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REVIEW: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

The surprise success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife breathed new life into a moribund franchise, giving us a new generation of supernatural sleuths to cheer for. It was very touching to see the original quartet (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis) suit up one more time and kick ghostly ass. But, it was clear the torch was being passed to Egon Spengler’s daughter, Callie) Carrie Coon, and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), along with their science teacher Gary Gooberson (Paul Rudd). With her inheritance of the original Ghostbusters HQ, the stage was set.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the result, and the film, out now on streaming and disc, is a hodge-podge of characters, concepts, and conundrums that are so filled with characters the emotional undercurrents are given the shortest of shrift.

Phoebe is clearly the genius, the true heir to Egon, but her youthfulness gets her sidelined by Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), who has harbored a grudge against the team, regardless of lineup, since the 1980s. She is also struggling and uncertain of Gary’s role in their family since he and Callie appear romantically involved, but little is said.

Her thread has the most interesting possibilities, especially as she begins playing chess with Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), a ghost. Unfortunately, it is ignored for large stretches as the film tries to service everyone else, including the original team.

Instead, Stantz acquires an ancient artifact from Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani), who has ignored his family’s history in favor of being a slacker. This artifact contains the trapped spirit of Garraka, an ancient being who wanted to destroy life on Earth. Conveniently, he has started to assert his control just as the containment unit has reached capacity and a new home for the trapped ghostly spirits is located.

Here’s where the story starts to fall apart. We have no idea how Garraka began to assert his control over people or how he knew to target Melody, using her as a pawn. Some new pseudo-science is introduced at  Dr. Winston Zeddemore’s upgraded facility in New Jersey, which also brought back Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor) and introduced us to Dr. Lars Pinfield (James Acaster). See? It’s pretty packed. And that’s before we mention the return of Janine Melitz (Annie Potts) and Podcast (Logan Kim) or the unnecessary addition of Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt).

The film looks great and is stuffed with callbacks to the first two films in the franchise, along with the reappearance of Slimer and Ghostly Librarian. But no one really gets a satisfying story arc; everything is done with shorthand, and believe it or not, some expected moments never come to pass.

It’s entertaining enough, but it lacks the charm and originality that set these films apart. Some of that can be blamed on Jason Reitman, whose father created the series. He and incoming director Gil Kenna share the script credit, so the blame falls to them for a lack of storytelling discipline, which is in favor of more and more spectacle. The $201.7 million worldwide box office may be the scariest part of the film, likely dooming the franchise from moving forward for some time.

Thankfully, the 4K Ultra HD transfer looks spectacular. Every icicle, proton beam, and ghostly reflection looks amazing on the home screen. The 2160p is sharp and amazing with an equally impressive 1080p Blu-ray, part of the Combo Pack, along with the Digital HD code.

The Dolby Atmos audio is up to the task of matching the superb visuals.

The Blu-ray offers all the Special Features and, while plentiful, feels more perfunctory than celebratory. We have  Audio Commentary – With director/co-writer Gil Kenan (also on the 4K); Return to the Firehouse (21:00)  Busting: Capturing the Ghosts of Frozen Empire (11:00) ; Easter Eggs Unleashed (7 minutes); Manifesting Garraka (3:00); New York, New Gear (7:00); Welcome to the Paranormal Discovery Center (4:00); Knowing the Score (7:00); and Deleted & Extended Scenes (9:00).

Vikings: Valhalla: The Complete First Season Comes to Disc in Aug.

BURBANK, CA (June 25, 2024) – From Creator/Showrunner/Executive Producer Jeb Stuart (The Fugitive, Die Hard), Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment brings you the next chapter in the Vikings franchise, with the release of Vikings: Valhalla: The Complete First Season on Blu-ray and DVD on August 27, 2024. One hundred years have passed, and a new generation of legendary heroes has arrived to create their destiny and make history! On August 27, all 8 gripping episodes from the first season will be available for purchase online and in-store at major retailers. Pre-order your copy today.

Vikings: Valhalla chronicles the heroic adventures of some of the most famous Vikings who ever lived — the legendary explorer Leif Eriksson, his fiery and headstrong sister Freydis Eriksdotter, and the ambitious Nordic prince Harald Sigurdsson. As tensions between the Vikings and the English royals reach a bloody breaking point and as the Vikings themselves clash over their conflicting Christian and pagan beliefs, these three Vikings begin an epic journey that will take them across oceans and through battlefields, from Kattegat to England and beyond, as they fight for survival and glory.

