The Hugos: Lord of Light

The last Zelazny review I did was not complimentary.  Read it here!

Of course, I was overheated and sick to my stomach then.  On this; a soothing grey, cool, fall day I can't possibly be as crotchety.  Too bad!

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny won the 1968 Hugo award for best novel.  It neither left any great impression on me nor inspired my ire. It just was. 

My splendid co-worker Carlos, a lover of fine myth and religion could do it better justice than I.  In words borrowed from my excellent co-worker Ron: I found it too lofty, too cerebral.  I also could not find a character to like, though it DOES have a groovy concept:

What if a bunch of future assholes with future asshole science subjugated a planet and pretended to be gods?  Then one of them tries to be less assy for a awhile.  

He's called Sam, he's the protagonist, and Jack Kirby thought he'd look like this in his 1979 concept sketches for the proposed 'Lord of Light' movie:

But not even Jack Kirby could make me care about Sam's exploits: although they'll probably try again to make this movie someday.  A big damn effects-stravaganza.  

Like 'Clash of the Titans' but with Hindu gods instead.  Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of religion, but I didn't find me any of the juicy stuff I likes in that there paper dvd.  Yes, back stabbing, betrayal, fornication, battles to the death, reincarnation via brain downloading... it's all very well.  

It just seemed very dry to me. 

And unlike Clone High's Gandhi, I don't like my humping dry.  

When I read LofL I had already read the (written later) Dune books of Brian Herbert with their humans-using-science-to-be-titans and really enjoyed those a lot more.  So there's no accounting for taste.

I gave LofL "ok" as a rating at goodreads.com, 2 stars out of  possible 5.  You can read some of the 5 of 5 reviews on that link or ask DoctorTeeth about Zelazny.

You know, the SAME year Zelazny wrote 'Damnation Alley'?  

It had the benefit of being shorter, cooler, and successfully made into a decent movie with George Peppard, the TRUE definition of any book's intrinsic value!

Go watch THAT.  It has giant scorpions.  So does 'Clash of the Titans', and 'Dune: The Machine Crusade', come to think of it...

Maybe SCORPIONS are the definition of intrinsic value!

   

Captain Complainy: Kirby Equals Unsexy

I'm reading "Was Superman A Spy?" by Brian Cronin, a collection of legends about the comics industry from his blog 'Comics Should Be Good'. I came across the one about how in the 70's DC comics hired artistic legend Jack Kirby away from Marvel amid great brouhaha and fanfare, then proceeded to advertise and crow and count their money because they had Kirby as an artist!
Then they went and PASTED other artists' illustrations of Superman's face over Kirby's faces to match the 'house style'.
I've gotta say, I'm deeply conflicted on this one. Morally? I vehemently object to hiring and praising a guy to his face for his ground-breaking NEW LOOK and then re-doing his art to look like the regular stuff. That's low, brother. However... Aesthetically? I'll just have to say it, I'm in complete agreement.
Kirby's Supes is on the left, and Al Plastino's Curt Swan-style Supes is on the right. Maybe it's just me, but Kirby's Superman's face looks like a squashed toad. As do most of his male AND female characters. Creepy bug-eyed men and women with wide, weird maws.
I'm dead serious. Why are Kirby's Reed Richards and his Thor always shouting things toward the reader with outstretched arms and a grimace of what appears to be constipation?
I first realized this while staring at a 'pin-up' Kirby did of Sue Storm (Richards). It just didn't DO IT for me, you know?
The man drew a HELL of a good monster. He drew SQUAJILLIONS of good monsters.
Thing, Hulk, Mole Man, Mole Man's horrifying underground armies, every screaming ugly weird-ass troll and freaky-deaky nightmare for over a decade at Marvel was probably his doing. And let's not forget Etrigan, Darkseid, Granny Goodness, Desaad and every other creepy thing the darkness ever congealed over at DC.
AND his regular, ordinary, down-to-earth HUMAN people look like toads! I'm slightly ashamed of my own stomach-knotting jealousy, but they do, they DO look like toads!
I KNOW Jack was the King! I KNOW he inspired a generation of artists! But look at one of the guys he inspired for a moment. John Byrne. An example of a student whose skills surpassed his teacher in his very earliest years, at least in certain areas.
This is how John Byrne draws Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four.
And this is how Kirby draws the same woman.
OH! I'm kidding! Too soon!
I hear you baying for my blood. 'How dare you denigrate Mighty Kirby? Pistols at dawn on planet Apokalips, sir! My Female Furies shall disembowel you!'
Well, I say, bring it. Your Kirby Furies against my Frank Cho Furies and we'll JUST SEE whose are sexiest in the cold light of day!
(Or something else threatening that makes more sense.)
Look, the last thing I wanna do is crap on Kirby. The man was an Art Master whose shoes I'm not worthy to shit in. Is his art dynamic? Hells, yeah. Was he prolific? NOBODY could match his output. Did he work himself to death in relative obscurity and revolutionize an industry that gave him (while alive) little credit? I venture YES. He worked his butt off for a pittance, an early grave and just oodles of post-death accolades from everybody who ever read him. Were his drawings of women (or men) sexy? I venture NO.
I also have to assume he wasn't trying to be. The beauty of his work is in the STRAIN and the PAIN, the eye-bags, the veins-a-poppin', the bared tooth and claw, the bristly beards, the calloused hands, the wailing mouths, the sunken, haunted eyes. The dark side of humanity.
Assuming that's what you think is beautiful.
If I stared at stuff like that all the time, I'd never get any sleep!
So... very... tired.