The Secret Diary of Bettie Page (2017) by David Avallone (writer) and various artists

Bettie Page is a fascinating woman, one of the top pin up models.  She has been the subject of comics, a biopic (The Notorious Bettie Page starting Gretchen Mol) and a heap of photos and drawings.  I once heard that she was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most photographed person in the world, I cannot verify that.

Like many of my age, I discovered Bettie Page when Dave Stevens used her as the model for The Rocketeer's girlfriend Betty Page.  Stevens then created a revival of Bettie Page which gave her royalties.  There were several comics from Dark Horse in the 90s some with art by Stevens and others by Jim Silke.  Other comics of a more salacious nature.  Needless to say Bettie Page has a significant pop culture presence so a new comic isn't a surprise.  The idea that she was a secret agent in the 50s is in an interesting idea.

This miniseries has eight issues (and a six issue story in Playboy) all written by David Avallone with different artists. Issues 1-3 have art by Colton Wortley, with Esau Figueroa and Bane Wade sharing the duties for the last five issues.  Joseph Michael Lisner did the art for the Playboy story (which can be found here. Lisner provided covers for all the issues.

The eight issues are split into three parts. Issues 1-4 cover the events leading to Bettie's recruitment.  Issue 5 covers training and a small mission that pays homage to 50s drive in moves and issues 6-8 is the mission in Cannes. Personally, I would have gotten to the spy stuff sooner.

Issue 1 was a little confusing it starts with Bettie at a photoshoot in New York. The FBI raids the shoot and Bettie escapes down the fire escape.  At the bottom of the escape, just standing in the street is Rick Chaplain.  Chaplain helps her down and offers her a job.  A job in Los Angeles, where he proceeds to drive her.  I live in Australia but I know that LA and New York are a long way apart.
The whole set up seems off and a really bad way to get to her to Los Angeles.  I mean there wasn't even the opportunity for her to pack, Bettie is seen driving in the outfit she was wearing at the photoshoot.  Lucky it was the start of the shoot.

In LA, Bettie gets the lead role in a sci movie "Invasion of the Space Commies" while working as an assistant for Chaplain.  Seriously, the story could have started with Bettie in LA for auditions.  Hell she could have met Chaplain on the plane and it would have made more sense than what we got.

The story could have been tighter but it was far from the most disappointing part of the story.  Bettie Page Queen of the Pin-Ups this was a story begging for 'good girl' style art.  The Dark Horse stories had Dave Stevens and Jim Silke artwork.





And Dynamite delivers for the covers with Joseph Michael Lisner doing all eight issues and Scott Chandler on variants.  Issue one had twenty odd variants including photo covers with and one by  Terry Dodson homaging Dave Stevens.

 

If only the interior art matched these covers, I found Colton Worley's  art to be muddy.  It looked like he was using photo references but it didn't work, In issues 1 and 2 Worley inked his own work but issue 3 had Esau Figueroa inking but the inking only made the effect worse:

 

Figueroa drew issues 4, 6-8 with Bane Wade drawing issue 5 and inking issue 4.  I found the art did not improve with the changes in artist. Dynamite as I mentioned did a six page stand alone with Lisner on art for Playboy magazine, which co-incidentally was the memorial issue for Hugh Hefner.  Lisner's artwork was the only one I liked. I'm not sure why the artists changed but I did not realise that the change had taken place until I was writing this.

This was an interesting idea, that could have been awesome.  I was on board, this hit my sweet spot. Bettie Page, spy hell yeah.  The art was my biggest problem, the muddy interior art drew me away from the story - look I can appreciate different styles but certain styles work better for different characters and stories. Any story on Bettie Page cries out for strong good girl art, people reading it based on the name are expecting a book about a pin up queen.  The covers promised us this and the interior failed to deliver.

I was so critical of the art that until I started to reread issue 1, I had not really noticed some of the story flaws.  If you spend half your story getting her to be a spy it is too long and then spend an issue on a side story (a cool and interesting diversion into the 50s giant creature features) not having her spy I'm going to feel a little cheated. The set up did tie into the spying in the last three issues but the whole thing could have been handled better.

I would not recommend this comic.

50 New Pulp Movies

Recently Derrick Ferguson announced that he was doing a list of 50 New Pulp movies.  The end result can be found here

When he announced it, it for shits and giggles I thought I'd try and see how well I'd go at predicting what would be on his list.

So here is my list the ones in red weren't on Derrick's list.