Vikings: Valhalla stars Sam Corlett as Leif Eriksson, Frida Gustavsson as Freydis Eriksdotter, Leo Suter as Harald Sigurdsson, and Bradley Freegard as King Canute. Other cast members include Jóhannes Jóhannesson as Olaf Haraldson, Laura Berlin as Emma of Normandy, David Oakes as Earl Godwin, Caroline Henderson as Jarl Haakon, Pollyanna McIntosh as Queen Ælfgifu, and Asbjørn Krogh Nissen as Jarl Kåre. Jeb Stuart, Michael Hirst, Morgan O’Sullivan, James Flynn, Sherry Marsh, Alan Gasmer, Sheila Hockin, and John Weber served as executive producers. The series was produced by MGM Television and originally debuted on Netflix on February 25, 2022, with the third and final season set to premiere on July 11, 2024.

Series information:

Vikings: Valhalla: The Complete First Season

Includes all 8 episodes from Season One

PRODUCT                      

Blu-ray & DVD
Audio: English SDH
Subtitles: English
Running Time: 410 Minutes
Rated: TV-MA

Cyborg Senitnels Arrive on Earth in New Series

New York, NY— June 27, 2024 — A new breed of mutant-hunting machines comes with a new era of mutantkind! This October, a squad of soldiers, each one scarred from Earth-shattering superhero conflicts and upgraded with nanotechnology, are tasked with apprehending dangerous mutants that threaten coexistence in SENTINELS. The five-issue limited series will be written by Alex Paknadel (Red Goblin) and drawn by Justin Mason (Spider-Punk).

While the X-Men regroup in the wake of Krakoa’s fall, the government revives its infamous Sentinel program under the guidance of Lawrence Trask. A mutant himself, Lawrence is cursed with visions of an apocalyptic species war and knows exactly which evil mutants will ignite it. On the surface, his new line of Sentinels appears to be technology-enhanced superhumans, but the truth behind their creation is darker than you can imagine. As Graymalkin Prison becomes home to the villains they capture, the pieces fall into place for the birth of a major new enemy that will define the first year of the X-Men’s From the Ashes era.  

WHO ARE THE NEW SENTINELS? The original Sentinel Program was human supremacy and fear coded into the circuitry. But now their legacy falls into the hands of mutantkind! Powered by cutting-edge nanotech, this new generation of Sentinels protects a fragile peace between mutants and humans. But when being a Sentinel is your job – your life – is it possible to stay human? Meet Sawtooth, Lockstep, Drumfire, and Voivod, a brand-new team of heroes that will take on the most heinous mutants! Their first mission: capture Omega Red!

“As an X-fan going back to my first set of teeth, I couldn’t be prouder or more excited to share SENTINELS with the fans,” Paknadel shared. “This book is about flawed human beings doing a dirty job for a dirty cause, and Justin Mason and I are determined to make you care about each and every one of them. Whatever your expectations are going in, I promise this book will surprise you.”

Cultural Phenomenon Succession gets Complete Series Blu-ray in Aug.

UPDATE: Warner Home Entertainment has annnounced the release date is now August 27. All other details remain the same.

BURBANK, CA (June 27, 2023) – Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment will be newly releasing Succession: The Complete Series on Blu-ray. Get ready to binge on all 39 episodes from HBO’s Emmy® award-winning original series, along with all the previously released special features. The brilliant high-stakes drama following the Roy Family and their quest for power will be available to purchase online on August 13. Pre-order your copy today.

Succession stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Braun, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, and Fisher Stevens.

The series was created by Jesse Armstrong; executive produced by Jesse Armstrong, Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy, and Will Ferrell. Jesse Armstrong served as showrunner.

Succession earned an impressive 75 Emmy® nominations, and 19 wins over its four-season run. The series achieved a remarkable streak, being nominated for Outstanding Drama Series throughout all four seasons and securing the Emmy® win three times (2020, 2022, 2023). In its fourth and final season, Succession dominated the Emmy® field with 27 nominations and secured six wins, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor, and Outstanding Lead Actress. The season also set a new record for Golden Globe TV award nominations with nine total and winning four, including Best Television Series (Drama) — its third win in that category. Further adding to its accolades, Succession was honored at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

SYNOPSIS:

In this provocative, satirical series about a highly dysfunctional dynasty, power, politics, money…it’s all in the family. When the aging patriarch of one of the world’s largest media conglomerates considers retirement, his family members position themselves for a takeover. But tensions rise as corporate battles threaten to turn into a family civil war in this sharp, scathing, binge-worthy series.

