Tag: USA

My Name is Modesty

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★★★½
“Not at all what you’d expect from the sleeve, yet by no means terrible.”

The word is, Miramax made this in order to keep their rights to the Modesty Blaise series active: I imagine a clause reverted them back to creator Peter O’Donnell, if unused within X years. Tarantino wanted to direct it, but couldn’t find the time, hence this stop-gap directed by journeyman Spiegel, who’s familiar with Quentin cast-offs, having also directed From Dusk Till Dawn 2. Shot in 18 Romanian days, the limitations of time and budget are clear [save admittedly copious flashbacks, the movie is almost all set in one location], but given them, it’s by no means a disaster. The main failing is the lack of action; we don’t see alleged jet-setting, goddess of kick-butt Blaise do much at all until the last few minutes. This may be because Staden looks as if she’d struggle to move forward in a stiff breeze; seeing her trading blows is unconvincing, and the fight choreographer should have focused on speed and/or agility instead. Though in terms of presence and steely gaze, she does fit the part well.

I remember the books from my youth, and the huge disappointment I felt when I saw the 1966 camp abortion starring Monica Vitti [there was also an 1982 TV pilot, with Ann Turkel, which I haven’t found]. This “origin” story is an improvement, at least taking the characters seriously. Blaise is trapped in a casino by a robber with a grudge against the owner (Waldau), and as they wait for the guy with the safe combination to arrive, she trades stories of her past for the freedom of the other hostages, Arabian Nights style, almost. I’d be somewhat curious to see the original cut, which apparently ran nearly two hours. Now, it’s barely 70 minutes between Bond-esque opening and closing credits, yet is still pretty talky, Blaise and her mentor (Pearson) meandering between the Balkans and Morocco.

That’s not a necessarily a bad thing; the short length, and decent performances from the two leads, help make it very watchable. However, expect hardcore action, rather than a psychological character study, and you’ll be very disappointed. Indeed, even fans of the series may mourn, for example, the lack of Blaise sidekick, Willie Garvin, a lynchpin of the books and comic strips. All this does support the whispers it was indeed no more than a holding tactic by Miramax, but on its own terms, we enjoyed this. With some minor tweakage, we’d have interest in Modesty’s further adventures. Whether Tarantino is the best person to direct them…that I’m less sure of!

Dir: Scott Spiegel
Stars: Alexandra Staden, Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Fred Pearson, Raymond Cruz

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

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★★★
“Moderately entertaining. No less, but certainly no more.”

There’s certainly plenty of potential in the idea: how do you break up with your girlfriend, when she’s not just needy and possessive, but also has superhuman strength, the ability to fly and can boil your fishtank with her gaze? And the casting is, in general, excellent, too. Matt (Wilson) is an endearing everyman, and Thurman is perfect for capturing the mix of neuroses and power in G-Girl – her sequence where she pouts and refuses to save New York from a rogue missile is great. Izzard, naturally, steals almost every scene as supervillain Professor Bedlam [or “Barry”, as G-Girl knows him], though Riann Wilson matches him as Matt’s best friend, who talks a far better sexual game than he actually plays.

However, despite the sum of these parts, the results rarely get beyond the wry smile of recognition. I suspects the results would have been a great deal better if the script had abandoned all pretense at “reality”, and taken things to their logical, if excessive, conclusion. The best sequence, for example, has G-Girl lobbing a live and understandably very upset shark, into Matt’s high-rise apartment – more of that level of excess could have been helpful. Similarly, the super-powered cat-fight at the finale is more a wasted opportunity than anything, and the film plays more as mean-spirited: most of the characters come over as suffering from one kind of personality disorder or another, and you tend to find yourself laughing at the characters, rather than with them. Not that this is necessarily bad, but it seems at odds with the gentle, romantic comedy being aimed at here.

