F.C. Schaefer's Blog, page 9

A great mashup of western and horror genres.

After reading THE TROOP last summer, I became a Nick Cutter fan, for he is a writer who knows how to tickle my horror bone. I found LITTLE HEAVEN to be an excellent follow up to that first book, one that works some well used tropes of the genre, while delivering some great gross out moments, the kind any reader of Cutter has come to expect. Many reviewers have compared this book to the works of Cormac McCarthy, and of course, Stephen King, and I certainly agree with the former, as more than once I thought this book could have easily existed in the same universe as NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. As for the latter, well, when the protagonists have to go into a cave to confront a Big Bad supernatural evil in its lair, then you are playing The King’s music.

The story is set in the Southwest United States, and jumps back and forth in time between the mid ‘60s and 1980. The protagonists are three mercenaries: Micah, Minerva, and Ebenezer; who, for various reasons, attempt to kill each other upon their first meeting. Forced by necessity to flee the law together, they form an uneasy alliance; needing money, they take a job escorting a woman named Ellen to a remote settlement in the New Mexico wilderness named Little Heaven, where the woman wants to check on the well being of her nephew, taken their by his father, who has joined a cult lead by a stereotypically charismatic pastor. We know from the get go that something isn’t right in Little Heaven, and Cutter does a good job describing the paranoia inside the gates of the community, while outside in the forest, a lurking evil grows stronger, as monstrous abominations make their presence felt. It is through the eyes of these mercenary outsiders that we see things go from bad to much worse; in the end, there will only be a small group of survivors left for the final confrontation.

A lot of this will sound familiar to any horror reader: an isolated community of religious fanatics; a lethal, but initially vague evil force that only makes itself known through its minions, and an ability to prey upon the minds of the weak; the discovery of evidence the Big Bad has been around for a long time, and has worked its evil on others in the past; a “bad place,” here an enormous black rock in the woods, where evil dwells; the hick dullards of rural America; two timelines, one where the Big Bad is discovered and confronted for the first time, and a second, set years later, where there is a reckoning with the job left undone (shades of King’s IT); and of course, a man of the cloth, who is in it only for himself, and his degenerate desires. What Cutter does to shake up these familiar tropes is to confront them with main characters that are tough enough to take on whatever comes their way, while making it clear they are flawed people, who can be tripped up by their own weaknesses. Micah is a man grown too casual with violence, both in tolerating it, and in inflicting it; Minerva is haunted by a horrific incident from her childhood that has made her hard and mean, and vengeful; Ebenezer is a killer without attachments, determined never to be the world’s “meat.”

Cutter does have a talent with words, especially descriptions, though others have complained that it sounds too much like knock off Lovecraft, something every American horror writer is guilty of at one time or another. Cutter’s monsters are truly frightening in their appearance, horrific mutations of wildlife bent to the will of an even greater monster. Horror stories often sink or swim on the strength of their villains, and the ability of the author to get the reader to buy in to his premise. Cutter goes down the path of not trying to explain everything about his Big Bad, dispensing with an origin story, or some reason why it fits into the universe. Evil simply is, and it has to be dealt with when encountered. I do give Cutter credit for not making his Big Bad omnipotent, or all powerful, a common mistake for many horror writers. When it comes to outright gore, and body horror, Cutter really shines, and he knows how to deliver an out of nowhere plot turn; see the fate of Minerva’s younger brother in a flashback. If the Reverend Flesher and his congregation bare more than a passing resemblance to Jim Jones and his ill fated followers, then I give credit to Cutter for owning it in the acknowledgements.

If you like your horror brewed on the strong side – and you know who you are, then the books of Nick Cutter are written for you.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
https://bit.ly/47dOR5N

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

Stephen King and his familiar tropes.

A man can’t in two places at once, can he? More to the point, a murderer can’t be in two places at once when he is committing the horrific killing of a child. That is the premise of Stephen King’s THE OUTSIDER, a book that starts out as a gripping police procedural, and then takes a turn into the supernatural. The book is also works as an unofficial sequel to the Bill Hodges trilogy, which was kicked off with MR. MERCEDES, as a character from those books plays a prominent role in the second half of this story. In that trilogy, I thought King was channeling Hitchcock, in this latter book, I think Uncle Stevie has found his inner Chris Carter or Vince Gilligan, and given us an extended episode of The X-FILES, a show rooted in the mundane of law enforcement, but with the supernatural at its heart. This kind of genre mashup is something a reader has to go with, and if you are not willing to make the sharp turn from one genre to another, then THE OUTSIDER will be rough going. And if you didn’t like the Bill Hodges trilogy, which a lot of loyal King readers adamantly say they did not, then you definitely won’t like this one.

A young boy is murdered in the town of Flint City, Oklahoma, the victim being sexually abused before being battered to death; there is also evidence that parts of the corpse were eaten by the perpetrator. The investigation leads to witnesses and physical evidence that point overwhelmingly to one suspect: local teacher and Little League coach Terry Maitland, a husband and father much respected in the community. The case is so open and shut, that the lead detective on the case, Ralph Anderson, makes a very public and humiliating arrest of Terry. Then the story takes a turn, as it becomes clear that Terry has an air tight alibi for the time when the murder was committed. Yet Ralph is still absolutely certain that he has his man, and this pushes him to make a mistake that has deadly repercussions. In the wake of tragic events, Ralph, and others involved in the case, come to doubt what they thought was the truth. This leads to search for the real killer, and ultimately to a confrontation with a monstrous evil that lives in our midst, and thrives because the rational world would never accept the possibility of its existence.

