Comic Review: Transformers VS G.I. Joe

    Full disclosure, here.  As a wee lad, G.I. Joe, was my jam.  I had the toys, I watched the cartoon, I listened to the audio-stories, I had the bed sheets; you name it.  It was even the book that I delved into during my first, short-lived attempt at following comics.  My fandom did not continue into adulthood, but I have fond memories, none the less.  However, I never thought too much of Transformers.  I watched the cartoon, and I guess I enjoyed it (more than Voltron or He-Man and some of the others popular at the time).  But I wasn’t in to the toys, I never contemplated putting an Autobots sticker on my car, and I flippin’ hate the new movies (I kinda like the second live-action G.I. Joe film).  I won’t swear to it, but I think the only Transformers thing I ever read was a G.I. Joe VS Transformers comic set during World War II, from the early 2000s.  I liked it, but it didn’t make me seek out more.

    So, I had little interest in another crossover between these franchises.  But, I’m a big fan of Tom Scioli and his mad bastard Jack Kirby-like insanity.  When I heard he was working on the project, I knew I’d have to give it a look, even if it otherwise didn’t interest me.  Scioli’s that good.  Free Comic Book Day came along, and there was a preview issue.  I took it home and may have even read it that night.  Holy crap!  Reading it was like plucking childhood memories right out of my head.  It had the weird little kid logic I used to employ when playing.  The same vaguely sick sense of wonder and horror that produced things like building huge structures, peppered with action figures, then knocking them down to see how all the bodies end up.  The dialog, the plotline, the crazy ideas; Scioli and co-author John Barber are tapped into something.  This is everything my weird little brain would have wanted the cartoon to be, everything it was when I was alone.

    You can’t talk about a Scioli project and not talk about the art.  With hyper-weird images sifted through Golden Age comic mentality, his work explodes with energy.  And with his odd, slightly off, almost muted colors, reading the book sometimes feels like reading the backs of packages, or those full page ads you’d find in comic books from the 80s.  Scioli’s work calls out for color, and it gets a ton here.

    If you were a kid in the 80s, if you played with G.I. Joes or Transformers, if you’re in to weird comics, and if you like the idea of something way, way out there being dressed in a mainstream, commercial skin, read Transformers VS G.I. Joe.  It’s the kind of thing I love, the kind of book I sit back and wonder, ‘how the hell did this get greenlit?’

Transformers VS G.I. Joe
Authors: Tom Scioli & John Barber
Artist: Tom Scioli
Publisher: IDW
ISBN: 978-1-63140-190-9

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of 80s Trash Sci-Fi!

    After watching a bunch of wonderful 80s trash this past week, and owing to a particularly strong resurgence in my thinking about science fiction in general, I thought I’d tackle a subject near and dear to me; the wonderful worlds of trash sci-fi.  This is the stuff one used to discover and cherish in the stacks of local video shops; something that younger folk will likely never experience again.  To that end, here are some of my favorites.  You’ll notice I don’t have Battle Beyond the Stars, or Enemy Mine, or The Last Star Fighter.  First, I couldn’t include everything.  And second, those all seemed a bit too mainstream…?

5. Gandahar (aka, Light Years) (1988):  I think I first picked this up because of its connection to Isaac Asimov.  But I loved it for two reasons.  One, it’s chock full of animated boobs, and adolescent Matt was quite taken with that.  And two, it’s a totally weird, alien world with lots of strange creatures and cultures.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a wicked mindf%#k.  I’ve never seen the French version, only the English language one, with lots of famous folks lending their voice talents.  This is one I really, really want to add to my collection.

4. Beyond the Rising Moon (aka, Outerworld) (1987):  I stumbled across this in my early days of using NetFlix’s Instant service.  Right away, I was baffled by how I’d never heard of the film.  Absolutely, it’s a low budget thing, but it’s pretty darned good.  A pretty good story and some cool miniature effects.  Seek it out.

3. The Ice Pirates (1984):  Before there were The Guardians of the Galaxy, there were the Ice Pirates.  A goofy, fun, exciting and wacky film that dropped in the wake of Star Wars and has that film’s marks all over it.  But so what?  It’s a blast.

2. Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983):  A Han Solo type gets sent out so a backwater planet to rescue some damsels.  OK.  Whatever.  While not an amazing film, to be sure, I enjoy the heck out of this Peter Strauss vehicle (yeah, there was a Peter Strauss vehicle).  This feels like one of those space adventure novels you’d find in a used book store and knock out in an afternoon.  It definitely felt like there should have been more films.  I’d love to see the further adventures of Wolff.  Alas.

1. Cyborg (1989): This movie is the phoenix that rose from the ashes of Cannon’s collapse.  It was also their last theatrically released movie.  Masters of the Universe II and an attempt at doing a live action Spider-Man movie had to die so that Cyborg might live.  You can point to all the various technical issues the film has, to the bad acting and the weird pacing.  You’re not wrong.  But this is one of my all time favorites.  I love it.  And not with a single ounce of irony.  This is the movie I’ll often point to when talking about the difference between movies that are ‘good’ and movies that I love.  And there is a difference.  Citizen Kane is a ‘good’ movie (well, it’s actually a great movie).  Commando is a movie I love.  Those two labels are neither mutually exclusive, nor mutually assured.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Stop what you're doing!

The following is a public service announcement...

See Manborg right now.  Stop reading this post and go rent/view/whatever the film.  If, like us at In the Mouth of Dorkness, you enjoy the wonderfully mad world of film, especially 'so bad they're good' films of the 80s, this is a wonderful callback.  It reminds me a bit of Hobo With a Shotgun, which also managed to update, and express its love for a time and style.  It's like Land of the Lost and Lexx got in a time-traveling blender and came out in a video rental shop in 1986.  If that sounds as amazing as it should, see the film!

-Matthew J. Constantine

Dork Hero: Lea Thompson

    Lea Thompson was so, so very important to the development of my young brain.  She hit the scene in 1983 with Jaws 3 (which, I saw in the theaters, and even as a boy of 7 thought was stupid), then followed that up with Red Dawn, Back to the Future, SpaceCamp, and Howard the Duck.  That was all it took.  Sure, she came back for Back to the Future II and III, but that initial wave of films was magic.  Though I was never as in to Red Dawn as my friends, the others were all staples of my childhood.  And when we got a VCR in ‘86, they were go-to films.  To this day, Howard the Duck is among my favorites.  Thompson was just the right mix of 80s cool and naïve nerd, just on the cute side of hot, and she radiated hopeful energy.

Five Favorite Lea Thompson Films:
5.  SpaceCamp
4.  Red Dawn
3.  Back to the Future II
2.  Back to the Future
1.  Howard the Duck

-Matt