Dir: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Luke Wilson, Uma Thurman, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard

Domino

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★★½
“Domino Toppling”

“This is based on a true story…sort of” is how the pre-credit disclaimer goes. Which does, at least, show far more honesty by Tony Scott than the usual claims in such things – Blair Witch and Wolf Creek shuffle their feet nervously. Unfortunately, my response would have to be, “This is a watchable movie…sort of.” Scott brings his usual, hyper-kinetic style to the table, but I was prepared for that and so didn’t mind it. No, the major problem was the derailment of the film from the potentially fascinating and probably unique character of Domino, into yet another heist movie. So instead of any insight into personality, we get to watch a bunch of gangsters and low-lives, of whom Domino is merely one, double-cross each other. It’s an hour of watching the corpse of Barbaro being beaten, if you get my drift; even Scott has been here before, to better effect, in True Romance.

When it concentrates on our heroine, however, it’s eminently watchable, Knightley demanding attention in a way where her obvious lack of physical bulk becomes almost irrelevant. [I was surprised to see how the real Domino was similarly wispy, as the photo on the right shows.] Her finest moment is probably during sorority hazing at college, where her tormenter viciously criticizes her figure. Domino coolly stares back, pauses and asks, “Have you had a nose job?” Bemused, the girl says “No” – Domino sucker-punches her in the face. Twice. The incident sums up the feisty, take absolutely no shit attitude of the character brilliantly, and bounty-hunting becomes an obvious, logical choice of career.

She gets a job with Ed Moseby (Rourke) and Choco (Ramirez), who track down people who’ve skipped bail for bondsman Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo) – Ed and Claremont are based on real people, who worked as technical advisors on the movie, Choco is apparently a fabrication. Together, they become an efficient team, aided by Domino’s skills both with weapons and in street psychology. However, Williams has a plot to steal $10m from a Las Vegas casino, which goes badly wrong, not least because two of his chosen patsies to take the fall, are actually the sons of a mob boss. It all ends in a massive gun-battle at the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, where everyone is after the cash and survival.

The film is filled with distracting stunt casting in the minor roles. This includes Christopher Walken, Mena Suvari, Lucy Liu, Jacqueline Bisset, two guys from Beverly Hills 90210 playing themselves, Macy Gray, Tom Waits and even Jerry Springer, though the episode of his show here is far duller and more earnest than the real thing. Walken is, inevitably, the only one to make much of an impression, playing a reality TV producer who wants to make Domino a star. He’s described as having the attention span of a ferret on crystal meth, probably an adequate metaphor for the film as a whole. It lacks the patience to stay with and develop any of the characters, so sniffs around them for two minutes, before scurrying off to find someone else instead.

I should probably comment on how close the film is to the real story of Domino Harvey: not very. She was the daughter of Laurence Harvey (star of the original The Manchurian Candidate) and his fashion-model wife. She was expelled from multiple schools as a child and is rumoured to have tried her hand at modelling, though the evidence for this is questionable; certainly, the catwalk catfight shown in the film appears to be an outright invention. She was, indeed, a bounty hunter, albeit not for long – maybe a couple of years, around 1994-1995. That’s about where the film and truth part company. In sad, actual fact, Harvey had been fighting with chemical abuse issues for years, and was found dead of a drug overdose in June 2005, while awaiting trial for distributing meth.

It doesn’t seem as if the life of a supermodel turned bounty hunter would be in much need of embellishment. But I guess when you sign Richard Kelly, the writer of Donnie Darko, for your script, you’re not looking for cinema verite. That said, this still seems like a wasted opportunity, relegating Domino, who should have been the focus of the film, into just another sidelight. Hell, even the impressive skill with nunchakus, demonstrated earlier on by Knightley, is largely abandoned. Scott’s earlier Man on Fire was much more successful, as it stuck with Denzel Washington’s character throughout, and a similar approach here would have paid dividends. In fact, the plot there, where a bodyguard hunts relentlessly for a kidnapped little girl, would have acquired an entirely new set of resonances with a woman playing the bodyguard. Memo to Scott: if you’re going to base a film on someone’s life, and still make stuff up for it, please use the opportunity to enhance, rather than distract from, the subject matter.

Dir: Tony Scott
Stars: Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez, Lucy Liu

The Blackburn & Scarletti Mysteries Volume I, by Karen Koehler

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★★★½
“The X-Files meets Hellsing. In a very dark alley.”