Pricing and series information:

Succession: The Complete Series

Includes all 39 episodes from all four seasons, plus over 20 bonus features, including Inside the Episode featurettes, Character Recaps, Cast and Crew Interviews, and more!

PRODUCT                       

Blu-ray                             

Audio: English SDH

Subtitles: English

Running Time: 2,340 minutes

Rated: TV-MARRated: TV-MAated: TV-MA

What If…Donald Duck Became Wolverine?

New York, NY— June 27, 2024 — This year marks the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck’s as well as the 50th anniversary of Wolverine, and in July, fans will be able to see both their sagas collide in a special comic book one-shot, MARVEL & DISNEY: WHAT IF…? DONALD DUCK BECAME WOLVERINE #1! Today, fans can see all the covers for this highly-anticipated issue and check out a sneak peek!

This first-of-its-kind mashup adventure will celebrate everything the world loves about these pop culture legends, from their heart and humor to their epic rage! Crafted by two acclaimed Disney comic creators, writer Luca Barbieri and artist Giada Perissinotto, MARVEL & DISNEY: WHAT IF…? DONALD DUCK BECAME WOLVERINE #1 is the latest comic book collaboration between Marvel and Disney following the What If…? Disney Variant Covers of the last few years and the blockbuster hit Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime #1 comic that hit stands earlier this month. Fans can look forward to even more exciting crossovers between Marvel heroes and Disney icons throughout this year and next, including Marvel & Disney: What If…? Donald Duck Became Thor #1 this August!

The comic will introduce Donald-Wolverine along with all sorts of reimagined Disney and Marvel mashups in a wild adventure inspired by one of Wolverine’s most memorable story arcs, Old Man Logan. In addition, the saga will revisit some of the greatest moments in Donald-Wolverine’s history, including his time spent with Weapon X and the Uncanny X-Men!  

Travel to the near future, where chaos rules as Pete-Skull transforms Duckburg into a super-hero-less wasteland. Only Old Donald Duck can turn the tide, but he’s given up his battling days and prefers naps and his grandma’s apple pie over fighting villains. But when Mickey-Hawkeye comes knocking at the door with Goofy-Hulk at his side, Donald-Wolverine has to make a choice! Will a trip down memory lane change his mind to save the world? Or will the lure of the backyard hammock and a long nap keep him from popping his claws one last time?

On merging these two icons, Barbieri said, “Donald Duck and Wolverine are two characters that seem almost impossible to make coexist, but in fact, they possess very similar personalities: they are both hot-tempered and unlucky, but in adversity, they do not lose heart and always show that they have a big heart! Once this point was focused, writing the story turned out to be easy and fun!”

“I always thought Wolverine’s sideburns only looked good on Uncle Scrooge, but when I drew them on Donald Duck, I realized they fit him perfectly too!” Perissinotto added. “Those pointy head tufts and thick sideburns go well with his shaggy being. I had so much fun adapting Wolverine’s hair to Donald Duck that I would do him like this all the time now!”

Fall Through by Nate Powell

This book is already dancing about architecture. So I worry that anything I might say would compound that – painting a picture of dancing about architecture. But here I am, and here I go.

Fall Through  is Nate Powell’s new graphic novel this year: it has what I think of as his trademark atmospheric, black-background, swirling pages and vaguely creepy, unexplained and deeply embedded fantasy elements. I found myself resisting it more than some of his earlier books: as always, I can only say how I reacted, and note that it’s as likely to have been me as the book.

This is the story of a punk band, Diamond Mine. They formed in 1994, recorded a 7″, did a bunch of touring, had a following. They lived together in a house, all seemingly in their early twenties. They were part of a wider punk scene across the Midwest and South, with clusters of more-or-less angry, more-or-less young people in every mid-sized town or larger, putting on mostly illegal shows in fields or backyards or wherever and running away when the cops came to break it up. None of that paid – if you actually made gas money, you were way ahead.

Punk, you know?

Jody was one of the four members of the band. She played bass and sang, at least some of the time. She wasn’t the leader and songwriter: that was Diana. She wasn’t the flashy guitarist: that was Napoleon. She wasn’t the quiet, solid-as-a-rock drummer: that was Steff. But she’s our viewpoint character.

Fall Through takes place mostly in 1994. But we also see Jody, seeming the same age, or just a few years younger, in 1978, back in what Gen X me thinks of as the actual age of punk. (Punk was a movement. It happened, and ended, like every other movement. Even early ’80s hardcore was something else. Everything later was revivals and different things, just like “rockabilly” now isn’t what it meant in the ’50s.)