I’m a die hard, and very easy to please, King fan, so I enjoyed this book, especially the first 200 pages, which builds the case against Terry Maitland, and then demolishes it, leaving us with a seeming paradox that must be solved. But I would be remiss if I didn’t state that the second half of the book, and more to the point, the third act, didn’t have some problems. One being the turn from a police procedural to a horror story is awfully abrupt if you didn’t know ahead of time that it was coming. I thought the story would not have suffered in the least if King had shown his cards just a peek right up front. Then there is a lot of exposition in that second half, mainly when the protagonists go to Marysville, Texas, where the climax of the story takes place. There are more than a few scenes where characters just sit and talk, and at times the pace slows to a crawl. My main complaint would be that Uncle Stevie came up with a great premise, and then fell back on some of his well worn story telling tropes to resolve it: the heroes must enter the Big Bad’s lair in order to confront it, just like with the Marsten House in SALEM’S LOT, or the sewers under Derry, Maine in IT; some secondary characters are there just so they can be killed off in graphic ways that showcase the evil of the antagonist; the Big Bad finds a cat’s paw, like Henry Bowers from IT, to do its dirty work. Of course one character has battled drug addiction, and I was surprised that no one was a musician with a fondness for classic rock or blues. Terry Maitland is a teacher, who is also a big fan of mystery writers, so we get a character with a creative streak – this allows for a cameo by real life mystery author Harlan Coben. The fact that we don’t really find out much about the true nature of the Big Bad is disappointing in one sense, but that is King in essence, saying that true evil cannot be understood, that is does not show its true face, only that it must be confronted and resisted. The book possibly could have worked better if the main character had been one of the “Outsider’s” dupes, one who is desperately trying to find and kill the monster before they are framed for another horrible murder. But that’s my version, not the story as it came to King.

Still, I enjoyed this book a lot, whatever the faults THE OUTSIDER might have, none of them were deal breakers for me. Some reviewers are complaining that King is really starting to show his age, that a Baby Boomer in his 70s can’t write 21st Century characters realistically, and that way too many of characters sound alike. But I will give him props for setting his story in Oklahoma and Texas, instead of the comfortable and familiar ground of New England, which would have been easy considering his liberal political views, and he does a good job of making his Red State characters feel real, something a lot of accomplished “woke” writers couldn’t pull off if they tried. Is this classic King? No, but it’s still better than any wanna-be.

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
https://bit.ly/47dOR5N

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

Quarantine 3; an ending we won't forget for good or bad.

Picking up and reading QUARANTINE: THE BURNOUTS, the third book in the series, is a different experience now than it would have been a few months ago. A novel where a deadly virus and a quarantine figure prominently in the plot resonates strongly in the middle of real life global pandemic where such terms are mentioned on every news broadcast 24 hours a day, not to mention the ways it has impacted the daily life of everyone. For me, it made the plight of the characters real in a way that was absent when I read the first two books, their fear and despair more palpable. Of course the parallel between real life and the dystopian world depicted in this YA series is tenuous at best, but there is no denying that reading the third book was a unique experience compared to the first two.

The QUARANTINE series is one of those teen dystopia epics where a group of kids are isolated from the rest of the world without adult supervision, and forced to fend for themselves. The results are THE LORD OF THE FLIES on steroids. In this series, the catalyst is one of those pesky laboratory manufactured viruses that exists solely in fiction, one which gets loose and infects the student population of a suburban Colorado high school, said virus being deadly to anyone who has passed puberty. The school is sealed off from the outside world, and the kids are on their own. The social hierarchy of high school, so hallowed in pop culture for decades, becomes a dictatorship, as cliques become gangs that prey upon one another, and bullies terrorize those perceived as weak. The books center around a few “nice” kids who want to do nothing more than stay alive until they “graduate.”


The third book in the series, subtitled THE BURNOUTS, picks up right where the second book left off, with brothers Will and David reunited outside the school after Will was forced to leave or succumb to the virus, which makes its victims cough their lungs out. Lucy, the girl both boys love, is still trapped within the halls of McKinley High, and is now an outcast. Through a plot complication, both brothers don gas masks and re-enter the school to rescue Lucy, risking instant death if they should breathe the same air as any of the infected students. Meanwhile, Hillary, an uber Mean Girl and David’s former girlfriend, has taken control of the school and she wants revenge on Lucy for a past humiliation. The plot is derivative, and many of the characters are nothing more than “types” found in any teen drama, but I found myself invested in Will, David, and Lucy, and their plight, and cared what happened to them. About half way through, I had a hunch as to where the story was going, and I was proven right. There is a bittersweet resolution that might leave some in tears, but it felt earned. Some readers are surely going to be disappointed at the ending, but this has been a series that has not been afraid to go dark, reveling in it at times, and I felt the finale was true to what came before, even if it is very cruel to a character most readers have come to love. This third book has slightly less gore than the second, and that is not a bad thing. But there are a couple of gross scenes that will make readers wince. The author, Lex Thomas, is the pen name for two collaborators, and they have done a good job in giving us one the better Teen Dystopias, a subgenre that includes THE HUNGER GAMES, and my favorite, the GONE, series by Michael Grant. They’ve wisely wrapped up the story of McKinley High with the third book, as this particular arc has used up all the gas in its tank, although there is a fourth book taking up the story of a supporting character.

I wonder how “viral apocalypse” stories, like the QUARANTINE series, will fare in a world where we have come uncomfortably close to the real thing. Are they no longer the escapist fiction we once craved, or are they a way to deal with very real fears? Time will tell, but I am thinking about picking up that unabridged copy of Stephen King’s THE STAND that has been on my book shelf for too long.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS

If you love Caddyshack (and who doesn't), then read Chis Nashawaty's book.

There is a subgenre of books that could be summed up as “The Making of (insert movie title),” where the history of how an important film came about is retold, two of my favorites being Glenn Frankel’s books on the making of THE SEARCHERS and HIGH NOON. I will happily add to this list Chris Nashawaty’s CADDYSHACK: THE MAKING OF A HOLLYWOOD CINDERELLA STORY. Nashawaty is a long time writer for Entertainment Weekly, and he knows the business of show well, which comes in handy when detailing all the twists and turns, along with the big egos of the big talents that went into making the 1980 comedy classic, CADDYSHACK, which just might be the best gift cocaine ever gave American culture. Yes, this book is very much a warts and all look at a time and place, and the people who thrived on, and some who were destroyed by, the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll lifestyle of the ‘70s.

