"Rosebud was his SLED!!!"

One thing that gets bandied about in the discussion of films is the preponderance of bloopers within. That is, errors in a film that certain eagle-eyed viewers catch that they are all too eager to share with the rest of us. Oddly enough, for my own part, I'm not such a continuity freak that such things really bother me. And really, pointing out a show's bloopers reminds me of this classic exchange from the Simpsons:

Doug: [wearing a T-shirt that says "Genius at Work"] Hi. A question for Miss Bellamy. In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

June Bellamy: Uh, well...

Homer: I'll field this one.

Homer: [to Doug] Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

[pause]

Doug: I withdraw my question. [takes a bite from a bar of chocolate]

Ultimately, in a good movie, any bloopers within aren't going to detract from your enjoyment of it. For instance, in the classic 'Citizen Kane', since no one is close enough to Charles Foster Kane to hear his final word gasped out, "Rosebud", how does the reporter know how to uncover its cryptic meaning? Unless you were to really think about it, you wouldn't notice that error itself. And on the other hand, in a Uwe Boll crap fest, f'r instance, someone ensuring that a SWAT team's uniforms and equipment are accurate isn't really going to obscure the simple fact that the movie is a celluloid turd.

Also, there is a point where verisimilitude in a movie detracts from the audience's pleasure in seeing the movie. Here's a hypothetical: Say you're seeing a drama about the intertwining lives of some residents of New Orleans, post-Katrina. One of the stars in the ensemble is an up-and-coming young actor, 'X'. 'X's role in the drama is of a young trumpet player who's developed an enthusiasm for Dixieland jazz. In the course of the film, the young musician serenades the other characters with an elegiac rendition of 'St. James Infirmary' in a scene that is meant to symbolize the destruction of not just a great American city, but an invaluable link to America's culture. Here's the problem: The scene is shot so we, the audience, can clearly see that the actor, 'X', is in fact really playing the trumpet, and not cut to a close-up of a session musician's hands on a trumpet. The audience, has in fact, been made into a jury, judging 'X's trumpet-playing, as opposed to an audience wanting to see a story unfold. And the mood is broken. The audience leaves the theater thinking, Gee, I had no idea 'X' was such a good horn player as opposed to, My, what a sad scene where Joey, the earnest young musician mourns his city in the most eloquent way he can.

That having been said, here's some bloopers from some famous (and not-so-famous) films that I've spotted. Next time you rent these ones, keep an eye out!

Dumbo (1941)- Elephants can't fucking fly! Even if the fucking elephant's ears were each the size of fucking football fields, the fucking elephant couldn't get off the fucking ground! Fuck!

Star Wars (1976)- How many physics lessons does Hollywood have to ignore? There. Are. No. Explosions. In. Space. It's a vacuum! Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum! Arrgh!

The Sting (1973)- Robert Redford and Paul Newman weren't adults in the thirties! They were toddlers! Are we to believe that toddlers are capable of being con-artists?

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- Jimmy Stewart's character enjoys some colorful flowers. Trouble is, the movie's shot in black-and-white! Hello?

Say, What's the Big Idea? (1936)- Wop Dabney's character vomits a bathtub full of stomach contents on Lady Huffington's toy terrier, Flopsy, then in the next scene, Flopsy's totally clean! As if!

1941 (1976)- It wasn't made in 1941, it was made in 1976!

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) Ian Mckellan isn't really a wizard named Gandalf; he's a renowned Shakespearean actor from Britain. I bet he couldn't even cast a fireball in real life! Haw!

Schindler's List (1993)- Everyone knows the 'holocaust' was made up by the Jews so they could guilt-trip everyone else into selling 'em gabardine at cost. Jeez.

Amistad (1997)- Same goes for black people being 'enslaved'. Double jeez.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)- Malcolm McDowell has white hair; why'd Kubrick cast a senior citizen in the part of a sociopathic teenager? Couldn't he cast, you know, an actual teenager? Hey, Stanley, here's a tip: For your next movie, cast a teenager in the part you think a real teenager would be good for.

The Song of The Donkey-Raper (1983)- Muad J'abdoad is speaking Farsi when the locale is clearly Northern Iran.

United 93 (2006)- So if the towelheads delayed everyone's flight, why didn't people just book other travel arrangements? Dur!

Roadhouse (1989) Okay, so if this movie's set in 1989, how come some of the Jim Beam bottle labels in the bar are from the Jim Beam's 'new, improved' labelling implemented in 1990? Kinda makes you think...