How did Jody get from being 18ish in 1978 to being 23ish in 1994? Well, that’s the story here.

Most of the book is about a tour. It’s the summer of 1994, and the four members of Diamond Mine are in a van, going from town to town to play shows with local acts – again, mostly not legally, and the only way they get paid is if they sell some merch.  Like any tour, it seems to be endless, days stretching on and on, each one like the last. Like it never began and will never end, just a single day, over and over again.

And that may be true. Diana wrote a song – “Fall Through” – and when Diamond Mine plays it the right way, at the climax of a show, they seem to change worlds or times or something. The flap copy calls it “transported to alternate worlds in which they’ve never existed but their band’s legend has.” I don’t know about that: it all seems to still be 1994, and they have tour dates day after day, which implies their band exists and is known.

Really, it feels like a reset. Maybe different worlds, but not that different from each other. Certainly not the wild swings in time and space the description implies. All still that same tour, the same van, rambling through mid-America during the summer of 1994. More punk shows: one every night, potentially forever. Like August keeps resetting – this time St. Louis, the next time Louisville.

Diana seems to be doing this on purpose. Once there’s a frightening figure – coming out of a surrounding cornfield, like a horror movie, during their set – that she clearly triggers the song, the spell to get away from. And it’s taken a while, but the rest of the band knows something is wrong.

There are confrontations, but it’s all in vague language – “moving forward,” “sticking together,” that kind of thing. I expect punks to be louder, more demanding – to swear a lot more, for one thing. (I guess these are well-behaved, Southern, second generation punks.)

So the book never explains what’s happening or why. They talk around it a few times, but that’s all. There’s never even a “this band is going to break up” fight or possibility or option: it’s as if they’re all locked into this, no matter what they want or choose.

The situation does get resolved in the end, and we do circle back to 1978…but the ways and hows of it frustrated me. It’s all thematically appropriate, but not dramatically. The plot doesn’t go anywhere, the actions of the characters aren’t really important to the ending. It’s a book about an endless punk tour, about community and scene, rather than being a story about these things that happened to these people.

We never learn why this happened. We never learn how this song works. We never learn who that mysterious figure was, if he was actually chasing them, or anything. In the end, it all doesn’t matter, all those explanations are beside the point Powell wants to make. But I was here to find out all those things, and I don’t have any particular nostalgia for “wasn’t it awesome to be young and in a punk band?”

So I found this book incredibly frustrating: it avoided all of the things I wanted to know and focused entirely on things I found vague and trite. It’s lovely and thoughtful: Powell draws as well as ever and his people are real and precise. They just all waffle on about the least interesting things, and then go on to play another show as if none of that happened, which makes very little sense to me.

Your mileage may vary. If you’ve ever been in a band, particularly. And Powell is one of our best, so I won’t ignore the fact that I might have missed something major. But the Fall Through I read was not the book I was hoping for.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

REVIEW: Dexter’s Laboratory: The Complete Series

I must admit that I missed Dexter’s Laboratory when it originally aired on the Cartoon Network from 1996-2003. Friends raved about its charm and humor and the brilliance of animator Genndy Tartakovsky. So, the arrival of Dexter’s Laboratory: The Complete Series is welcome. On sale today from Warner Home Entertainment, the set includes all 78 episodes plus the special Dexter’s Laboratory: Ego Trip.

According to the press release, the show is about half-Einstein, half-third grader Dexter.  This boy genius creates the most amazing inventions in the top-secret and highly advanced laboratory attached to his room.  But his genius can’t stop his space-brained sister Dee Dee from messing up and his work and pushing his buttons.  Or his annoying rival Mandark Astronomonov from constantly trying to one-up him.  Can Dexter use his intelligence to solve his problems?  Time to fight fire with…SCIENCE!

Well, who doesn’t love science?

What’s nice here is that Dexter and his rival are both very smart third graders, and the series celebrates smart people. Mom and Dad are somehow entirely clueless to the secrets hidden in Dexter’s bedroom, an annoying trope. However, Dee Dee finds the gadgets and gizmos and is clever enough to use them.

In addition to Dexter’s exploits, the first two seasons included segments featuring Monkey, Dexter’s pet lab-monkey, and the Justice Friends, a trio of superheroes sharing an apartment.

The show wasn’t afraid to experiment, such as the second season’s finale, the 25-minute “Last But Not Beast”. And after working on The PowerPuff Girls, Tartakovsky came back for Ego Trip, intending it to be the last word on Dexter.