50 New Pulp Movies

1. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins

2. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

3. Sahara

4. Indiana Jones Quartet

5. The Rocketeer

6. Sky Captain

7. Hudson Hawk

8. Our Man Flint/In like Flint

9. High Road to China

10. Darkman

11. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou

12. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

13. The Fifth Element

14. The Phantom

15. Romancing the Stone

16. Jake Speed

17. Dark Avenger

18. Dark Knight trilogy

19. King Kong 2005

20. Kong Skull Island

21. The Mummy Trilogy

22. The Goonies

23. Cutthroat Island

24. Sunset

25. Shoot em up

26. Captain America: The First Avenger

27. Atlantis the Lost Empire

28. The Punisher 2004

29. Big Trouble in Little China

30. National Treasure

31. Cast a Deadly Spell

32. The Black Mask

33. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

34. Brotherhood of the Wolf

35. The Black Samurai

36. The Black Scorpion

37. Billy Jack

38. Congo

39. Machete

40. The Man with the Iron Fists

41. Second Hand Lions

42. The Specialist

43. The Transporter

44. Cleopatra Jones

45. Coffy

46. Foxy Brown

47. Black Belt Jones

48. The Equaliser

49. The A Team

50. The President's Man

So with only 14 out of 50, I'm a poor prophet of Derrick's choices but it just shows the wide range of New Pulp movies out there (that is movies from after the 1950s in the pulp style)

The Phantom 1996 starring Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, Treat Williams & Catherine Zeta-Jones

There are certain movies that pulp fans will mention in any discussion as being underrated and should have done better, The Rocketeer, Sky Captain, John Carter, and The Phantom.

 

The 1996 movie was filmed in Thailand and in Australia (some of it was filmed in Brisbane City Hall) and there is a lot to like, the 1930s setting is pretty good, I really like the Phantom outfit that Billy Zane wore with what looked like tribal markings that looked like a skull on his chest.  Kristy Swanson makes a feisty Diana Palmer and Catherine Zeta-Jones is great as Sala, the leader of the Sky Pirates in her first movie role.  Treat Williams' Xander Drax is wonderfully over the top.

 

The action moves from the Bengalla jungle to New York to a rousing finale in The Devil's Triangle base of the Singh brotherhood. 

 

As a fan of the comics, I thought the supernatural aspects - Kit being visited by the ghost of his father and the three mystical powerful skulls - were a mistake.  Also there were some interesting story choices, during the New York section The Phantom discovers that the jade skull is in the New York Museum and has been there since Jimmy Wells 12th birthday, Jimmy looks about 30 so it's been there for at least 18 years.  The Phantom and Diana rush there and are met by Drax and his men who have decided to acquire the skull at the same time.  Drax therefore obviously knew that it was there and would have been smarter to acquire it quietly through the Museum board.

 

But aside from those things I love this movie, nearly everyone is perfectly cast Hero and Devil look incredible.   There is a scene where one of Drax's henchmen tells the Singh Brotherhood he has killed The Phantom, the response is laughter and  that everyone there had killed The Phantom.

 

Well worth watching.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Of all the current batch of Marvel studios movies Captain America: The First Avenger was my favourite.  It was a great pulp era adventure.   So I was really looking forward to the sequel (even more than the Avengers)

The Winter Soldier was a great movie it brought Cap firmly into the 21st century and teamed him with Black Widow (who had previously appeared in Iron Man 2 & The Avengers) and The Falcon.

Each of Cap's allies gives us a nice contrast with Cap.  Steve Rogers is a super soldier thanks to the serum he received in the first movie. Black Widow is a spy and their methods are nicely contrasted in the first mission.  Captain America uses non lethal force to knock out enemy agents, The Black Widow shoots and presumably kills.

When Black Widow and Cap go on the run it is Black Widow who takes the lead teaching Steve spy craft, such as "when on the run don't run".  The Black Widow is very very good at what she does.

Sam Wilson is a former soldier, Steve literally runs rings around him (as Sam points out "I do what he does only slower")  The Falcon exo suit is awesome to watch in action and I couldn't help but to be reminded of The Rocketeer (the wings taking the place of the finned helmet) *

The Russo brothers have wisely kept CGI to a minimum and it pays off in the fight scenes.

I'm really curious to see how the fallout from this impacts the other Marvel movies (Guardians of the Galaxy won't be impacted being set in space) and The Agents of SHIELD TV series.

Marvel seems to be really leading the race in the cinemas with trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy, The Amazing Spider-man 2 and X Men Days of Future Past all showing before the movie.  Lego Batman told us to turn off our phones. (Having said that I prefer Arrow to SHIELD so maybe they should focus on TV more.)






*Actually if you replace Howard Hughes in The Rocketeer with Howard Stark it makes perfect sense.