusing at times to be sure; I'll admit to backtracking more than once to suss out what was happening; even then, I'm sure it would make more sense on screen, or at least be forced into some sort of visual sense on its way there. I came upon The Good Inn while looking for new graphic novels to read, but while the art is sequential, it's rather too sparse to be a comic book; illustrations appear only every few pages. The art has a casual and expressive line to it, and in places can be absorbing as one tries to map text to image. It would be interesting to see this screenplay produced, even on a very small scale.

Popular posts from this blog

Halloween Man vs The Invisible Man, by Drew Edwards and Sergio Calvet

-
The second entry in Drew Edwards’ series of Halloween Man specials, Halloween Man versus The Invisible Man melds emotional realism with the titillating and the fantastical to create a gritty and satisfying adventure. Solar City’s fetish community has been rocked by a series of unexplained deaths when the grand dame of the scene, Claudette, comes to visit her old frenemy Lucy Chaplin, or more precisely, Lucy’s beau, Solomon Hitch. Our hero is reluctant to engage in this sort of heroism; while he’s commonly called upon to thwart the ghastly and creepy, the problem is a mystery, and he’s no detective. While comic book heroes often express token reluctance in order to build suspense, it can usually be chalked up to a gruff misanthropic streak or false humility; in this case, Solomon is genuinely out of his depth and has good reason to defer, only taking the case out of a sense of solidarity with a subculture that is marginalized and sensationalized by the media in the same way he is. The...
Read more

Lucy Chaplin: Science Starlet, by Drew Edwards, April Guadiana, Evan Quiring, and Paul Tuma

-
When a superhero title spawns a spin-off, it can usually be expected that the loyal sidekick or even a prominent rival will be the one taking the spotlight. Always exploring new perspectives on traditional tropes, the new special from Drew Edwards' perennial action horror series focuses not on one of his paranormally super-powered friends, but on Lucy Chaplin, nominally his girlfriend, but in the world of Solar City, a personality far better-known and admired than her half-dead hunk. As a whole, the book has a zippy silver age feel to it, featuring a solo adventure with a new threat our heroine is uniquely suited to battle, a fourth-wall-breaking expository piece about Lucy’s professional life & interests, and an in-universe magazine interview with the science starlet herself. The villain of the first piece, Lucy Chaplin vs the Sons of Samson , is the contemporary strain of toxic masculinity personified, which is to say, the sort of thing a woman like Lucy would deal with d...
Read more

A Year on the Strida Evo 3

-
When I resolved to rationalize and expand my bicycle stable, I realized that my trusty, elegant commuter and reliable little folding bike would have to go. Ivy Mike was a lightly modified 2011 Novara Fusion that met all my on-road needs in style. However, when he was in the shop, or I needed to be flexible with my transportation plans, it was Nightbeat, a 2014 Novara FlyBy that took up the slack. In order to make room for a folding mountain bike and a folding road bike to explore the many trails in Austin and the many long organized rides around Austin respectively, the roles of my two steed would have to be met by a single new bike. What folds small for logistical flexibility, has multiple internal gears, disc brakes for wet stopping, fenders, and can mount panniers? I'd been pining after the Tern Verge S8i for some time, but at $2,100, it was simply more than I was willing to spend. I examined its features and picked what I could reasonably compromise on. Hydraulic discs were n...
Read more