Joseph

I grew up reading a lot of comic books drawn by Gene Colan. Gene drew everything from Batman, Detective Comics to Howard the Duck, but I think he shined in horror comic books like The Tomb of Dracula and Night Force. Gene had a distinct style that was sensuous. His artwork encapsulated Romantic paintings and pulp magazine covers.

Gene’s been on my mind a lot because I picked up his run on Night Force on ComiXology earlier this week. I loved the series, but I don’t think it was Gene’s best work. I don’t know if Gene was rushing to make deadlines or if the inkers couldn’t adequately convey Gene’s drawings or if there was some other reason, but Gene’s work seemed rushed and a little shoddy.

This post’s inspiration is Gene’s drawing of Merlin, a leopard that is a companion to the series main character, Baron Winter. One panel in particular. Take a look at the lower left-hand of the frame. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes; it looked like something I would have drawn when I was six-years-old. I flipped through the pages to see how he drew Merlin in the rest of the issue. Surely it was a slip-up. But no, in every panel, Merlin is either passably drawn or outright terrible. What the hell?

I hope I’m not dissuading you from reading Night Force because it’s otherwise excellent. And I still consider Gene a master at his craft but man, that leopard!

I’m the target demo for Godzilla vs. Kong. I should love this movie, but I found it boring, as I did Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). Each one of those movies were stunning to behold, but I failed to connect with any of them.

When I was a boy, my dad introduced me to Godzilla. We watched Destroy All Monsters on Creature Double Feature one Saturday afternoon, and from that point on, I was hooked on giant monsters (or kaiju). Godzilla, Rodan, Gamera, Daimajin, etc. I loved them all. But even then I recognized that all those movies were boring. They moved at a glacial pace. Also, CGI did not exist, so everything you saw on the screen was either filmed using models or people wearing rubber suits. The effects were practical and low budget.

That was then, and this is now. Like you, I am a sophisticated movie viewer. I’m used to rapid cuts, tightly written dialogue, and compelling characters. I guess the latest batch of monster movies has those things in spades, but they fail to excite me.

It’s not the genre, though. Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (2013) had me diverted from beginning to end. And the movie moved like a freight train. Not only was Pacific Rim a spectacle to behold, but I cared about everything single character, no matter how silly or outrageous. del Toro proves that guan monster (and robot) movies don’t have to be plodding bores.