Unearthed: Trypto the Acid Dog! #1

Since about 1998 the comic book medium has been overwhelmed with Hollywood types (and wannabe Hollywood types) attempting to either augment their career by slumming in comics (because their Hollywood career is stagnant) or trick people into looking at their terrible screenplays (because they want to make it big in Hollywood). And yet, a full decade earlier in 1988, Hollywood big shots Bill Mumy & Miguel Ferrer enjoyed a tenure in comics which included Renegade Press' Trypto the Acid Dog!, a black & white one-shot drawn by Steve Leialoha.

The story opens with portentious dialogue about the existence of heroes as we find a couple named Benjamin & Alison examining the fish of Kentson River in Kirby, Indiana. The couple are collecting evidence against Toxicem, a chemical plant believed to be polluting the rivers. The couple also brought their young son Dewey and his tiny dog Trypto with them.

Next, we meet Mr. Bursky of Toxicem as he orders his thug Gino to deal with Benjamin & Alison, demanding Gino "shut them down," bring him everything they have on Toxicem and that "a fire might be nice." Later that night as Alison is reading Dewey a bedtime story, Gino arrives at the door and shoots Benjamin to death. Ducking under the steps, Gino proceeds to shoot Alison in the back when she comes down to check on Benjamin.

Seeing Dewey descend after his mother, Gino muses, "A kid! I like kids..." then shoots Dewey dead as well. Are we enjoying this yet? Trypto ventures out next, whimpering and licks the dead body of Dewey. Then, in a fit of rage, the tiny dog attacks Gino, biting into his leg and tearing through his flesh. Gino shoots Trypto twice, collects the data then sets the house on fire. By, er, using explosives, which is going to be pretty hard to pass off as an accident.

However, as the fire is being prepared the nearly-deade Trypto crawls from the home, leaving a trail of blood across the backyard until finally splashing into the waters of the polluted river. Exposed the toxic waste in the water, this naturally grants Trypto superhuman powers. Yes, we've just transitioned to the brutal slayings of a family to all-out comic book science! The narration returns declaring "Thy kingdomc come... Thy will be done... on Earth... as it is in Heaven..." so that we grasp the magnificence of this moment.

"Charged with the power of lightning, strange toxic chemicals mingling within his flesh and blood, fueled with a hunger for revenge -- Trypto is born again! Born of water -- born of fire -- born of blood -- born of acid! Trypto the Acid Dog!" Trypto is now clad in a cape with a "T" insignia (the cape comes from a Toxicem sandbag). Obviously with his power of flight and cape, Trypto is revealed as an homage to Superboy's beloved pet Krypto, the Super-Dog (who had been retconned out of existence at the time this story was published). "Trypto" is likewise a reference to Krypto, while also referring tryptic acid. One wonders if this comic came to be because one night Mumy mispronounced Krypto's name and Ferrer thought there could be a story in that.

With his super-senses, Trypto sets out in pursuit of Gino; flying over the river, Trypto's presence causes dead bodies in the river to rise up and follow in his wake. At Toxicem, Mr. Bursky is patching up Gino's wounded leg when Trypto bursts in dramatically through a skylight. He proves to be immune to Gino's gunfire and Trypto does something to Gino off-panel; we only hear Gino's screams and death rattle.

Trypto confronts Bursky now, the dog's body now increasing in size. Bursky tries to run, but runs into the reanimated people from the river, all of them victims of Bursky's machinations. The creatures carry Bursky to a vat of boiling chemicals and throw him in, then destroy themselves the same way (although if in this world chemicals can regenerate dead people and dogs, I'm not sure why these chemicals are more lethal than the toxic waste).

"A fitting end for his kind," Trypto thinks (quoting Batman in a similar situation from that character's first appearance). The next day, a neighbour boy named Robbie finds Trypto at the ruins of his family's home and Robbie convinces his mother to let him keep the dog. A news broadcast reveals that although the home was destroyed by fire, a fireproof safe contained enough evidence to bring down Toxicem. And our story ends as Robbie brings Trypto to visit Dewey's grave.

Thoughts: This is a delightfully odd comic.

As the Batman & Krypto references I noted bear witness, Mumy & Ferrer had some obvious affection for good old fashioned super hero comics. As a comic printed in the time of the black & white boom, one also wonders if the toxic chemical-based origin had anything to do with a certain quartet of turtles who were teenaged, mutant and also ninja.