Though a short book, coming in at just over 250 pages, Nashawaty gives us a history of the National Lampoon, SNL, SCTV, and the making of ANIMAL HOUSE, all of which were essential to how CADDYSHACK came about. More than that, we get the tragic story of Doug Kenney, the brilliant and troubled young comic writer who helped co-write the script for ANIMLAL HOUSE, and then was a producer on CADDYSHACK, where he believed that not only would lighting strike again, but that the second film would eclipse the first. Kenney, and his fellow Baby Boomers like Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman, Chris Miller, had become very successful at a very young age, riding the cultural shift in America in the decade after the ‘60s to massive acclaim, and with that success came a lot of money, and with that money came the means to indulge a lot of bad habits. It seemed that Americans during the Jimmy Carter years, which followed the tumultuous era of Vietnam and Watergate with long lines at gas stations, stagflation, and the humiliation of the Iran hostage crisis, wanted nothing more than to go to the movies and have a good laugh. Comedies were doing blockbuster business, especially ones with hot young talent, and said talent could write their own ticket, at least up to a point. That is how Kenny and Ramis inked a deal with producer Jon Peters and Orion Pictures in 1979 to make a raunchy coming of age film about a bunch of sex obsessed young caddies at an upper class mid-western country club. It would have a distinct class conscious theme, with rowdy youth coming up against the staid establishment. Who didn’t want to see that in the late ‘70s?

That’s how it started out, but that is not the film we got, and the story of how that happened is the best part of the book. Shot at a Florida country club in the early fall of 1979, the location quickly became, by many accounts, one big drug fueled party, with much of the script, based on co-writer Brian Doyle Murray’s teenage years, being improvised on the spot. It didn’t help that Harold Ramis had never directed a film before, and was often in over his head. Same with standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who had no idea how to act in a film, and was unnerved that there was no laughter when he spoke his often hilarious dialogue. Chevy Chase and Bill Murray (Brian’s younger brother) often winged it in their most memorable scenes, while old pro Ted Knight just as often seethed at the antics of his co-stars, much like his character, Judge Smails. Younger actors Michael O’Keefe, Sarah Holcomb, Cindy Morgan, Scott Columby, and Peter Berkot would see their parts diminish as more time was given to the older performers at the direction of the studio heads at Orion. Then there was the Gopher, who was added to the film in post production at the insistence of producer Peters. It all sounded like fun at the time, maybe too much of it, and certainly the wrong kind of fun by today’s standards. But as is pointed out, the job got done, even if the kids were in charge. This is the part of the book that I like the best, where the inside sausage making of the creative process is described, where talent, hard work, and just plain luck (good and bad) produce something that resonates. I also liked the deeper dives into people like Dangerfield, one of those guys whom success did not come to early in life and who more than earned a great second act to his career. Nobody much remembers Cindy Morgan, who played Lacy Underalls, but she has an interesting story to tell, especially when it comes to producer Peters, very much a creature of Hollywood, but who still ran interference for the guys in Florida when the suits at Orion got concerned about on set antics.

But most of all, this book is the story of Doug Kenney, who was destroyed by too much success, too soon. At least that is how I feel. CADDYSHACK had a rough post production, where the final product had to be edited down from four hours of film, and cut into something like a coherent narrative (that’s using the term loosely in this incidence). But the end product was still very rough, and it very much played out like something made up on the fly, where comic bits by Dangerfield and Murray were shoe horned into a script that was then pretty much discarded. Ramis’ inexperience as a director was plain to see in a movie that appeared to be nothing more than a vulgar and sexed up TV sit com for the big screen. When time came for the release in late July of 1980, the box office was good, but not great, and the reviews were particularly scathing, especially from older critics who just didn’t get (or didn’t want to get) the film’s low brow humor. Depressed at what he saw was a failure, and carrying a heavy coke addiction, Kenney got out of LA for a few weeks in Hawaii. He never returned. In the long run, the film proved to be a success, for if the critics reviled it, young audiences, especially guys, got it, and were soon reciting Al Czervik, Carl Spackler, Ty Webb, and even Judge Smails’ lines to each other. Its very shortcomings became its strengths, as fans embraced it as a video house party in which everyone was invited, where a few wickedly funny friends took the center of the room, and had everyone in stitches. Within a few years, a VHS copy of CADDYSHACK could be found on a shelf next to the VCR in millions of homes. Golf, once the sport of middle aged men, would become cool with young people in no small part due to CADDYSHACK.

If I have any complaint with the Nashawaty’s book, it is that it doesn’t go into just what it is about CADDYSHACK that has made it endure. The “slobs vs. snobs” theme is universal, but much of the comedy is very much of its time, especially the drug humor. Then again, if you have to ask… And I have often been struck by the irony of this movie finding love from so many Americans only months before they elected Ronald Reagan in a landslide, a man who throughout his political career did nothing to hide his considerable disdain for the sex, drugs, and rock lifestyle embraced by CADDYSHACK.

It is worth noting that we do not have big comedy blockbusters like CADDYSHACK anymore, which is a shame, since the comedy genre has been a corner stone of American cinema since the days of Chaplin and the Keystone Kops. That all seemed to end in the 2010’s. Long gone is the Hollywood where talents like Kenney, Ramis, and Brian Doyle-Murray were handed millions of dollars and told to go make a movie. Some would have said that millennials refuse to laugh at anything until they are sure that it is not sexist, misogynistic, racist, or homophobic, and thus comedy has lost its edge, its willingness to take risks. Films like CADDYSHACK and ANIMAL HOUSE are attacked for their “toxic masculinity” with calls that they be “cancelled.” Fingers are pointed in outrage, and it feels like we’ve lost our sense of humor. As a friend of mine put it, nowadays, comedy goes to the movies to die; doesn’t seem like we’re honoring Doug Kenney’s memory very well at all.