Independence Day (1996) Bill Pullman was never elected to the office of President of the United States; he's a movie actor! Also, his name's 'Bill Pullman', not 'Thomas J. Whitmore'.

Donnie Darko (2001)- 'Cellar Door' are not the most beautiful words in the English language; the most beautiful words in the English language, are, in fact, 'Nickel Slots'.

Blade Runner (1983)-When Deckard arrives home, Rachel is already waiting for him in the elevator. However, a) Rachel has no way of knowing where Deckard lives, as information regarding a policeman's address is not given out to the public, least of all a replicant, and b) Rachel could not have followed him because Deckard was first taken by Gaff to Leon's apartment via police spinner, then Deckard drove home using his own sedan; and even after driving home, Rachel was already waiting for him. Also, I cry a lot for no reason whatsoever.

Rambo III (1988)- So, that one scene, where Rambo guts the Russian officer, and plays the officer's exposed ribcage like a xylophone? We hear two distinct tones when Rambo hits the same rib twice. Are we to believe that the officer has a magic rib cage? That is capable of making two distinct notes when hit in succession? Boy, I hope someone lost their job over that blunder...

"So who does watch the Watchmen, anyways?"

Let me just strap on my neckbeard, here...

Ah. There we go. Now, then.

Given the caliber of the people involved in the forthcoming 'Watchmen' movie, I don't see any nuanced, articulate meta-commentary of the superhero genre being part of it. It'll probably be that 'okay action-mystery-sci-fi' movie that eventually makes it's production costs back from DVD sales/rentals. (kinda like 'V for Vendetta')

What itches my neckbeard in this case, however, is that the original creator Alan Moore is stuck in a lose/lose proposition. His (and artist Dave Gibbons') original deal with DC/Warner stipulated that all rights to Watchmen reverted to them once it had gone out of print for a time. (In which case, as Mr. Moore had pointed out, he and Mr. Gibbons were free to make all the money they could from the slurpee-cup licensing.) Well, twenty-some odd years later, with the Watchmen graphic novel still in print, we can all see how well that deal turned out for them...

And let's face it, the reviews are going to nail him to the wall if it tanks ('Alan Moore's seminal 'Watchman' graphic novel flops on the big screen...') and in the unlikely event it's a success, ('Zack Snyder's take on DC/Warner's 'Watchmen' is boffo at the box office!'), he's not going to benefit in any practical way. Any money coming from DC/Warner on this is going entirely to Dave Gibbons, since Moore's previous comic-to-movie adaptations were such disasters, Moore wanted to disavow himself from them. (He eschewed any compensation from the studios after the train wreck that was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)

Well, you may ask, you little rascal, you: "So why doesn't Alan Moore either A) demand more hands-on involvement like Frank Miller with Sin City or B) shut up and just take the Hollywood money like Dashell Hammett did? (As Hammett pointed out when asked if he was concerned that the studios would ruin his work, "Look, my books are still there on the bookshelf, they're fine.")

In regards to A),Watchmen isn't Moore and Gibbons' property like Sin City is Miller's, it's DC/Warner's. And Warner's is more likely to treat Moore like Disney treated Dave Stevens on the set of 'The Rocketeer'. That is, throw him off the set and dangle lawsuits over him to shut him up. And in the case of B), Moore has this pesky vestigial quirk perhaps unfamiliar to movie executives called a set of principles. These principles were what made him not do any more work for DC after he felt that he and many other talents were treated by the company as hired hands in a field. If he took any money from them after the fact, he'd look like a hypocrite. (Then, when DC bought out Wildstorm from under Jim Lee, Moore was still accused of being a sellout, since he was still doing work for Wildstorm.)

The point of all this nerdy indignation, I suppose, is that comics are not a stepping-stone to the wealth, glamour, and big titties that is Hollywood as some people might suppose. And secondly, work like 'Watchmen' doesn't lend itself easily to other mediums. It was specifically designed to work as a comic, and ideally, a comic it should remain. Put it this way: Could any of cartoonist Chris Ware's work be 'adapted' for film or T.V.? Nope. All the movie of 'Watchmen' is going to be is another trip to the money well by DC/Warner while Alan Moore, who raised up the medium more than a few notches in quality, and practically built the ground floor for DC's Vertigo line of 'mature comics', (Remember all those 'Bang! Pow! Zoom! Comics aren't for kids these days!' articles in mainstream magazines in the 90's?) gets roughly the same deal the 'Superman' creators got.

