Word: comically
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Back in 1991, before Marvel comics completely tanked creatively and financially, they gave Walt Simonson writing and penciling duties on "The Fantastic Four," issues #350, 352, 353, and 354. (Number 351 was a throwaway, "filler" issue.) I doubt the title has seen such a highlight since then. These four issues are some of the best mainstream comic entertainment I have read. And issue 352 stands alone as a pinnacle not just of the series, but the art form...
...Issue 350 stands out as a top example of classic superhero-genre comic making: story surprises, dynamic action scenes told in clear yet exciting layouts, and characterizations that have life while remaining iconic. But really it just sets up issue 352, as radical a comic as Marvel ever...
Fact is, TV has long been a woman's medium. Movies are guy space. So consider the release next month of Josie and the Pussycats, a live-action version of the comic book and '70s TV cartoon series, and this summer's Tomb Raider, with Angelina Jolie as supervixen Lara Croft. Consider, and savor, the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the all-time top-grossing foreign-language film that was set to hit the $100 million mark at the North American box office last weekend. Ang Lee's martial arts fantasy features two strong women, a 30ish warrior (Michelle...
...wrong way, it's Croft's newfound pals. In the game, she operates alone. Now, perhaps, Croft has too many sidekicks. The spectral presence of her father (played by Jolie's real-life dad, Jon Voight) is a cute addition, but we could probably do without the cockney comic relief called Bryce (played by Noah Taylor, the teenage David Helfgott in Shine). At any rate, Jolie feels right at home in her strange new world. "All the reasons I'm right for this movie are all the reasons I've been told I wasn't right for things," says Jolie...
Nothing in Allegra Goodman's previous fiction--two volumes of short stories and the highly praised novel Kaaterskill Falls (1998)--has quite prepared readers for the sustained comic exuberance of Paradise Park (Dial; 360 pages; $24.95). Her earlier work certainly wasn't grim, but it tended toward the polished and well mannered and resonant, a la 19th century British fiction. Not this time. Like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth before her, Goodman has achieved a breakthrough book by discovering and recording a thoroughly uninhibited narrative voice. Bellow found Augie March, and Roth hit upon Alexander Portnoy. Goodman gives the world...