Previously, in Wuxtry...
[ Welcome to the Continuity Comics Incoherence Crusade, MONTH TRES. ]
CyberRAD #1-7 + vol. 2 #1 + vol. 3 #1-2 (1992-1993) "creation", story & layouts by Neal Adams, w/ dialogue by Peter Stone & Neal Adams; pencils & inks by Terry Shoemaker (issues 1-3) & Richard Bennett (every single issue); colours by Cory Adams; lettering by John Costanza (issues 1-5) & Ken Bruzenak (everything else)
This feels like it was basically invented to be a showcase for Richard Bennett's art. Like, it has the stink of Neal trying to keep up with the yoots of today-- 'Jason Kriter: Toyboy' only lasted thru the year of 1986, and that was basically it for Continuity's sole "kid's book" --so what CyberRAD provides is, instead of a richie rich kid trying to foil his millionaire dad's gun-running schemes, you have a punk rocker trying to figure out why he woke up as a T-1000, on the run from his shadowy gov't keepers & their chrome-plated enforcers, eventually assassinating himself in the middle of a live show, in front of his friends & family.
The first eight issues comprise Continuity Comics' second graphic novel, after Bucky O'Hare. I've never seen a copy of the trade paperback, but the internet insists one exists, so sure. I'm glad continuity collected SOMETHING besides Bucky. The third graphic novel was, allegedly, to be a Bernie Wrightson graphic novel, an adaptation of the classic film 'Freak Show', but Continuity advertised 'Freak Show' for a solid decade and never published page one. I think maybe Continuity had bought the rights from Heavy Metal / Tundra and were just sitting on it, waiting.
Anyway.
I've bitched elsewhere about how CyberRAD was shanghaied from his own series by Shaman, who essentially conscripts our hero in the middle of his own torture & dissection at the hands of his mad scientist father, to go save Megalith's shapely olympian buttocks from 'Deathwatch 2,000'. It's totally unnecessary & hallucinatory, the way Otto Preminger's Skidoo is hallucinatory.
By which I mean it's someone who never did drugs (or much armchair research) depicting altered states of consciousness. Neal had a pathological fixation on allegorical depictions of psychological states-- he liked a dream sequence, he liked a melting Dali clock, he liked a goofy-ass 'toon where Tom & Jerry huff ether & chase one another in shortbus motion. If Neal Adams hit a dead end on a story, his solution was always an Imaginary Sequence-- but Neal never read 'The Doors of Perception' any more than he listened to The Doors, so the trip cinema he strove to achieve, as often as not, was little more than pastiche-- and never, ever inspired pastiche. It would just be rip-off. 'Crazyman', in its final series arc, was a "tribute"-- read: shameless cannibalization of --the infamous finale of 'The Prisoner'.
Anyway!
CyberRAD ended. Not where it should have ended, not where it could have ended, not where it was "meant" to end. But it defnitely ended what was one of a handful of short runs of comix that published on a semi-regular schedule. All seven issues of Jason Kriter: Toyboy were published the same year, 1986, and almost every issue of CyberRAD dropped over the course of 1992-1993. No mean feat, from the House of Continuing...
And Richard Bennett, age 23, was probably the main engine behind that accomplishment. There's a lot to recommend about this book, honestly. The cover & print gimmicks were strong with CyberRAD, but unlike most every other Continuity book, the gimmicks added value to the content. The gimmicks enhanced the storytelling. The fold-outs, and glow-in-the-dark covers, and "secret" imagery were all there to add extra visual FX to a dumb, motherfuckin' loud movie.
It's pretty obvious Neal saw Terminator 2 & said "Must cash in." Unlike other shameless gropes to qualify for pop-cultural cachet-- Samuree, say, or KnightHawk --CyberRAD manages to be louder & bigger than its inspiration. I mean, let's be honest: The Terminator's been played out ever since the original, and even that movie couldn't be less interested in themes of what it means to be human or robot. James Cameron did not read R.U.R., and (probably) neither did Neal Adams... But like our titular Cyber Radical, Adams & Stone & Shoemaker & Bennett stumbled headlong through a construction site under heavy fire from critics and managed to make it all the way to the big blowout final scene. I'd say they succeeded, because these comics were stocked in every mall bookstore I set foot in over the course of 1992-1993.
So the font choices for the first five issues kinda suck. So the main character's mullet defies physics. So the fashions are dated as a George Michael video. Still, not for nothin': CyberRAd remains easy to find on ebay. You could do worse than buy in.
[ next up: 1986!!! ]
No comments:
Post a Comment