Leialoha's art is a treat, with Trypto's cone-shaped head particularly appealing. It's a simple story with a few good gags but it takes its plot seriously - rather different than the all-out Rex the Wonder Dog as Captain America parody I complained about earlier, offering somewhat more subtle humour.

2014: From Speedball to Destiny

Many people seem to think their annual "best of" lists merit the attention of others. What, in particular, might my excuse be? First, that I consume quite a lot of media in a given year between the comic books & prose I read and films I watch. Second, that I am extremely picky and difficult to please. Therefore, if I come down in favour of something there's an implication that it must be cream of the crop! ...Though my tastes are likely quite different from yours.

And you, readers of this blog, which 2014 post did you most enjoy? The one where I stood in defense of Steve Ditko's Speedball. Good choice!

2014 MOVIES I MOST ENJOYED

I don't have much to say about new films except that despite all of my recent issues with Marvel, they do adapt themselves very neatly to the cinemas. I easily enjoyed Captain America: the Winter Soldier the most of the year's films because I felt it characterized the Captain very faithfully. Still, I have an enormous soft spot for X-Men: Days of Future Past because it struck a few nostalgic notes for 2000's X-Men (such as revisiting that film's score), reminding me of that bygone time when Marvel's venture into film was still unproved and where famous Hollywood stars appearing in their films would trash-talk them to reporters, as opposed to today's stars who plead for Marvel's table scraps. What a world.

2014 COMICS I MOST ENJOYED

Many of the titles I enjoyed in 2014 are still in-process, but I'm very pleased with Priest & Mark Bright's Q2: The Return of Quantum & Woody (valiant; review here), which has reunited them with their best creative property. Walter Simonson is still engulfed in Ragnarok (IDW) which offers his take on Norse mythos without Marvel's filter. Kurt Busiek & Benjamin Dewey have just begun Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw (Image), a great-looking fantasy series about animal people whose legendary hero turns out to be a human. Eric Shanower & Gabriel Rodriguez have been doing pretty well with Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland (IDW), although any comparison to the original Winsor McCay strips would be unfavourable; the very format of a serialized comic book presents difficulties in adapting a narrative told via single pages. My friends Alex Grecian & Riley Rossmo just launched Rasputin (Image; review here) which thus far has been an intriguing look at a mythologized Rasputin's beginning and ending. I haven't yet finished Wild's End (Boom!) by Dan Abnett & I.N.J. Culbard, but the premise - Wind and the Willows meets War of the Worlds - has kept me interested. Dean Haspiel & Mark Waid's The Fox (Archie; review here) was a very pleasant surprise - the most enjoyable super hero comic I'd read since the last Mark Waid comic I'd bought; there will be more from the Fox this year and I'm in favour of it!

In returning titles, I've finally begun to catch up on the recently-revived Astro City (Vertigo) by Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson, which has been virtually on-target to the series' usual level of quality. Stan Sakai has fortunately returned to Usagi Yojimbo (Dark Horse) with his own War of the Worlds-inspired series Senso (review here) and with a Color Special (review here); 2015 promises to see the series itself resume, which I'm quite eager to see. Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson returned to Beasts of Burden (Dark Horse) with the one-shot Hunters & Gatherers (review here); hopefully 2015 will see more from them. A friend's recommendation led me to read the collected edition of Chuck Dixon's Winterworld (IDW) early in 2014; much to my surprise, the series resumed with new adventures later in the year after about a 20-year absence! I'm still following Larry Hama & S.L. Gallant's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero! (IDW) as well; the quality varies at times and the sci-fi plots never seem like a good fit for the series, but Hama's snappy dialogue usually wins me over. Sadly, Sergio Aragones Funnies (Bongo; review here) ended this year, though Sergio intends to bring it back with another publisher somewhere down the line. Batton Lash printed a new trade paperback Supernatural Law: Zombie Wife (Exhibit A) and I happily supported it on Kickstarter; I'm sure he has something new in the works for 2015.