Take an FBI agent with some psychic ability, January Blackburn, and partner her with part-vampire Catholic priest, Dorian Scarletti. Intrigued? Me too. That’s the premise of the three stories in this book, where our odd couple investigate paranormal crimes around the US. The results are somewhat uneven, yet with much promise: Blackburn is probably a more interesting character, possessing both great inner strength, and quirks that make her vulnerable and more human. In contrast, Scarletti, thus far, seems a bit like a “vampire by numbers”, with all the standard moping around, relationship angst and so on, too familiar to be of more than passing interest. Though, must say, his weapon of choice – hundreds of cross-shaped throwing knives inside his coat – is worth cool points in my book (even if I presume he doesn’t go through airports).

The structure of the book is also somewhat irritating, bipping back and forth between present and past. For example, one scene has our pair undercover at a strip-club run by werewolves(!), where the residents have discovered Blackburn’s true nature and rush towards her to… End of chapter: cut to Scarletti in Victorian London, befriending the Elephant Man during the Ripper murders, for the next ten pages. “Aaargh!”, went this reader, skimming furiously. That’s a shame, because when Koehler sticks to the modern era, the stories are real page-turners, which on at least one occasion, made me late to work after lunch. The world it depicts has a huge amount of potential, and has clearly been well-thought out. In particular, the second story, The Hyde Effect, is a fabulous piece about killings in Boston that might – or might not – be werewolf-related. And that’s another good thing about these stories; the author is not afraid to mix occult and prosaic explanations.

As yet, Koehler is best known for her Slayer series, a lynchpin of the “industrial gothic” movement. [The protagonist there, Alek Knight, turns up in the third story, a smart bit of marketing!] But I see no reason why this shouldn’t become even more popular, if she concentrates on what makes her stand out from the field. Blackburn certainly has the potential to surpass Anita Blake as a horror-action heroine of literature. Let’s just hope Koehler, unlike Laurell K. Hamilton, can keep the soft-porn out.

By: Karen Koehler
Publisher: Black Death Books, $14.95

It Waits

  By

★½
“It Sucks.”

This appears to be aiming for a leg-up on The Descent bandwagon and its theme of “chicks vs. cave-dwelling monsters in a remote wilderness”; though there’s only one of each here, rather than it being a team sport. “Troubled young ranger” Danielle St. Clair (Vincent) is atop a remote tower, watching out for fires, but a careless use of dynamite unleashes an ancient Indian evil that’s been trapped in a cave for centuries. Fortunately, despite said centuries, the monster still knows how to disable satellite dishes and trash Jeeps, as well as ripping the heads off everyone in the area it meets – except for St. Clair, of course, whom it merely terrorizes. The inevitable native American (Schweig) gets wheeled on for one scene of indigestible exposition, trotting out the usual cliches about how we’ve lost touch with our inner child, or some such New Age guff. Not that the beast cares much, I was pleased to see.

Wholly deficient on just about every level, it sent both myself and Chris to sleep, independently, just after the half-way mark. Though things did pick up thereafter, that might have been because we’d been refreshed by 8 hours’ sleep and a bowl of Wheaties. The pacing is particularly bad, with far too much weight given to Danielle’s past trauma, which is of no interest or relevance, and is not exactly helped by the depressing, sub-Tori Amos songs on the soundtrack (the director’s wife, I believe). The title is particularly appropriate, as the viewer is also kept hanging around, waiting for something entertaining to happen. There’s pretty thin pickings on that front, I’m afraid.

When Danielle finally decides to leave the forest, it’s a bit more energetic, though has nothing to offer beyond reheated leftovers you’ve seen before. I mean, when she runs over the thing in her truck, is anyone surprised when the body isn’t there? Not to say the idea isn’t without potential, as was shown in The Descent – and, possibly even more so, in Dog Soldiers. However, when your script is as flawed and uninteresting as here, a film really needs to pull up its socks in the areas of acting and direction. It Waits is mediocre on these fronts, at best, and as a result, the whole thing fizzles out like a damp squib.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Stars: Cerina Vincent, Dominic Zamprogna, Greg Kean, Eric Schweig

Backlash

  By

★★½
“Come to sunny Trinidad! Enjoy the beaches! And kill people!”