The other message to take away from this, is that if one wants to work in a medium where one wants to do thoughtful, more meaningful work, the comic book field is not the way to go. Let's face it, there's been quite a resurgence in good television in the past few years. The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men (off the top of my head) are all examples of this. Hell, even a lot of what you'd consider more mainstream T.V. fare is looking pretty good. (like 'House, M.D', 'Heroes' and 'Battlestar Galactica', to name a few. I imagine you'd still have to endure the same level of petty bureaucracies and corporate bullshit working in television that one does in a comic-book publishing house, but at least you'd be paid well enough to put up with it.

And hey, there'd be not a neckbeard in sight...

"...Run it up the flagpole, J.B...."

Mad Men (B+) My God, these long fingernails, this white beard... Last thing I remember, I was playing lawn bowling with these gnomes...

So how ya doin'? Good, good. Been busy myself... So, let's get to it. AMC's 'Mad Men' is a coldly nostalgic look back at the start of the '60's, and particularly, the rise of the ad executive as a force in American society. Unlike, for instance, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", it's not looking down on its characters from a very tall height. Actually, let's discuss what it's also not. It's not a bitter screed against advertising as a negative influence in the culture. It's not a Douglas Sirk type melodrama, though the colouring and settings seem right for that sort of thing.

What you've got here is creator Matthew Wiener's (Soprano's scribe) take on a period in America where we were right on the cusp of Utopia. The Cold War, if not outright won by capitalism and Democracy, had wound up beating the Reds into a corner. As a result, it seemed prosperity for every American was a god-given, hard-won right for every American; that they were reaping the benefits of suffering through the second world war and the Korean war. The only question was: How far can our dreams go? And here's where the Madison Avenue advertising executive comes in...

During this time, Radio, movies, printed media, and that new-ish one, television were doing their best to shoehorn Americans into a cultural square peg. It would be easier to shave off all the idiosyncrasies out of all those children of Irish, German, and English serfs than to cater to their odd customs. (While the Jews were as much a part of America as the other serfs, they brought with them the baggage of being outsiders from the Old Country. Even though their money was as just as green as everyone else's, Post-war America didn't really want to let them in the club. As for blacks in America, well, best that those people were seen but not heard. Not until Birmingham, five years later, anyway...)

Mad Men (the title's from a sobriquet they made for themselves; MADison avenue MEN, geddit?) revolves around one particular ad exec, Don Draper, as American a name as ever lived. Well, it's the name he switched with a dead Army officer so the former white-trash Dick Whitman could reinvent himself as the squarest peg that ever fit into a square hole. He's got a former model-turned housewife, two adorable little kids, and a place in the suburbs. On the outside, his life seems as perfect as one of those advertisements he's so good at creating. The catch is, having everything he's ever wanted, he's still painfully unhappy. (He makes impulsive plans to his subsequent mistresses to bolt off to Paris and Los Angeles.) In fact, one of the main themes of the show is how everyone in this place of privilege is so unhappy. It's made worse by the fact that they know they can't really complain about their lot in their life of privilege, and it would be small comfort if they knew their friends and co-workers were in the same boat as them.

What is really impressive about this show is how worked out it is. Not just in the minor details, like the costumes, props,and historical accuracy, but also in how each character's story resonates with each other's. Note how Don's cool demeanor plays off against frustrated junior exec Pete Campbell, in the scene where Campbell discovers Don's real past as Whitman. Campbell tries to blackmail Don into a promotion, and Don coolly calls his bluff and goes to Bert Cooper, the agency head's, office. When Campbell sputteringly reveals Don's deception, Cooper shrugs and says, "Who cares?"

I guess if I had any problems with the show, it's cleverness gets a tad oppressive. Some of the references are a bit too on the nose; the constant drinking and smoking, the Leon Uris novel, 'Exodus' and Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', fr' instance. Also, since there's so much story, some threads just get dropped off- the single mother-turned neighbourhood-pariah narrative just evaporates. And finally, the final twist of having Peggy give birth without her knowing she was even pregnant stretches credulity. (I'm hoping next season has her acknowledge her condition in some way- I mean, come on...)

I'm looking forward to season two, out in June 2008.

The 'P' word...

Knocked Up (B) Judd Apatow is the filmmaker Kevin Smith wants to be. Stay with me here. While the both of them make light comedies (featuring chubby guys hooking up with attractive women) and adding a smattering of profane humour, Apatow's clearly the better writer/director. (For one thing, he tends to hire actual professional actors, as opposed to high school buddies and his wife, who can't really act, if you know what I mean...)

In Apatow's movies, the humour is in the characters making accommodations in their lives, and discovering that having a steady relationship is actual work, and while the joy is fleeting, the obligations are never-ending. The comedy comes from finding joy in one's obligations. In this one, stoner Ben (Seth Rogan) gets T.V. worker Alison (Katherine Heigl) pregnant after a fumbly one-nighter, and she decides to 1) keep the baby, and 2) let Ben know about it, and thusly, let him into her life because of the kid. Now, this is, for a lot of 'semi-pro' film critics, where the movie gets weird...

I've seen quite a few of these guys (and one girl) rip on this movie for Allison's decision to have her baby. Huh? I guess since they can't relate to her character, 'bortin' the kid would seem to make the obvious result. The problem with that is, firstly, there'd be no movie. And secondly, it's not like a light comedy intended to highlight the responsibilities (and joy) of being in a committed relationship is meant to be 'pro-life' propaganda.

Knocked Up had several other points that I found extremely endearing, not only for their relative rarity in Hollywood but also for their rarity in America. First, the notion that a child can justify an effort to make a relationship work - I know I'm being terribly old fashioned about it, but the idea that a marriage is not first and foremost a lovely frolic through love candyland, but a very pragmatic social unit with obligations within and without itself is a notion that's quickly being lost. The idea that a couple might stay together "for the children" is treated like some kind of parental Jim Crow law, and the concept that an individual might act in a manner that does not indulge his passions, but serves a more common good is actually given some respect in this film.

The other point the movie makes is that marriage and family is really, really hard. That is, the obligations never end, and the rewards are increasingly intangible. I've looked at the above critics who say that Paul Rudd's (Allison's sister's husband) character is clearly miserable and I don't think that they realize that Paul Rudd's marriage is actually pretty damned typical of any long term relationship. The things he complains about are ubiquitous; the fight he gets in with his wife about spending time together and apart is a fight that every couple who has been together more than two years has repeatedly. He's not unusually miserable, and the marriage is not unusually dysfunctional. They love each other, they love their children, but having a family is work and it looks just like that.

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next up is this parody video of the just-released Halo 3 for the Xbox360. I saw this before the actual promo, and had wanted to give Microsoft 'mad props' for making such a clever and funny take on 'gamer culture'. Since then I've seen the real promo, and it seems... well, kinda lame.

(video)

"Support Our Troops"

What does that mean, anyways? 'Support Our Troops'? The implication, of course, is that we 'support our troops' in their valiant struggle against oppression and fundamentalist control in Afghanistan. (Note: Being a Canadian, I'm talking about Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Sorry, everyone else.) and if we dare question the logic in sending our soldiers off to the World's Largest Litter Box without a specific agenda or return date, we're nothing but Commie-Faggot-Pinko-Puke-Gutted-Twinkle-Toed Scumfucks Whom Should Go Back To Skulking In The Shit-Filled Caves Where Al-Quida and the Demoncrats Are All Hiding. Can't we 'support our troops' by not thinking it's a good idea to dump them in the same spot where the Mongols, the British, and the Soviets all had no luck whatsoever in making an actual country out of a largely hypothetical one? If we're going to put our soldiers in harm's way, wouldn't the best way to 'support' them be to come up with, oh, I don't know...an exit strategy?

You know, let me back up here and try and clarify that statement. 'Support our troops'. Shouldn't it be more specific? How about 'Support our Brave Troops.' Yeah, that works better. Plays on the old heartstrings a bit more. Well, I guess it implies that we've got some not-so-brave troops over there. And heck, call me an old softie, but I think we should support our less-than-brave guys there, as well. Plus, "Support our Brave Troops, but to fuck with the not-so-brave ones" doesn't have the same, simple ring to it, though.

Well, while I'm on the ol' soap box, couldn't the phrase, 'Support our brave troops' imply, 'Support our brave, white, troops', as well? Now, I may be opening a can o' worms here, but I'm pretty sure that some of the boys over there don't just go by 'Scott' and 'Gord'. I bet there's a few 'Jamal's' and 'Umberto's' over there, as well. Last I checked, Canada was a multi-cultural country, and if Sanjeep and Raoul want to sign on in under the Canadian flag, well, welcome aboard, fellas. I'll bet you a dozen Tim-bits you give Paneesh, Chang, and Kwambo their very own M-4 and a set of desert camos, they'll do just as bang-up a job over there as Rick and Rob and Mike.

Then, you've got that tricky possessive pronoun smack dab in the middle there. 'Our'. 'Support OUR troops'. See, I pay taxes in Canada, and my taxes buy Sean and Jafar their plane ride to Kabul. Shouldn't I be getting some return for my investment? We lived in a free market, last I checked. C'mon, guys! Help me out here! Bring back something for me! A shrapnel-torn prayer rug, the skull of a terrorist, gee, even a small ball of opium would do! My taxes buy your bullets! One hand washes the other, is all I'm saying...

In conclusion, if you were to ask me, 'Do you support our troops?', then, by God, I would draw myself up to my full height, take a deep breath, and say, "Yes. Yes, I support our white and non-white, stuck-in-a-moral-quagmire, brave and not-so-brave, can't-even-get-me-a-taxpayer-a-simple-car-air-freshener-that-says-visit-lovely-Kandahar, troops!"

That definitely ain't gonna fit on a bumper sticker, though.

"Sophmoric is Liberal for Funny"

Judd Apatow's low-brow comedies have a lot going for them, particularly in the details. Take, for instance, Superbad (B-). The nerdy heroes, Seth, Evan, and their friend Fogel (who seems to be their friend more by social default than by design) are on a quest to get alcohol for a popular girl's party. By Evan's reasoning, this act will allow them access to said girl's and her friends' underpants and the rewards that lie within. The thing is, these boys are more concerned with getting laid simply to get the act out of the way, then to seek out sexual enjoyment for its own sake.

In a typical teen sex comedy, the protagonists go through a picaresque series of comical misadventures in an effort to get laid, and in the end, give the audience a warm-hearted message to go home with. Usually along the lines of, 'Friendship is important', or 'That hot girl you had a boner for turned out to be a genuinely decent person after all, and she'd be a better friend than a lover' or some other tired nostrum. I wind up being made to feel like I'm paying for my comedy in that case, like the filmmakers felt they had to justify the bawdy humour with a feel-good message.

There's a bittersweet undercurrent in Superbad, and it's about youth's anxiety towards facing an uncertain future, and the inevitable accommodations one must make to navigate one's way through that future. In this case, Seth is upset that his life-long friend Evan is off to Dartmouth with the squeaky-voiced Fogel as a roommate, while Seth has to settle for a local college. Evan is upset that his friend is upset, as well as discovering the aforementioned fact that adulthood is full of accommodations that he's going to have to make. In the course of the movie, they come to realize that perhaps being the guy who procures booze for a popular girl's party is perhaps not the best path to the glories that reside in her panties. And poor Fogel is stuck trying to catch up to Seth and Evan's level of anxiety. (Fogel spends most of the movie in the company of a pair of under-achieving policemen.)

What really makes the movie for me is Micheal Cera's perpetual look of worry throughout. Since 'Arrested Development', he's cornered the market as the living embodiment of teen anxiety. The movie also really has a handle on the profane wit that teenagers display amongst themselves. (Writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg came up with the idea in high school.) The MOR soul-funk-r&b soundtrack is oddly appropriate. Only downside; The deluge of t-shirts proclaiming, "Pedro & McLovin for Class President" we're going to get hit with in the near future...

The Bourne Ultimatum - (B-) James Bond for the Target department store crowd. Matt Damon has a knack for portraying a neutral personality, and in the context of this movie, that's not a bad thing. (In my earlier comment on the previews, I offhandedly mentioned that Matthew McConnaghey or some other bland, if talented actor was cast as Bourne. Turns out, I was wrong on that point. The series' success hinges on Damon's bland neutrality...) In this installment, Bourne's struggle to discover how he became who he is gets challenged by an Agency operative trying to cover the agency's trail in creating the sub-structure that made Bourne.

It's a chase movie without an ounce of fat on it, which is where it's appeal lay for me. It doesn't give us any unnecessary back story; no sepia-toned flashbacks about Bourne's pre-Agency past, no angst-laden monologues by Pam Landy(name) over issues of morality. The thing is, this stripped-down level of narrative works against in in one scene where Bourne is with fellow disavowed operative Nicky (Julia Stiles- and why Julia Stiles? Oh, well...) There's a weird tension where you're hoping Bourne and Nicky don't start making out with each other, as it'll ruin the pacing of the entire movie. Damned odd thing to be worrying about in a thriller, I think. Also, director Greengrass' toned down the 'jitter-cam' aspect from the last one, which really helped.

Bioshock -Xbox360 (A-) Nice little fps-with-rpg elements, not unlike Deux ex or System Shock 2. Actually, I believe most of the people who worked on SS2 worked on this one. A survivor of a plane crash enters an underworld city right out of Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' and finds this world's gone to the dogs. (Well, Big Daddys, actually...) The storyline involves finding out why this utopia became a dystopia, and putting a stop to its spreading evil.
What puts Bioshock over the top in terms of the usual video game with a storyline, is not only is the actual story is engaging and complex, and not only is the player's actions tied to the story's outcome, but that the story in this case has a more complex theme than 'good triumphs over evil' or 'rescue the princess' or whateves.

It's a repudiation of the Objectivist ideology of Ayn Rand. (Note the founder of the underwater city's name, 'Andrew Ryan') The storyline points out that in a pure free-market economy, there can be very few winners (Ryan, his few followers, an usurper to Ryan's throne named Fontaine and his followers.) and losers of everyone else in the city. As a result, once a power struggle erupts between Fontaine and Ryan, everyone else's options are limited to a) choosing sides or b) starving to death.

While I don't think 'Bioshock' adds to the debate that video games can be Art (The developer's take on Objectivism is irrelevant to the actual game play, and really, once you've played it through, you're done.) it does make a good argument that a video game can be damn fine satisfying entertainment.

"None Shall Escape My Wrath!!"

I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets: The Fantastic Comics Of Fletcher Hanks, edited by Paul Karasik (B)

Amongst the sub-classes of comic fans, there's the group of hard-core nostalgia buffs who carefully and patiently unearth ancient comics to show off to each other. It's kind of like being a Yukon prospector, with the nostalgia buff carefully sifting through the mounds of accumulated detritus to pick out the nuggets of interest. Fletcher Hanks' work comes to us from the beginning of the Golden age of comics, where he had a very brief career in the lower end of an already disreputable publishing trade. (1939-1941)

Hanks' prospector in this case is Paul Karasik, Art Spieglman's assistant for Raw magazine, where a Fletcher Hanks story first re-appeared. The art is, on the surface, below journey-man at best. (It's pretty obvious where Hanks is just tracing backgrounds off of photos.) The stories, on the surface, are simplistic tales of Good taking vengeance over Evil. Actually, they all seem to follow the same tack: Evil commits atrocities, Good captures Evil and spends the rest of the story sadistically torturing and punishing Evil. I suspect it was the odd intensity of these comics which drew Karasik to them in the first place. 'Scuse me while I tangent...

I'm reminded of a bit on Robert Smiegel's 'TV Funhouse' where Smiegel takes on a forgotten T.V. cartoon of the late 60's called, 'Shazang'. The original story thread, I recall, had a friendly genie helping out two lost children trapped in the Middle East of olden days. A villain would threaten the kids, and the kids would call on Shazang to use his genie powers to save them, and perhaps humiliate the villan in the process.

What Smiegel did is to ramp up the genie's whimsical sense of justice to a pathological level of vindictiveness for comic effect. Here's the clip:




Back to Hanks. The only real difference between Hanks' body of work and Smiegel's 'Shazzang' is that there was a) slightly less poo, vomit, blood and cannibalism in Hanks' work and b) Smiegel was exaggerating for comic effect. You get the impression Hanks was like a Depression-era version of Travis Bickel. Don't take my word for it, though. Check out this eight pager, 'Stardust Vs. The Fifth Column Again'...

Whew! I suspect Hanks didn't take his acts of vengeance any further because he didn't have the imagination and his time in comic books wasn't rewarding enough for him in the long haul.
Karasik's afterword in the volume takes the Fletcher Hanks story into the macabre. An interview with Fletcher Hanks Jr. (who, really, deserves a book of his own -here's a profile) reveals that his dad was 'a no-good bum', an abusive alcoholic who left his family in 1930. After the elder Hanks gave up on comics, there's no information about him until 1970, when the police found him frozen to death on a park bench. Seems he wound up sharing the fate of his villains in his comics. It's this information about the man Fletcher Hanks that gives his work a dark, Freudian twist to it. Frankly, knowing what I know now, it really makes these simple-minded comics hard to read.