Thursday, May 30, 2013

Is Kamandi selling pretty well these days?

The reason I ask is Comixology keeps adding Kamandi to their DC catalog.  The reason (I feel sure) is DC is providing the material they've already prepared for their Kamandi reprints and it isn't costing them much money above what they've already spent to offer the issues digitally as well.  But what I like to imagine is those of us who are Kamandi fans are also at the forefront of a pro-Kamandi wave swelling through comics and both DC and Comixology are responding to massive demand.

I also like to imagine I helped inspire this movement.  Yeah, my month devoted to that wonderful Kamandi series kind of skidded off a cliff and exploded (driving too fast for conditions, swerved to avoid work and hydroplaned on a wet mountain road read the accident report) but that doesn't mean my love for Kamandi has dimmed by any means.

We're up to #24 (December 1974) on Comixology.  It showed up this week and I bought it.  Kamandi washes up on some rocky shore and meets a group of what I'm guessing right now are people.  Some of them look human; others, I'm not so sure.  It's heavily influenced by William Peter Blatty and all those Satanic possession movies the kids were crazy about during the mid-70s.  I swear if it wasn't Pazuzu possessing some poor little rich girl it was some poor little rich boy as the Anti-Christ.  Even Carl Kolchak went mano-a-paw-o with a demon dog on Kolchak:  The Night Stalker.  Okay, other than its title, "The Exorcism!" and a cover promising supernatural mayhem of the ultimate evil kind, this Kamandi may not be about Satan or devils after all.  Just some ugly guy called the Curse.

In the interest of honesty, the reason I'm hedging on the whole Satan thing after being such a clown about it anyway is I've only skimmed the first five or so pages of "The Exorcist!"  No time.  No time for sergeants, no time for Kirby.  That's a sad state of affairs.  I've got two years of Kamandi on my computer and my iPhone and no time to read them.

But I've formed some hasty early impressions.  Because where would this blog be without half-assed judgments?  "The Exorcist!" does feature a truly spectacular double-page spread of the most haunted looking haunted house you've ever seen.  Jack Kirby and D. Bruce Berry really outdid themselves with that drawing.  I'll try to find time to show you this weekend.  Besides my takeaway vision of the haunted house, I really love how Kirby draws water.  Clumps of black ovals.  I've never seen water that consists of clumps of black ovals, and yet it reads as water.  Also, I think it's kind of weird that Kamandi, who has recently escaped from a lot of human-looking robots-- a major disappointment for the "last boy on earth," forever searching for others of his kind-- and after an experience with talking killer whales, doesn't immediately demand to know who these new characters are.  Especially the ones who look human.

I'm sure part of the reason is their opening gambit is to attack the poor kid and start whaling the tar out of him, but I have a feeling the main reason is Kirby just isn't wasting any time with a lot of chit-chat in these stories.  It's action first, characterization second.  Nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, if I get some breathing room I'll read the whole thing and see if I'm right or wrong!  Or, alternately, you could go buy it and read it and tell me if I'm right or wrong!*

*I get no money at all for this shilling.  I'm doing it out of the kindness of my withered little heart.  I really love Kamandi and think people should read it, and this is where they can do that.  Legally, anyway.

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