My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

The Justice League Vs The Avengers: it has already happened

Maybe comic book crossovers are not the best idea, but they are inevitable, if for no other reason than the fans demand them. And going back to the ‘60s, DC and Marvel comic partisans have speculated over who’s universe of super heroes are the best, or the most powerful, and who would prevail in a head to head match up? For a long time it seemed as if this debate would be have to be fought over stacks of comics in basements and bedrooms, or in front of the racks at comic shops. But over time, the management at the House of Ideas and the Distinguished Competition warmed up to an obvious marketing opportunity, one that couldn’t forever be ignored, mainly for the financial gain, and the chance to pick up new customers from among ranks of their rival. Ultimately there was a meeting of the minds, the necessary paper work done, and the mutual talent assembled. Thus in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, we had Superman meet Spider-Man, and the X-Men encounter The Teen Titans, among others. But the one throw down everyone wanted to see was the two marquee groups from each universe, The Justice League, and The Avengers, both filled with the true heavy hitters, come face to face, and settle the debate once and for all, or at least for a few hours.

Unfortunately, fans would have to wait a long time to see that come to pass. A planned JLA/AVENGER crossover was set in motion in 1979, with publication slated for May 1983. It involved such talents as writers George Conway and Roy Thomas, along with artist George Perez, but editorial disputes with infamous Marvel Editor in Chief, Jim Shooter, caused the project to be scrapped. It would be two decades before the venture would be resurrected, this time to be written by Kurt Busiek, and still drawn by Perez, who by contract, had kept his name attached to it all along. The long delayed series finally hit the comic book racks in a prestige format in September of 2003, in a four book series.

How good was the final result? As always, it’s in the eye of the reader. I have the original four books in my collection, the whole series having been published as a trade paperback in 2008. Having read and re-read them several times, it is clear that these books were meant to give the fans as much of what they wanted as possible, and to be a standalone story, separate from whatever DC and Marvel continuity in effect at the time (and one long since scrapped many times over since the crossover’s original publication). The overall plot is simple: a big cosmic threat is established at the beginning, one powerful enough to breach the barriers between universes; this threat sets in motion events that pit one group of super heroes against another in a series of violent confrontations, where their strengths and weaknesses are on full display, but no one emerging with an upper hand; there is a mid series plot twist, and both worlds seem to merge, where the heroes of DC and Marvel fight side by side against foes and villains from each of their respective worlds, and believe that this is how it has always been; but this is an untenable reality, and in the final act, the truth is revealed, the threat is confronted, and the heroes unite for a final epic battle to restore both universes to their proper order. This is a plot that works, and more than that, hits the character enough beats to satisfy any DC and Marvel fan. That said, the sheer number of heroes involved does make it feel at times like this project really did bite off more than it could chew. The pages are dense, filled with so many panels that they nearly burst. Action scenes cascade one upon one upon the other; close ups of faces are crammed beside each other page after page. It reminds me of Jack Kirby at his best, but it might be jarring to younger, 21st Century comic readers. I don’t think Busiek and Perez bit off too much, but I do think you have to chew it more than a few times extra to get it all down.

Still, for me, and I think for any DC and Marvel reader, it’s the choices made, and the individual moments that stand out. Maybe I would not have picked Krona, a DC villain intent upon finding the secrets of the origin of the universe at all cost, as my cosmic threat; or teamed him with Marvel’s The Grandmaster in a game where the JLA and The Avengers must hunt down twelve items of power like the Cosmic Cube, the Ultimate Nullifier, the Green Lantern’s Battery, and the Spear of Destiny. They serve the purpose of making the plot turn, and putting everyone in jeopardy, but I think relegating fan favorites like Darkseid and Galactus to supporting roles is a disappointment. What is not a disappointment is the genuine philosophical conflict that comes when Superman sees the Marvel universe, where tyrants like Doctor Doom rule, where millions have died in Genosha, and murderous vigilantes like The Punisher gun down criminals at will, and decides that the Marvel heroes are failures who have not protected their world. At the same time, Captain America sees the statues to Superman, and other DC heroes, along with the adulation they receive from the public, and come to the conclusion they are fascists who have conquered and intimidated their world. It’s a genuine take that resonates, and makes the moment when they put aside their differences all the powerful. So too the first encounter between Batman and Captain America, that begins with them being combatants and ends with them teaming up, that and the poignant moment in the Bat Cave where Cap sees that Batman has lost a partner as well (this was before return of Bucky as the Winter Soldier, or the resurrection of Jason Todd as the Red Hood). Among other moments that stood out for me, and enhanced the story: The Flash saving a young mutant from a mob, and being mistaken for one of Magneto’s evil brotherhood; Ben Grimm’s cameo in the Bat Cave; Wonder Woman punching out Hercules; Thor nailing Superman with Mjolnir, only to have Big Blue get up and catch the next blow before taking out the Norse God, saying he is “the toughest foe I’ve ever…”; later, Superman wielding Mjolnir and Cap’s shield; The Flash and Hawkeye saving the day; the inevitable sniping between Clint Barton and Oliver Queen, and the first meeting between the teams on the rooftops of DC’s earth, it’s just a perfect image, and drawn beautifully. Of course a lot of favorites are left out, or given only token appearances. Spider-Man does get an unintentionally funny scene where he saves some overly webbed up kids (with terrified eyes) from a burning building, but that’s it for him. There’s no battle between Superman and the Hulk (who’s hardly in the books), nor a faceoff between the opposing Princes of Atlantis. Except for the Beast, there’s little of the X-Men; same for Nightwing and the rest of the Teen Titans. I would like to have seen more interplay between Quicksilver and Barry Allen, and at least a meeting of Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic. And the final battle with Krona is something anyone could see coming after the first few pages and that might be the truest criticism of JLA/AVENGERS: it took very few risks. One could also say that its parts were greater than its whole, but then again, sometimes it’s the journey and not the destination. And sometimes, picking nits is the best part of being a fan.