I think it may be more infuriating to see a film that could be great, but blows its chance, than one which falls short in every aspect. Such is Backlash, a film with enough potential to flirt with greatness, before settling for mediocrity. Let’s start with the good stuff. Danielle Burgio is a stuntwoman, who doubled for Carrie-Anne Moss in the Matrix sequels, and it’s a striking resemblance – especially when the producers here pull Burgio’s hair back, and deck her out in a black tank-top (below, left). She has presence, agile grace and undeniably looks like she can kick butt. I was also amused by the two assassins on her tail: one (Levrone) is tall and taciturn, the other (Kim) short and feisty, and they’re a fun combination to watch.

In the middle lies the action. While some fights work nicely, too often (particularly between Burgio and Kim) they are an obvious sequence of blocks, with blows having no impact – some parts of the car chases are clearly shot at an extremely sedate pace. The script is nothing special either; I hoped a woman, writer Caitlin McKenna, could bring fresh aspects, yet the story here is tired and old. CIA agent Skye Gold (Burgio) is compromised, targeted for death and forced on the run, leading to the usual “Who can she trust?” issues we’ve seen a million times before. There’s little new here of note; the film, indeed, largely abandons Gold for a lengthy chunk in the middle, deciding to focus on the assassins’ approach to the base where she’s hiding out.

It is, however, the lumpy, leaden direction that kills this, the sense of pacing wrecked by frequent cuts to what feels painfully like stock footage from the Trinidad & Tobago Tourist Board. The use of badly-fitting music jars too, and works against the film, distracting rather than enhancing atmosphere. It seems the aim is something Andy Sidaris-esque, putting an action heroine in an exotic location to get chased by bad guys, but the results here seem much more forced and artificial (and if anything, increases my respect for Sidaris – whatever his flaws, the style is very easy to watch). I’ll happily keep an eye on Burgio whose career, with the right project, could explode; this, however, is definitely not it.

The DVD is available from MTI Home Video on November 21st; it’s in widescreen and includes a behind-the-scenes featurette and a music video.
Dir: David Chameides
Stars: Danielle Burgio, Robert Merrill, Kevin Levrone, Lauren Kim

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

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satana-kickass★★★★★
“The Smell of Female”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Violence. The word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favourite mantle still remains – sex. Violence devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence doesn’t only destroy. It creates and moulds as well. Let’s examine closely then this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman. The softness is there, the unmistakeable smell of female. the surface shiny and silken. The body yielding yet wanton. But a word of caution: handle with care and don’t drop your guard. This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs. Operating at any level, at any time, anywhere and with anybody. Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor’s receptionist, or a dancer in a go-go club!”

Made more than forty years ago, Faster was decades ahead of its time – which may explain why it was such a resounding flop on initial release. But in his autobiography, John Waters called it, “The best movie ever made, and possibly better than any movie that will ever be made,” and helped resurrect it: Rob Zombie is another big fan, and introduced its recent screening on – of all places! – Turner Classic Movies. For this is the kind of film, hell, the kind of title, Quentin Tarantino wishes in his wet dreams he could create. And yet, it’s also an interesting example of censorship as artistically productive: probably the tamest of Meyer’s films: subsequently (and, often, before) they would contain a great deal more explicit nudity. But very rarely did he ever come close to the same artistic heights.

It tells the story of three girls: go-go dancers, hot-rod racers and outlaws, led by Varla (Satana). One afternoon, their chilling in the desert is rudely interrupted by Tommy and Linda (Bernard, who’d become a Playboy centerfold in 1966), a “square” couple who also have a car. After racing against them, Tommy and Varla get into a fight, which ends with Varla snapping his back. The trio kidnap Linda, and drive off. Stopping to get gas, they hear from the attendant about a crippled old man, who lives with his two sons, and is rumoured to have a fortune as the result of an accident. The girls decide to pay him a visit, and relieve him of his money – only to find out that he may be even more twisted and sadistic than they are…

