Results tagged “Skizz” from Birmingham Mail - Speech Balloon

STORIES OF lost aliens, worlds and immortality...

Skizz
By Alan Moore & Jim Baikie (Titan Books)

Serialised in 2000AD another lifetime ago before Alan Moore became a big noise in America first time round, Skizz is the UK's varitaion on Stephen Spielberg's ET, transported to the less illustrious city of Birmingham, England.

Moore tried to engrain the story with the social atmosphere of the times and the reference photos given for Jim Baikie to use show a different more facile landscape than the one I look out at today. You wonder if the story of Skizz and his rescue could happen in the city today. Doubtful. Very doubtful.

Skizz, a wallaby-resembling alien crashes on Earth. It befriends teenager Roxanne O'Rourke, and by association Loz and Cornelius - who despite initial cardboard cut-outs characterisations end up stealing the show/book. In fact Skizz is rarely on panel.

The authorities and a stereotypical Nazi styled European named Van Owen is investigating the suspected appearance of an alien. It's a tale of individuality vs. the threat of a police state, among other things. The plot follows ET with varying differences. Moore claimed the then 2000AD editorial team altered the ending's dialogue to be made more sentimental. Despite this, for all its derivation of other sources it works rather well.

Baikie's brush strokes nearly make me weep with their flowing depth and graceful meaning - an artist at work not a technician.

When you consider how much story was packed into 4 page instalments on a weekly basis it's frightening because these days most comics would be lucky to do as much within 4 issues!

Anne Rice's Tale of the Body Thief
Adapted by Faye Perozich and artists (Titan)

Artists Travis Moore/Michael Hablieb and Daerick Gross's more painterly anatomy go for the less obvious dramatic visuals that initially appeal to most mainstream comic readers, but there's an appreciable level of craftsmanship storytelling present , even if a little rough around the edges.

It doesn't state but this may have originally appeared and been published in the United States through Innovation Comics in the early 1990s. Their Vampire Lestat books were probably their best selling comics, I believe most of those were adapted by Perozich. She does a good job, there's an approach that certainly feels different to most male comics authors, how much that is to do with original author Rice's words I don't know but its taken from her 4th book in the Vampire series.

The vampire Lestat wants to die, believing it will bring him peace. A body thief, someone able to exchange souls, offers him the chance to do this. Each think they are getting the better of the deal, each puts in fail-safes to make it so, for both unexpected results occur, but mostly for Lestat.

There are many subplots, character developments and surprises. It's a pretty good book as presumably the novel is. It would adapt well to film too.

Lost World
By Osamu Tezuka (Tezuka Productions/Dark Horse)

A doctor called Shikishima, who's no more than a boy, has imbued animals with human speech and his friend is murdered by a secret society intent on discovering the location of his scientific laboratory hidden on a mountain.

Bunny boy Mimio and Mustachio, a detective, unwittingly lead the society there in what becomes a long-drawn wacky adventure of mistaken identities, disguised spies and some seriously grown-up danger. They're after meteorite stones that have fallen from the planet Mamango (that supposedly broke away from Earth thousands of years ago and developed differently, thus the stone have great power).

Dr Shikishima decides to launch a rocket with his various helpers, a few disguised enemies, and the odd turncoat reporter to the planet when the story takes a turn and becomes rather Flash Gordon meets Edgar Rice Burroughs's Lost Worlds in manner as it becomes both a jungle adventure ad a battle against dinosaurs.

The humour tends towards quaintness, the rambling adventure feels like a lost cartoon of bygone days that they dare show only snippets of these days least someone misguidedly accuse them of jingoistic racism. It's too long a story in collected form to be truly enjoyable of its own accord for me personally but I do applaud its collection, as an important historical recording.

It's a work Tezuka, the famed creator of Astro Boy, redid several times as a schoolboy before developing it from 1947 over a series of years to the version collected. There's an age old sci-fi ending, that should be corny, but I have to admit, its rather sweet the way Tezuka pulls it off.