This series felt like a throwback in 2003, like the best comic of the ‘80s coming decades late, but that was okay too. To me, it was a welcome anomaly amidst the crisis and rebirths that began to reset the continuity of both companies’ super hero universes, starting in the late ‘90s and continuing today. It’s been enough to test to patience of every long time comic reader like myself. Sadly, JLA/AVENGERS has been the last DC/Marvel crossover to date, and some of us think it’s more than time for another one, if only to excite comic book fans who have had to put up with a lot in the intervening years. But if anybody at DC and Marvel are listening, I would suggest they take a step back from big all encompassing cosmic epics like JLA/AVENGERS, if for no other reason than they’ve done it already, and it’s just too many characters. Instead, I’d like to see some smaller scale crossovers, like Spider-Man and Nightwing, Jon Lane Kent and Nova, Wonder Woman and She Hulk, Teen Titans and Young Justice, Doctor Doom and Lex Luthor, or maybe a sequel to the former’s encounter with the X-Men, another shelved project from the ‘80s. In the pages of DOOMSDAY CLOCK #12, a future encounter between, Thor, the Hulk, and Superman is hinted at as occurring in the near future. That’s what I’m talking about. Make it happen, DC and Marvel.

Will we ever see a crossover between the DCMU and the MCU? I wouldn’t hold my breath for a live action version, though I’m sure it has crossed the minds of more than a few executives at Warner Bros. and Disney, but right now, that seems like a bridge too far. And I think a live action version would likely be a disappointment, but an animated film, along the lines of SPIDERMAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE? That is something that might do true justice (no pun intended) to all these great characters and their enormous legacy. Probably won’t happen either.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

Parasite, class warfare by way of Hitchcock and Billy Wilder.

I must confess to a long time bias against sub titles, like many lazy Americans, I felt like having to read while I watched a movie was just asking too much. Then, a few years ago, I sat down and viewed a DVD of the fully restored SEVEN SAMURAI, and really understood what I had been missing out on for too long, especially when it came to Asian cinema. So when Bong Joon-ho’s PARASITE won the Best Picture Oscar, I didn’t feel any of the dread at having to listen to a foreign tongue while reading along with the screen that might have come a few years back. Now, after watching last year’s Best Picture on Blu Ray, I say that for me, PARASITE is so good, I wasn’t aware that I was reading anything after a first few minutes.

Set in South Korea, the film works both as a thriller, and at times, a comedy of manners, along with a strong social commentary theme. I could see strong influences of both Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder in the script, which centers on two families, the Kims and the Parks. The former are stuck in poverty, living in a cramped basement apartment, while the latter are quite wealthy, living in a spacious house, attended by a housekeeper and chauffer. When the Kims’ son manages to snag a job as an English tutor to the Parks’ teenage daughter, the family has a foot in the door, and soon the rest of the Kims, under false identities, have infiltrated the household, taking over the jobs of therapist to the ADD afflicted younger son, housekeeper and chauffer; finagling to have others fired from the last two jobs in order to obtain them for themselves. The Kims are soon enjoying a newfound prosperity at the expense of their obliviously self absorbed employers. But their deviousness has consequences, and when the former housekeeper shows up one night when the Kims have the Parks’ house all to themselves, the story takes a turn no one sees coming. Giving away anymore of the twists the story takes would be unfair, needless to say, this is one of those films that goes in a lot of unexpected places.

There were some things that really stood out for me in this film. One was how well it works as a suspense film, liberally borrowing the situational irony that was a hallmark of Hitchcock – a scene where three of the Kims have to hide themselves in the Park house and attempt to sneak out while Mr. and Mrs. Park go about their intimate business is a great example of this, along with Hitchcock’s patented voyeurism. Characters practicing deception was one of Wilder’s signature themes, with the consequences of such deceptions playing out in the finale. Second was the theme of class warfare, how the Have-Nots, with their cunning and guile, easily manipulate their supposed Betters, while the latter feel wholly invincible in the superiority their wealth has brought them, making them easy marks. Third was how well the characters are written. The Kims commit reprehensible acts in a cold blooded manner, yet they really do love each other in a way that makes it impossible to totally condemn them. Even the fired housekeeper, who is revealed to have a skeleton in her closet, is motivated by love for a family member. I love films with complicated characters who are more than what they appear to be. The screenplay, written by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won is a masterpiece of storytelling, especially in the way they introduce a plot twist late in the second act that has only been slightly foreshadowed, and how they get so much story out of small everyday things, like a food allergy, the Morse code that a Boy Scout learns, and the musty scent of a damp basement. This puts me in mind of Vince Gilligan, and his masterful TV shows BREAKING BAD and BETTER CALL SAUL. Lastly, if there is a theme to PARASITE, I would say it is that no matter what the difference in culture may be, human nature is universal.

The acting, especially Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, Choi Woo-shik, and Park So-dam, as the devious Kims, is exceptional. But real star is director Bong Joon-ho, who won the Best Director Oscar for his work. My choice for Best Picture would have been ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, but I can’t be too bummed out when my favorite lost to a movie as good as PARASITE.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS

The vampire apocalypse rolls on; my review of Justin Cronin's The Twelve.

THE TWELVE is the second book in Justin Cronin’s vampire apocalypse trilogy that started with THE PASSAGE. I am a sucker for a good end of civilization epic; one of my favorite books of all time is Stephen King’s THE STAND, which Cronin’s books are compared to in nearly every review. I would also add Robert Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse comic, THE WALKING DEAD, for another work similar to what Cronin has achieved, though in the latter work, the zombies serve no higher authority, unlike Cronin’s malevolent Virals – infected people transformed into undying blood drinking killing machines. If you like big sprawling narratives, and I do, then both THE PASSAGE and THE TWELVE are most definitely your cup of tea, if like your vampires to wear capes and seduce unwary maidens, or sparkle in the sun (God forbid), then you should give these books a pass.

The first novel told the story of a government experiment in Colorado gone wrong, where a dozen death row inmates were injected with a newly discovered tropical virus, which had the potential to be “the cure for everything.” What it created were a crew of super vampires; all of whom escaped into the outside world and began infecting the general population. Within the span of a summer, all of North America is overrun with only a few scattered pockets of human survivors left. There is a time jump of about ninety years, and we meet a new generation of survivors who have grown up in a secluded colony in California, who now venture out into the wider world, into a country ruled by The Twelve, and their mindless Viral minions. They find and confront one these monsters, killing him, and proving that humanity still has a chance. The character of Amy, a young girl infected with the virus by Project Noah, appears in both narratives. Amy did not become a Viral (perhaps because of her youth), nor does she age or die.