Where to start? What about with the dialogue, which is prime, ripe and firm as last year’s Gouda, even if Satana has a slightly-irritating tendency to belt out every line at the top of her lungs. But as Rosie (Haji) says, “Honey, we don’t like nothin’ soft! Everything we touch is hard!” – these broads are “like a velvet glove, cast in iron,” as another memorable line reports. Or, as Varla puts it, “I never try anything. I just do it.” Almost every line has a sneer attached to it, and while none of the actresses went on to do anything else of real significance, they are all perfect here. They’re obviously playing characters, but their characters are also playing characters, so it all ties together with either remarkable happenstance, or artistic genius.

Often neglected are the male contributors, in particular Stuart Lancaster as the target of their scheme. Though confined to a wheelchair, he rules his twisted clan with a rod of iron; in many ways, this is an ancestor of the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with ‘the vegetable’ – as even his own father refers to him – a kinder, gentler version of Leatherface. Seeing the old man slobbering over Linda certainly shifts the audience, and helps to turn the murderous Varla and the other girls from villains into heroines, even as they progress their plan of robbery, because you sense their fate could end up being worse than death.

Rarely have all the aspects of a film come together with such perfection: it’s like throwing a dozen die and watching them all come up sixes. The editing; the script; the casting; the performances; the theme-tune alone is one of the best of the decade, and all the music helps drive the film along at a relentless pace. You could argue that it’s all idiotically unrealistic, and I would be hard-pushed to disagree. But I would, however, counter that this is much of the film’s appeal: it takes place in an alternate universe ruled by large-breasted, leather-clad, superwomen. Speaking personally, that may not be somewhere I’d want to live, but boy, it sounds like a fun place to visit. :-)

A militant feminist a decade before feminism was popular, Varla is also among the first openly bisexual women in cinema history, and the film is remarkably unjudgemental about the sexuality of any of the women. This helps explain why the movie’s cult appeal crosses so many boundaries, from the gay community to hardcore punk. And though they’re nothing to raise eyebrows today, Satana also used martial arts when they were almost unheard of in Hollywood. It’s sardonic, trailer-trash chic from an era that had yet to grasp fully the entertainment value of such irony. Others would aim at the same targets subsequently, mixing sex with violence in various ratios (Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik, The Perils of Gwendoline), but even now, few have come closer to capturing the heady, hyper-kinetic approach of Meyer’s finest work.

Dir: Russ Meyer
Stars: Tura Satana, Lori Williams, Haji, Sue Bernard

Big Bad Mama II

  By

★★½
“Non-threatening mayhem and a healthy dose of gratuitous skin.”

A Roger Corman production. Those four words cover much turf, both good and bad; this inclines toward the latter, simply because it takes an interesting premise, and goes next to nowhere with it. It’s less a sequel to, than a remake of the 1974 film, also starring Dickinson, which is generally believed to be superior. However, that isn’t on heavy cable rotation this month, so you’re stuck with the follow-up. Dickinson plays Wilma McClatchie, evicted from her home by uncaring businessman Morgan Crawford, and whose husband is killed in the process. She and her daughters Billie-Jean and Polly take up a life outside the law, but when Crawford makes a run for governor, their crimes take on a political perspective, as they aim to sabotage his campaign.

However, this is far too flimsy a production to support any social subtext, and while there’s certainly plenty of ammunition expended, the action scenes have almost no impact at all [though there’s an amazingly enthusiastic bit of blood squibbing at the end that is memorable]. Brisebois and McCullough, playing her daughters, are there largely to add skin to the production, though have a certain naive charm – incidentally, I suspect Dickinson’s nude scenes were body doubled, unlike the original film. Given she was in her mid-50’s by the time this was made, it’s understandable. She still has undeniable presence and that’s what keeps the film ticking; Culp has fun with his role as a journalist, hot on the family’s trail.

There’s a fairly useless subplot in which they kidnap Morgan’s son (Jeff Yagher) and turn him to a life of crime – I’m sure the presence of the nubile daughters was in no way an encouragement. Naturally, however, it all ends in a massive gunbattle, but given the generally fluffy nature of proceedings, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that Big Bad Mama III remains a possibility. [Hell, the ending of the original pretty much ruled out a sequel, logically speaking] How old is Angie Dickinson these days?