In international comics, Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido's Blacksad: Amarillo (Dark Horse; review here) debuted in English and I quite enjoyed it, although it veered away from the series' usual mystery-detective trappings for a more straightforward tale of action. The French comic Peter Pan (Soaring Penguin Press) by Regis Loisel finally received a full English translation and I gave it chance; I enjoyed it, but it was quite a bit darker than I expected with some particularly disturbing material toward the end when Peter and his Lost Boys gradually forget Tinkerbell had caused someone's death. Finally, Sergio Ponchione's Ditko Kirby Wood (Fantagraphics; review here) was a very tight tribute to those three great masters of comic art with dazzling attempts to duplicate their styles.

The only truly new graphic novels I tried out were Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew's The Shadow Hero (First Second; review here), a very pleasant super hero romp with history first truly-Asian-American costumed hero. I also found much to enjoy in Box Brown's Andre the Giant (First Second; review forthcoming), which relates incidents from the wrestler's life as a series of vignettes.

Pre-2014 MOVIES I DISCOVERED & ENJOYED

It took me a very long time but I finally obtained the movie The Crowd, which proved to be a fantastic silent film (some thoughts about it here). My interest in early cinema (especially Warner films) also paid out as I enjoyed Heroes For Sale, The Life of Emile Zola, Wild Boys of the Road and Million Dollar Legs. And while it's sad that Maximilian Schell died last year, at least through his obituary I learned of his pseudo-documentary Marlene, which proved to be very interesting - a real tension between the filmmaker and his subject.

Speaking of documentaries, I enjoyed The Unknown Known even though - as everyone seems to have pointed out - it was not like Errol Morris' earlier Fog of War in terms of capturing a public figure pouring out the conflicts from within their soul. Rumsfeld's lack of self-awareness is fascinating in its own right, but it's not as comfortable as the earlier film's apologetic McNamara had been.

Time spent on airplanes last year gave me many opportunities to view recent releases and 12 Years a Slave and Her were easily my two favourites. I also discovered Ordinary People and quite liked that too. Finally, I viewed Felidae because the very concept of an animated film about a mystery-solving housecat which indulges in both sex and violence is an oddity all its own.

Pre-2014 PROSE FICTION I DISCOVERED & ENJOYED

Ishmael Beah's The Radiance of Tomorrow was a fine novel about post-war Sierra Leone; I didn't find it as involving as Beah's non-fiction, but all the same it gave me more insight into the country, insight which I'll need if I keep visiting there (which at present time is a hard thing to consider). I also read Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and quite liked it, although it left me feeling disturbed more than a few times. I read another Charles Dickens novel: Dombey and Son (most of it while I was in Sierra Leone) and while its happy resolution came together a little too neat for me, I always enjoy reading Dickens' casts of characters.

I poured through quite a few books whose film adaptations I'd already enjoyed; setting aside the films, I found much to like in The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes, The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler, Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton, Psycho by Robert Bloch and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It's always interesting to discover where the versions diverged. I was particularly surprised to find that Psycho has quite a few scenes from Norman Bates' perspective when you wouldn't expect them, and to find just how tightly-constructed Jackson's Haunting of Hill House is, from the dialogue to the characters to the rising tension.

I delved a little into the pulps last year and dug out some short story collections, most notably Bloch's The Opener of the Way (review here) and two of Nelson S. Bond's: The Far Side of Nowhere (review here) & The 31st of February (review here. As a personal triumph, I also read the last two Sax Rohmer novels I hadn't previously experienced. My best pulp experience, however, has to be discovering The Black Ace by George Bruce in an issue of Argosy (review here; what a magnificent tale!

Finally, I enjoyed a few books of humour, which is not normally something I try. Bob & Ray's From Approximately Coast to Coast was almost as good as hearing them on the radio and Robert Benchley's The Benchley Roundup brought a few smiles to my tired old face.

Pre-2014 NON-FICTION I DISCOVERED & ENJOYED

My interest in Africa (and in particular Sierra Leone) led me to two great books in 2014: Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild, telling the story of the abolition movement in England (which turns out to be much less-inspirational than you'd suppose) and An Imperfect Offering by James Orbinski, which relates the author's experiences offering humanitarian aid with MSF in the midst of some of the worst crises of the last few decades.