Cronin’s second book does not have a straight linear story, there is another time jump, this one back to the midst of the vampire apocalypse, and tells the story of some secondary characters from the first book, then jumps forward again about seventy years, and introduces us to a community of survivors in Texas, before jumping ahead again to five years after the events at the end of THE PASSAGE. All of these story lines come together, in a fashion, by the final act, but it can feel like something of a meander getting there. Cronin’s prose is thick and deep, filled with much description, although he is not particularly detailed when it come to the appearance of his Virals, wisely dropping a few hints and adjectives, and leaving the rest to the reader’s imagination. For me and for most readers, if the reviews are any guide, the section set in Year Zero is our favorite. There is a palpable sense of menace, and there are characters, such as Kittridge (“Last Stand in Denver”), teenage April, and school bus driver, Danny Chayes, whom we like and become invested in their fates. We also meet Lila Kyle, the ex-wife of Brad Wolgast, who is pregnant and suffering from PTSD; Horace Guilder, the head of the Special Weapons unit that oversaw Project Noah, and pick up with Lawrence Grey, a janitor at Project Noah from the first book, who played a pivotal role in what went down there. This part of the book is a true page turner, as these characters and others, must grapple with a civilization that has vanished, and a world filled with night monsters that have taken its place. Seeds of plot are planted that will flower later in the book. The mid section, set in a farming community in Texas, feels like a real shift in gears, some new characters come into the story, and tensions are revealed before the Virals make their appearance. In the last half of the book, the action is split between Texas, where we met up with some more characters from the first book: Peter, Michael, Alicia, Hollis, and Amy; and the Homeland in Iowa, a dystopia ruled over by “red eyes,” humans who regularly drink blood from the deliberately infected Lawrence Grey, and have prolonged their lives for nearly a century. All of these characters come together in the climatic chapters, when THE TWELVE, now fearsome creatures of the night, arrive in Iowa, and where the human survivors attempt to kill them all.

I will be the first to say that this book, along with the earlier one, is overwritten, that the story so far could easily be pared down to a single volume, but I am one of those, and there are many of us, who enjoy big, overstuffed epic fantasy/scifi/horror narratives. What others see as flaws, we see as virtues. I don’t even mind some of the tropes Cronin resorts to, the biggest of which is Amy – the “child savior,” though to be fair, he does something with this character in THE TWELVE. Lila, in many ways, comes to resemble Drusilla from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, though I admire the way Cronin ultimately makes us feel compassion for her and Grey. Sometimes Alicia too much resembles the typical bad ass female warrior that is a requirement for any apocalypse story, while a loathsome character like Guilder is given a moment of poignancy. The parts of the story concerning the Homeland in Iowa seem to have something to say about the lengths to which humans will go to survive, although some will see it as a political allegory about a literal blood drinking ruling class living off workers reduced to slavery. All of this stuff we have seen before, but it is done well here. My main complaint is that we see so little of THE TWELVE themselves; we never get a true picture of who they are, and what their ultimate goal might be. The same goes for the Big Bad himself, Zero, the first infected, who stands behind them all, and only makes his appearances through telepathy.

There was a TV adaptation of THE PASSAGE on FOX, but it only covered the first book (with some changes to the story and characters), but it did not garner enough ratings to get a second season. Too bad, the show had promise; I would like to have seen what they would have done with the events of THE TWELVE. Anyway, I will definitely continue on to final book in Justin Cronin’s trilogy, CITY OF MIRRORS. It has a couple of tough acts to follow.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS

Mad Max, the original and still the best.

The original MAD MAX, the movie that started it all, still holds up, and you can’t say that about every classic from back in the day, especially an action film dependent on stunts and effects that have only gotten bigger and grander in the years since its release in 1979, just watch the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise to see what I am talking about. Not only does Max and his bad company hold up, it is still one of the great thrill rides in cinema, a visceral experience, even on repeat viewings. Though considered a classic of the action genre, which it redefined, it remains one of the finest mash ups of action and scifi, along with outright horror. MAD MAX has one foot firmly in one of the ‘70s most conspicuous genres – the vigilante cop film, an eclectic group that includes everything from DIRTY HARRY to WALKING TALL. In story structure, MAX very much resembles a classic western with the forces of law and order doing battle with a gang of outlaws, just switch out horses for Ford Falcons and motorcycles. It also went a long way toward establishing the post apocalyptic dystopia genre that is still with us, just watch any season of THE WALKING DEAD, and you can find a few tropes that MAX made popular – how much different are Negan and the Governor from The Toecutter, Lord Humongous, and Auntie Entity? And of course, MAD MAX is a legitimate contender for the greatest car chase movie of all time, another ‘70s subgenre that began with BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION and went on to SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT among many others. In fact, by the end of the decade, critics were complaining loudly about how tired they were of hearing squealing tires and seeing vehicles crash, just read any contemporary review of THE BLUES BROTHERS. If anything, MAX reinvigorated, and reinvented, a tired cliché, and gave it new life.

Though it is remembered as the film that put Mel Gibson on everyone’s radar, looking back, it is obvious the true star of MAD MAX is George Miller, the former Australian MD turned Down Under movie director. It’s Miller who infused the script with his own real life experiences from working in an emergency room, and observing his countrymen’s violent reaction to gasoline shortages in the early ‘70s where violent fights erupted when someone tried to cut in the long lines at gas stations. It also helped that Australia had a vigorous car culture as well. The script, written by Miller and producer, Byron Kennedy, is a masterpiece of economical storytelling, produced on a budget coming in under $500,000 (Miller and Kennedy had to put up some of their own cash), with principle shooting taking place around Melbourne in late 1977 and early 1978. Some of the shoot legitimately qualified as “guerilla film making” as they did not have permits to set up cameras at some of the locations, although by all reports, the Victoria police proved to be quite cooperative. It was Miller’s use of widescreen and panning in establishing shots, and more importantly, mounting cameras on fenders, along with tight editing that made the film such a stunning experience, not mention a classic of visual storytelling. During the many chase scenes, we feel like we are truly there with Max, or the Goose, or the hapless victims of the villains. We ride right along with Toecutter and his gang, all but sharing the fate of some character just before impact obliterates them – who can forget the image of eyes bulging in their sockets with the realization of imminent death. Brian May’s score seldom gets mentioned when the film is discussed, but with its echoes of Bernard Herrmann’s best work for Hitchcock, it is essential to the film’s success.