Tartakovsky’s quirky sense of humor is clear in these seasons, especially when compared with the work of Chris Savino, who stepped in to run the series after the show seemingly ended and Tartakovsky moved on to Samurai Jack. The look and feel were okay but lacked the spark that made Dexter so funny.

The strong voice cast of Christine Cavanaugh, Allison Moore, Kath Soucie, Jeff Bennett, Kat Cressida, Eddie Deezen, and Candi Milo helped convey that sense of whimsy. After Cavanaugh died recently, Tartakovsky said he couldn’t imagine rebooting the show without her.

Interestingly, “Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor” and “Rude Removal” were banned from broadcast and are absent from the collection, making it a little less complete.

The 1080p transfer is just fine, retaining the sharp colors and images from the series; the Dolby Digital Audiotrack is equally good, so these are fine to rewatch at home.

No Special features were included.

Nancy by Olivia Jaimes

It’s not often that a syndicate gets praise for how they handle the transition on a legacy comic. This is the biggest example I can think of, and one of the biggest transitions in decades. By comparison, the new Flash Gordon artist this year is more typical: breathing new life into a beloved old feature by doing basically the same thing, just with more zip and energy.

Olivia Jaimes wasn’t doing the same thing with Nancy in 2018. What was once a finely tuned engine of precisely drawn gags by Ernie Bushmiller had devolved into a bland collection of glurge, drawn by Guy Gilchrist as the demented spawn of Precious Moments and Art Frahm. But Nancy had been through transitions before: it’s easy to forget that Bushmiller himself took over a strip then called Fritzi Ritz in 1925, added Nancy as a character, and shifted the whole strip based on what he wanted to do and what the audience wanted to see.

Jaimes – even today, her actual identity is a closely guarded secret; all that’s publicly known is that she had a webcomic before Nancy, is female, and is believed to be relatively young – looked backwards to Bushmiller in some things, like her fondness for meta gags and references to “the cartoonist.” She also dragged Nancy entirely into the modern world, something the very backward-looking Gilchrist had no interest in doing.

The syndicate seems to be pitching Nancy these days to actual kids, which is a major change from the last three or four decades. I don’t know how many actual eight-year-olds identify with Nancy – maybe, she’s prickly and demanding and self-centered and sure of her own righteousness like so many real-world kids of that age – but I guess that’s working for them.

This book – just called Nancy  – came out less than a year after Jaimes started the strip, back in 2019. I don’t know if it’s her complete first six months, but it’s something like that: this is how it started, what the big transition looked like from the other side. Compared to the work Jaimes is doing on the strip now – more than five years later – it’s simpler, starker in its drawing and more in-your-face Internet-meme-y in its gags, than the more organic, story-driven work she’s doing now.

I miss some of that anything-can-happen atmosphere of the early Jaimes years: it felt a bit more Bushmillerian then, since he was always a cartoonist who would draw absolutely anything in service of the best gag he had for that day. But this book is a good record of those days: a somewhat blockier Nancy and Sluggo, their eyes bigger and less expressive, their clothes more templated and old-fashioned, their dialogue more aggressively mentioning newer technology.

Even if you didn’t catch “Sluggo Is Lit” the first time around, check this out if you like smart gag cartoons. Nancy was always a great engine for them, and Jaimes tuned that engine back up and got it running beautifully.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

REVIEW: Spider-Man: Cosmic Chaos!

Spider-Man: Cosmic Chaos!
By Mike Maihack
Amulet/96 pagers/#1299 (hardcover), $9.99 (digital)

I like Mike Maihack’s artwork, which I find accessible and lots of fun. I feel bad for taking him to task for his popular Cleopatra in Space, but that was years ago, and lately, he’s been producing material far more to my liking.

Here, we have the third of his Spider-Man team-up books aimed at 6-9-year-olds. His storytelling sensibilities are sharp and approachable. Maihack told School Library Journal, “For a more established character like Spidey, it was about tapping into his friendly and neighborly disposition toward everything. Those are both things I could completely connect with. After that, I find it pretty intuitive to know how each character is going to react when you confront them with other characters or toss them into a giant mess of a situation. No matter where they come from, I discover ways of making them my own.”

So, we have a Spider-Man missing the angst who is adventuring in stories scaled to the readership, which includes simplified versions of the Marvel Universe’s denizens. In this story, he finds himself in space, trying to return the Silver Surfer’s surfboard to him. Along the way, he finds himself coming into possession of a vurbfzax, a cosmic talisman. Just seven were manufactured as rare premiums in Celestrio’s cereal and Rocket warns, “Combining all seven can have universe-shattering consequences!” (I suppose this is for readers too young to know about the Infinity Stones.)

Of course, all seven will be brought together, and cosmic wackiness ensures, bringing in Ego the Living Planet, Galactus, the Watcher, and the Collector. Things are looking pretty bad until the resolution presents itself in a surprising way.

There are some fine running gags about waffles and dolphins, and the core essence of the Marvel characters is nicely distilled for easy accessibility.

The packed story actually unfolds in a well-paced way, never crowding the artwork and making sure the characters each get a chance to shine.

This one makes for solid reading if you have someone looking for summer adventures.

Time Under Tension by M.S. Harkness

How do any of us choose the next book to read? Looking at a big list of possibilities – all things you don’t know well, all things new and different – what sparks the thought “that one”?

This time, it was hair.

On the cover of Time Under Tension , her major 2023 graphic memoir, creator M.S. Harkness draws her hair as a giant, swoopy, structural thing – almost a separate, solid object, like a shark’s fin. That said to me “this is a creator who is comfortable with caricature, who gets that cartooning is how to put complicated ideas down on the page. She’s going to be interesting to read on a craft and structure level.”

I don’t want to say “I was right.” Let’s say I accurately noticed some clear strengths in Harkness’s immediate, uncompromising work. Let’s say that she both has the drawing and page-layout chops to tell a difficult story well, and both the material in her own life and the mental strength to turn that into art to work from. Let’s say I was not disappointed.

This is autobiographical: I assume it’s true as much as any memoir is, that some characters may be somewhat fictionalized or events moved in time or dialogue reconstructed to work better on the page. It feels real. Harkness has an immediacy, in her bold lines and her in-your-face storytelling, that tells the reader she is not fucking around here.

We open just before her art-school graduation, in what turns out to be an extended prologue that jumps back and forth in time during that taut moment of almost that is the month before that big day. All of the work is done; the group show is being hung. Harkness knows she will graduate. There’s a moment where a teacher bluntly tells her “I had to keep everyone else from failing. I was never really worried about you. Your art career or whatever…you’ll be fine.”

This section sets up the tensions and issues Harkness will be working through during the bulk of the book, rolling out over most of the next year.

And, no matter what that art professor thought, she is not fine.

She’s organized, focused, driven. She has a plan and multiple goals. She’s working on her first graphic novel and studying to become a personal trainer. She has a sympathetic fellow-artist roommate as a support system, and is plugged into the larger comics world.

She’s also doing random one-off sex-work jobs to plug holes in her budget. The book description says she’s also selling weed for the same purpose, but we really don’t see that in the story. She has a messy relationship with an up-and-coming MMA fighter – she is, or was, his dealer, and a fuck-buddy for this guy who already has a “girlfriend.” She wants to be more to him than he’s willing to give, and he keeps coming back but is at least honest about what’s going on.

Behind all that is a horrible childhood: a sexually abusive father about to get out of prison and reaching out through some kind of reparations program to make an “apology” she wants nothing to do with. A mother who means well but who Harkness sees as weak and doesn’t have much in common with.

I don’t want to psychoanalyze her, especially based on her own presentation. But there’s clearly trauma there that she’s still trying to get away from, and a complex nexus of physicality: working out herself, helping other people’s bodies get strong as a trainer, the random paid sex, the toll on arms and back from hunching over a drawing board. Time Under Tension isn’t really about all of those physical demands on her body, and how they intersect with each other, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her next book was – or the book after that. 

Harkness seeks out therapists, which doesn’t go well. She knows she’s driven and goal-focused, but feels like she’s not connecting with people: they’re all just roles in this march forward, each one just a piece of one of her projects.

She has to work it out herself, the same way she does everything. More work, more pushing forward, one day at a time.

In the way of comics, it may be telling the story of a few years ago: I see that Harkness is now thirty-one. Time Under Tension was Harkness’s third book; the first two were also comics memoirs. She’s said that she intends to do five books in this “series.” But this one stands alone: it tells a full story brilliantly, with an unblinking eye on her own life and problems.

And her hair is magnificent. Harkness has a stark style with strategically deployed spots of black, and her hair is the most consistent large black element on most of these pages, drawing the eye to its complexity and unruliness. I wonder if we will see that hair settle down in future books, as Harkness moves forward in life and gets her demons more under control. I hope so. I’d love to see it.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

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