My love of films brought me to Frank Capra's excellent autobiography The Name Above the Title and Buster Keaton's My Wonderful World of Slapstick. There were also some great interviews with film directors to be had in Peter Bogdanovich's Who the Devil Made It? and interesting stories about why some films failed to materialize as they were first conceived in Tales From Development Hell by David Hughes. Charles Drazin's In Search of the Third Man held virtually everything I, as a tremendous fan of the film, could ever wish to know about how it was made and what its impact has been. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood by Todd McCarthy was one of the better filmmaker biographies I've read as it took its time to explore the personality in question, delved into his films themselves and generally avoided the type of armchair psychology most books of that ilk indulge in.

In books about comics, Art Spiegelman's Metamaus gave me new reasons to re-read Maus and for that alone, I'm happy I read it. Super Boys by Brad Ricca did a terrific job with the lives of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, although I felt it skipped over a lot of material and indulged in the type of armchair psychology I've previous mentioned a distaste for; still, I read a number of Siegel & Shuster's comics I hadn't sampled before because of this book.

Pre-2014 COMICS I DISCOVERED & ENJOYED

I avoided James Stokoe's Orc Stain (Image) for some time because, despite all of the good word about it, I didn't think I could get on board with his art. After his Godzilla: The Half-Century War disbused me of that impression, I happily read all of Orc Stain this last year. I was also very pleased to find Stan Sakai's other anthropomorphic-fantasy-adventure book Nilson Groundthumper & Hermy (Dark Horse) in its new hardcover collection; it's much more comedic than Usagi Yojimbo but equally as clever. I also decided to finally give Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse (Fantagraphics) a try and bought the first two volumes of the newspaper strip reprints. Although I enjoyed it, I don't think I'll sample any more of the series - the series' actions are so overwhelming as to be underwhelming when read in sequence.

On some strange impulse, I decided to get all of Adam Warren's Dirty Pair (Eclipse/Dark Horse) comics; it's not just the beautiful women or funny dialogue he creates (and I certainly like both) but his love of odd science fiction concepts (especially the transhumanism) keeps bringing me back. I was also very impressed with the first issue of The Destructor (Atlas; review here) by Archie Goodwin, Steve Ditko & Wally Wood - but then, how could a creative team like that one misfire? I've also bought most of Joshua Quagmire's Cutey Bunny (review forthcoming) and the graphic novel biography Bogie (Eclipse; review here) by Claude-Jean Philippe & Patrick Lesueur was a brief, but interesting look at Humphrey Bogart's life.

Perhaps the biggest thing which happened to me comics-wise in 2014 was my involvement in promoting Nelvana of the Northern Lights (CGA/IDW) on behalf of the University of Calgary; it was fun to be interviewed for print & radio and do a little to help get people interested in the project. Preparing for the interviews certainly helped me hone my own knowledge regarding the Canadian whites!

Finally, the non-fiction comic The Photographer (First Second) followed Didier Lefevre in his journey through Afghanistan with MSF and held some interesting depictions of culture clash, such as one doctor's irritation with western people's reactions toward the chadri.

THAT VIDEO GAME I LIKED

I certainly don't purchase many video games, but when I do find one I want I tend to play it for several years. With the Xbox 360 being phased out and me unwilling to upgrade to the X-bone at this time, I decided well in advance that I'd give Bungie's Destiny a try. Heck, I enjoyed Halo and I'm going to need something to play on the 360.

I'm mostly satisfied with the game; for the number of hours of enjoyment it's given me, I can't complain. The story is pretty bare (probably because as a mass-multi-player online game the story has to be open-ended) and you find the limitations pretty quickly. I also can't say I enjoy their player vs. player mode (the Crucible) at all; while I might still put in a Halo game and play in versus mode for a few hours, I avoid the Crucible - it seems as though it consists of about 30 seconds of running to find a fight, about 10 seconds of combat, then death and starting the cycle anew; not fun.

Unfortunately, the game's raid mode seems to be intentionally designed to keep out people like me - the casual gamers. There's no matchmaking system for the raid mode and because I can't play with my X-bone friends (re: pretty much everyone I played Halo with) that leaves me unable to form a party to attempt the raid. Irritating. It's interesting to see the communications from Bungie as they address the ways gamers are trying to exploit loopholes in the game. Every message from the developers has a barely-restrained irritation, as though they want to say, "you're playing the game wrong, guys." So far they've said they have no interest in matchmaking, so... I'm shut out. Consequently, there's no point for me to chase down their DLC - I won't be able to use it. Regardless, I enjoy Destiny as it stands.