The film itself clocks in just over a tight hour and half, and I am forever impressed with the way Miller seamlessly changes moods, and genres, from one scene to the other. The opening, where the harried police (called The Bronze), chase down the out of control Nightrider (“I’m a fuel injected suicide machine”) along the two lane black tops, is an action film masterpiece, while introducing two of the main protagonists, the up for anything Jim Goose, and the quieter, but very competent, Max Rockatansky. There are few other films, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK might be the exception, that hit the ground running better. But very soon the villains of the piece show up to claim the remains of their fallen comrade, and terrorize a small community in the process – just like Brando and his gang in THE WILDD ONE. This culminates with one innocent bystander dragged to his death behind a motorcycle, and a young man and a girl being chased down and gang raped. When one of the younger members of the gang is arrested by Goose, a series of increasingly deadly confrontations are set in motion, with many casualties, and lots of collateral damage, until only two characters remain. And then there is one, who rides away into the sequel. While we just remember the incredible action scenes, equally memorable are the domestic scenes between Max and his wife Jessie and their toddler son. Played by Jeanne Samuels, Jessie is such a great wife; she and Mel Gibson make a wonderful couple. It is essential that we understand what Max loses when the Toecutter’s gang catches up with them, and his family’s horrible fate (that much worse because we don’t see the graphic details) haunts him through all the subsequent films. And the seamless switch between genres is never more evident than in the sequence where Jessie walks through the woods to the beach, gradually becoming aware that she is not alone – this is right out of a horror film. This leads to a finale, where Max hunts down those who have destroyed his family, and gets his revenge; one of the finest, most suspenseful, and tightly edited action sequences to be found anywhere. There are few films that have a stronger third act than MAD MAX. Then we come full circle back to horror in the climax between Max and Johnny the Boy, which directly influenced SAW.

One of the reasons why MAD MAX works so well is that while it has a great appealing hero in the young early 20s Mel Gibson, it also has some spectacularly nasty villains. Bubba Zenetti, Cundalini, Johnny the Boy, and their leader The Toecutter, are not only punk sadists, but there is a strong suggestion of sexual degeneracy (long a plot device by writers to make readers hate the bad guys more) rampant among them. “Push me, shove you, says who?” that, and the strongly implied rape of a boy and girl by the gang, not to mention the fey Toecutter’s strong interest in Johnny the Boy, are a striking contrast to the straight arrow Max, and his happy home life with Jessie. All this is due to the fine acting by Hugh Keays-Byrne as the smirking, sadistic, one eye browed Toecutter, and Tim Burns’ smarmy Johnny, a clear cousin to Andy Robinson’s Scorpio from DIRTY HARRY. What is also so striking now is how well MAD MAX plays off the deep anxieties of the late ‘70s, the era of the energy crisis, rampant inflation and low economic growth, the fall of South Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the rise of the Ayatollah. World events seemed to be sliding toward some kind of disaster, either economic or an outright world war – maybe both - with no political leadership capable of turning things around. The opening of the film says that it is set a few years into the future, where the situation has only gotten worse. Some reviewers state that MAD MAX takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange between the super powers, but that is more clearly stated in the immediate sequel, THE ROAD WARRIOR, where civilization has vanished entirely. I think the original film happens in a world where there has been an economic meltdown, where governments have gone broke, especially local ones, where an under manned police work out of a burned out HQ, allowing criminal gangs to roam with virtual impunity as the underpinnings of society crumble just a little more each day.

MAD MAX was a huge hit in Australia, and worldwide, being released in America in the spring of 1980 by American International Pictures, the legendary AIP, a company well known for releasing exploitation films. Most Americans didn’t know what to make of it, the poster sold it as a scifi film, and it really didn’t find an audience to embrace it until the movie began running in heavy rotation on cable a year later. By the time Miller’s sequel, MAD MAX 2 or THE ROAD WARRIOR, as it was known in America, was released in the fall of 1982, it was highly anticipated and became a big hit. When the third film, BEYOND THUNDERDOME (Gibson’s last turn as Max), opened in the summer of 1985, it was a genuine blockbuster. But for me, there is something about the original that is still unsurpassed, it bursts with the energy of film makers who are filled with joy at the prospect of making a labor of love, and the eagerness to take chances, the kind you don’t take when you are working on a big budget sequel, and having to worry about meeting fan’s expectations.

After the initial three films, Max went on a long hiatus, not reappearing until 2015, when MAD MAX: FURY ROAD was released, proving that he was a perfect fit for the 21st Century. Hugh Keays-Byrne was back playing the Big Bad, this time a monster named Immortan Joe, but this new Max swapped out Tom Hardy for Mel Gibson (who’d had a lot of mileage since his days as a fresh faced kid in the first movie), but George Miller was back in the director’s chair, proving that time had not diminished the true star of MAD MAX. This time Max snagged a Best Picture Oscar nomination. He should have won.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS

Why the Civil War ended like it did.

One thing we history buffs love is a big, thick book on a subject we love, the kind of deep dive that requires us to plow through hundreds upon hundreds of pages. APRIL 1865, THE MONTH THAT SAVED AMERICA by Jay Winik, is not that kind of history book, and that is just fine. Coming in at just under 400 pages, this is the kind of read that people who can’t manage detailed descriptions of troop movements, battlefield strategy, and lots of exposition will enjoy, while at the same time, satisfy those who have exhausted Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote, but still can’t resist going back to the American Civil War one more time. As per the title, Winik’s book deals with the last month of the war, which saw the fall of Richmond, Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln’s assassination, the capitulation of the last major Confederate forces in North Carolina, and the first halting steps toward a national reconciliation after four years of endless bloodshed, and furious rancor. In the popular imagination, the Civil War ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of the McLean house in Appomattox, Virginia on April 9th, 1865; the rest of the Confederate armies followed Lee’s example, disbanding, with everyone going home, resolving to be one nation again, one filled with good Americans. But Winik sets out to prove this a gross simplification, and that if things had gone just a little different, if revenge and retribution had triumphed in the hearts of the North, or resistance and defiance had steeled the backs of the South, then American history would have been much different.