Dir: Jim Wynorski
Stars: Angie Dickinson, Danielle Brisebois, Julie McCullough, Robert Culp

Public Enemies

  By

★★★
“Historical accuracy? It’s vastly over-rated…”

The story of Ma Barker, legendary leader of a bank-robbing gang consisting mainly of her sons, has inspired multiple movies, from relatively well-known (Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama) to obscurist (Ma Barker’s Killer Brood from 1960). They all play extremely fast and loose with the facts, upping Ma’s role from a travelling companion for her sons, who rarely if ever got involved in their crimes, to the undisputed leader, who wielded a mean tommy-gun. The FBI at the time leaned towards the latter, but that was perhaps because they ended up gunning down Ma and some of her sons. [Hey, I don’t regard historical fact as meriting a spoiler warning. At the end of Titanic, the ship sinks.]

This is a cheery enough romp, making up for in blood squibs what it lacks in historical accuracy, depth or significant character development. Russell holds the film together well at the center, but it’s all shallow – hints (totally unjustified, as far as I know) of an abusive childhood are about the closest we get to psychological insights. There’s also creepy hints of incest between Ma and her sons – which reminds me that, contrary to her prominent cover position, Alyssa Milano’s role is minor, as a “gang whore”. If the dramatic side is half-baked, the action is good, with a real sense of the FBI being out-gunned. They actually were in their early days, though the level of ineptness shown here, with regards to stakeouts and ambushes, is difficult to swallow.

Especially towards the start, the narrative is lumpen and certainly doesn’t grab you immediately. Once the main thread becomes apparent – agent Melvin Purvis (Cortese) tries, but fails, to capture Barker and her gang – the film can devote energy towards this, and becomes more successful. It’d have been interesting had the connection between Purvis and Barker been made more significant; there’s an interesting scene where a drunk Barker rails against her hunter on the telephone, hinting at the potential here. However, I doubt the director of Commando was really interested much in subtle underpinnings, and on the whole it’s probably for the best he doesn’t even try.

Dir: Mark L. Lester
Stars: Theresa Russell, Dan Cortese, James Marsden, Frank Stallone

Model Operandi: Affair of the Heart

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★★★★

Back in the day, I was a big comics fan, but have largely ignored the medium since coming to America in 2000 [there are still two large, unopened boxes in the hallway closet!] I think it’s perhaps the Scot in me coming out: graphic novels are an expensive way to pass an hour or so. Props first, therefore, to Caramagna and Budd, for keeping the cost of their first issue to an extremely reasonable price The story therein centers on the theft in France of a priceless diamond, the Heart of Josephine, and the quest of supermodel Legsy Diamond and Ann Lezbee, the implausibly-bosomed Special Ops Presidential Intern, to retrieve it.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is this storyline tries to cram too much in. As well as the search for the diamond, we also have Legsy’s family background, inter-model agency rivalry, her boss’s previous intrigues, a relationship with an investigating cop, and so on. While this sets up many potential storylines for future issues, it does feel somewhat heavily laid-on, and I tend to feel that less would be more. They’re going for an almost-Alias level of complexity, but twenty-plus hour-long episodes gives you much more scope for exposition than 88 pages, especially in an action-oriented title like this.

That said, the artwork rocks. Bright, crisp, colours mesh perfectly with bold lines, and capture the pop aesthetic delightfully. Every page is the kind of work which deserves to be framed and hung on the wall – though occasionally is perhaps a little too breast-fixated for me to really appreciate it! [I read it in the canteen at work, and felt a little uncomfortable doing so now and again 8-)] Style-wise, I was reminded a bit of the Adam Warren Dirty Pair comics, and that’s pretty high praise since I do have a page of art from that hanging on the wall here. I’m certainly looking forward to future editions, and this first issue is something any action heroine fan should check out.

Available now from AHP Comics, 88 pages, $5.99
Words and Ink: Joe Caramagna
Pencils and Colors: Dennis Budd