The book makes the case that by April of 1865, the Confederacy was on its knees, with Grant’s army at the gates of Richmond, and Sherman’s forces marching into North Carolina, but that it was far from beaten, and years of guerrilla warfare, and a bitter resistance to Federal occupation, was a very real option for the Confederate forces still in the field. This kind of war, which would have resulted in unimaginable destruction and loss of life, did hold the possibility of victory for the South, if the North could ultimately be convinced that the price was too great to keep on fighting year after year. Whether this would happen or not, rested not only in the hands of Lee and Grant, but also Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston, and even disreputable characters like Nathan Bedford Forrest, and downright evil ones, like John Wilkes Booth. Winik labors hard to tell us who they were, what brought them to be where they were, and to hold such responsibility at that place and that time, and why what they did matters so much, even after more than a century and a half.

I think Winik makes his points well, giving us not only the who and the where, but very much the why, specifically why the reconciliation that occurred, bitter and grudging on behalf of some, in the final month of the war came about. That these men who fought each other so hard, so long, both Confederate and Union, were sick and tired of war, Winik makes plain, that in their hearts, their fondest desire was to go home to their families, and never again hear a gun fired in anger. And upon this desire to be done with the bloody business of slavery and secession, a new sense of nationhood took root in the United States. That is far from an original conclusion, but I have not seen it better asserted than in Winik’s book.

This book is as much a civics lesson as it is a recounting of history. One can easily quarrel with Winik’s conclusions, as some reviewers have over his handling of slavery, and the challenges of Reconstruction are given only a quick pass, as others have also pointed out, many feeling that this is the real story. These are contentious subjects, and button pushers for many, proving yet again, as William Faulkner said, “The past is not dead, it’s not even past.”
Jay Winik wrote APRIL 1865 twenty years ago now, when America was still enjoying the aftermath of the Cold War; and for me, the cheery conclusion of the book reads like something written before 9/11, the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Great Recession, before the ferocious tribalism of 21st Century politics. These days we live in virtuous times, where the compromises and hard fought decisions of the past are disdained and dismissed. The complexities and paradoxes of the Civil War have no place in the public square or popular culture. Men who lived and died, and gave their last full measure for a country they loved as much as anyone alive today are found wanting by a modern morality, and judged harshly. APRIL 1865, whatever its faults, is a book that tries to make us understand a very difficult piece of American history, the kind of understanding that leads to common ground, something earlier generations of Americans knew and shared with one another; something forgotten, but perhaps yet remembered.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS

Jonny Quest speaks.

When I was 12 years old, the only appointment television I knew was on Saturday mornings when JONNY QUEST came on. This animated show about the adventures of young Jonny, his adopted brother, Hadji, along with his father, Dr. Benton Quest, and government agent, Race Bannon was like nothing else on TV. A carton that wasn’t silly, or centered around talking animals, but about a kid who traveled the world, visited exotic locations, got into trouble, battled villains, and encountered some really cool monsters (the Yeti from “Monsters in the Monastery” is a favorite) was a must see, if for no other reason than it didn’t patronize us kids, it treated us like real people instead. Even the animation, which went for a sense of realism, was like no other show. Yes, it was violent (though not as violent as the video games to which a later generation of kids would become addicted), and its depiction of Third World and primitive cultures were mostly less than positive (although it was the rare show to have an Asian character as a regular, and not be comedy relief). Blue noses and “concerned” parents considered it a bad influence, which only made us love the show more.

So being a huge JONNY QUEST fan, I bought myself JONNY QUEST SPEAKS: JONNY, SINBAD JR. & ME, a slim volume of recollections by Tim Matheson, the young man who voiced Jonny, and other cartoon characters, and who went on to have a long acting career, most remember him as Otter in ANIMAL HOUSE. In this book, Matheson talks about his early days as a child actor, and his days at the Hanna-Barbera studios doing old school voice work after he got the Jonny Quest gig. Since the show was going for a sense of realism, they hired a real 16 year old to voice Jonny. The book, written by Kevin Scott Collier, makes a point to credit the many writers, illustrators and animators who worked on the show, and gives special attention to Doug Wildey, the former comic book artist who created the series for William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Their company was a cartoon factory, churning out an incredible amount of shows, and though the pace was frantic, we get the sense from Matheson that it was a great experience, and that he was very fortunate, as many of his child acting contemporaries did not fare so well in the long run. And amazingly, Matheson reaped little to no publicity for being in JONNY QUEST. After that show was not renewed for another season due to ratings not being high enough to justify a second season, Matheson stuck around at Hanna-Barbera to voice two more of their teen heroes in SINBAD JR & HIS MAGIC BELT and YOUNG SAMSON AND GOLIATH; both shows were built around a plucky young boy, who through the use of a magical object, becomes a muscle bound hero (shades of Shazam?). YOUNG SAMSON was clearly an inspiration for HE-MAN. Hanna-Barbera had a whole slew of adventure and scifi shows back in the day – SPACE GHOST, THE HERCULOIDS, FRANKENSTEIN JR – some of which, along with JONNY QUEST, were briefly revived in a DC comic book a few years back. Through SINBAD JR, Matheson met Mel Blanc, the legendary voice and comic actor, who was Bugs Bunny, among many, many others, and who brought joy to many a child, and adult as well. One of Matheson’s best anecdotes is the surprise he got in the mail, when as a struggling, and nearly broke, young actor, a residual check arrived out of the blue.

This book has some mistakes in the text: the actor who originally voiced Fred Flintstone was Alan Reed, not Alan Freed, who was the famous disc jockey. But my main complaint with this book is its very short length. I really want to know more, especially the history of Hanna-Barbera. Maybe it’s time for someone to write a full blown history of Saturday morning cartoons. Also, this book makes one long for an autobiography from Tim Matheson himself, the man has had an interesting career, and surely he must have a lot more stories to tell.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS