Home To Stay!

I was late to the Ray Bradbury experience. I got hold of a copy of The Martian Chronicles when I was young, but it seemed just okay. In later years I got hold of more of his work and have come to appreciate him better. But truth told, I like Bradbury's stories best when they were adapted to comics form, and no one did it better than the guys at E.C. Comics, though they did it surreptitiously at first. Home to Stay! is an oversized collection from Fantagraphics of all the stories of Bradbury's adapted by William Gaines, Al Feldstein, and an amazing array of artists. 

In the early 50's comics were coming under fire, but the heat was not such that a writer of Bradbury's status considered it a problem to be associated with the format. In fact, he was a lover of comics and so after he was tipped off that some of his stories might have been lifted and altered ever so slightly, he  wrote a letter to the offices of Entertaining Comics and reminded them that they had "forgotten" to send him a check for fifty bucks for the secondary rights of the stories involved. (His letter is reproduced in this collection.) He then went on to suggest that EC and he enter a formal arrangement to bring his stories into comics form. And soon he had his fifty bucks and a new outlet to attract readers. 

EC lost no time in celebrating the new arrangement and the badge above soon began appearing on various issues of their comics when a Bradbury story was within. But after a few years, the war on comics became a bit too hot and Bradbury ask that his name no longer be used on the covers, though they continued to adapt his stories. It strikes me odd now that the writer of Fahrenheit 451 would wilt in the face of such a tirade, but as we see even today, it's hard to stand up for what's right, even when you know it to be true. Eventually EC folded and the adaptations stopped. But now we can enjoy them all over again. 

Here are the covers of the comics in which Bradbury's stories appeared. Few of the covers actually related to his particular contribution and I've noted when that's the case. 

(for the story "He Walked Among Us" based on "The Man")

(for the story "A Sound of Thunder")

(for the story "I, Rocket")

(for the story "The Screaming Woman", the only cover which features a Bradbury story with the badge)

(1965 Ballantine Books collection with Frank Frazetta cover)

(1966 Ballantine Books collection with a Frank Frazetta cover)

It was wise in the long run for Bradbury to allow EC to adapt his stories. It saved him the cost of lengthy and uncertain legal proceedings, and it proclaimed his name to comics fans for all time and spread his fame and influence. I enjoyed reading these stories, especially those rendered by Wally Wood and Joe Orlando. But other artists such as Johnny Craig, Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Will Elder, George Evans, Graham Engels, Jack Kamen, Bernie Krigstein, John Severin, and Al Williamson are well represented. Whether you get to these stories in this collection or in any of the other EC reprints from across the decades, I wish you well. 

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Fahrenheit 451 - The Authorized Adaptation!

Take my book from my cold dead hand! That's a paraphrase of an infamous Charlton Heston quote of course concerning guns. It's how I personally feel about the precious tomes which inhabit my house with me. I live alone but not really. My house is full of interesting folks like Asimov, Bester, Cooper, Dickens, Ellison, Fleming, Gaiman, Heinlein, Idle, Jakes, King, Lovecraft, Matheson, Norton, Orwell, Poe, Quinn, Robinson, Spinrad, Tolkien, Updike, Verne, Wells, Yarbro, and Zelazny to name a few. Their books and their stories abide with me. They are much more precious than any gun in a civilized society. But there's the rub. 

In America we are not afraid of the military of the military-grade hardware you might be hiding on your person or in your vehicle, but we are fucking terrified that you might have a book which has an unsettling idea or two in it. Electronic media has made book-burning purely a symbolic act of stupidity and fear, but the very effort to suppress ideas and the books that contain them is still raging along as hot as it ever was. Ray Bradbury spoke to this madness in his famous novel Fahrenheit 451 which was first published in the 1950's. I've read this book numerous times and taught it in class several times as well. It's a bracing vision of a future. It was adapted to film in the late 1960's. Now, like so many classic yarns, this story has been given the graphic novel treatment. That's what I'm responding to today. 

I'm not familiar with the work of Tim Hamilton, but based on the stellar storytelling in this tome, I'm a fan. There are lots of cheesy ways this singular book could've been adapted. Hamilton chose a restrained approach which uses a muted color palette and, in a way makes the words in the presentation as important as the pictures. That's not unimportant for a book about the value of words. 

We follow the fireman Montag, a man charged in this society with the destruction of illicit reading materials. What materials are considered verboten you might ask? All of them pretty much it seems. But mostly classic and popular literature, the kinds of fiction and nonfiction which lifts the individual out of their mundane existence and points the way to potentially more durable truths. The great irony in this society which seems to be always at war, is that fireman destroy and not save. That key irony empowers the novel and this graphic novel with a core irony. Montag is a man conflicted and also a perfect example of why a society wishing to maintain control of its populace burns books and instead encourages banal socialization by way of mammoth television screens. That this world is doomed is evident from the very beginning of the book. 

Now given the central message of Bradbury's book, one might think a comic book version of his story might smack too close to the kind of reductionism he preaches against, but this book features an introduction by Bradbury himself, so he apparently was fine with it. A book that inspires self- reflection and a further search for truths is to be celebrated regardless of his format. And that's how I feel as well. This is a dang good adaptation of a story demands to be read in the modern day. 

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The Martian Chronicles!

In the 1970's television discovered the mini-series. It was a breakthrough format because it allowed longer more complex narratives to hit the small screen despite a lack of apparent series potential. The celebrated of these is Roots which followed the individuals of a single-family line as they progress from freedom to slavery and beyond. Taking this notion of telling a more complex story lots of properties were examined and among these was Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. As it turns out this collection of seemingly connected short stories was put together somewhat after-the-face but still it does offer a series of insights into what might've happened had there been intelligent and civilized life on Mars and what might result from a human incursion and eventual colonization of the planet. The story is told in three parts, each with an overarching theme. 

The first is titled "The Expedition" and offers up three tales of astronauts touching down on the planet Mars. Using three of Bradbury's short stories -- "I'll Not Ask for Wine", "Mars is Heaven", and "--And the Moon Be Still as Bright" the screenplay by Richard Matheson tracks three attempts to land on Mars. In the first a Martian woman dreams of the approaching Earthmen and her jealous husband takes fatal action. In the second three astronauts are startled to find a small Earth-like town fully populated with people they know but it's a honey trap. And in the third an astronaut (or perhaps not) comes into sympathy with the Martians who have been mostly killed off by the Chicken Pox and takes lethal action to keep the planet free of humans as long as possible. Bernie Casey is a standout in the third story as the man who comes to want to preserve Martian culture. Rock Hudson does a decent job as his commander and Darren McGavin steals a few scenes with charming mug as a fellow astronaut. 

The second part is titled "The Settlers" and this part takes three more stories -- "Fire Balloons", "The Martian", and "The Off Season" and cobbles together a narrative about the early days of settlement. In the first two priests encounter ancient Martians and it proves their faith in different ways. In the second a Martian is able to become anyone who a human being is longing for and so loses his own identity. The third is a rousing romp in which the owner of a roadside eatery is hopeful for more immigrants but gets into a dust up with some surviving Martians. Darren McGavin is back as the owner of the eatery and his get-up as a futuristic cowboy in keeping with his decor has always been one of the most memorable things about this show. He's always alive anytime he's on screen and acts rings around most of his castmates. This part ends with the Earth suffering the fatal effects of a nuclear war. 

The third part of the story is titled "The Martians" and uses the stories "The Long Years", "The Million Year Picnic" and a character from the story "The Green Morning" and uses him in the story "The Silent Towns". These stories take place after the nuclear war on Earth and after many of the settlers have chosen to return to Earth leaving only a few folks behind in the scattered settlements. The first story is about a man who has replaced his family with androids as he waits for news from Earth after the war. The third is about a named Ben Driscoll who goes to great lengths to encounter a woman in a distant town who alas is so self-absorbed she is not a fit companion. He does however find some happiness in an unexpected place. The second story ties much of the thematic message of the mini-series together as those humans who are left make decisions about how to proceed on Mars now that it is the only option.

It's a pity but this epic story has a number of highlights but rather fizzles out in the end when the story comes to a halt before the time is up and frankly the creators dawdle. Working in another of Bradbury's stories would've solved this problem maybe. The whole piece wants to be taken seriously and deserves to be, but in keeping with that desire there's a quiet somberness to the proceedings overall that especially drags down the third part despite some great comedic acting by Bernadette Peters who plays the bombshell who is only smitten with herself.  The special effects are not quite adequate for the time period and vary in quality from scene to scene. Generally speaking, this is a project worth checking out with more highlights than lowlights and if you like your science fiction on the cerebral side. 

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Mars Is Wildey!

Before it was mentioned to me as a recommendation for this month I didn't know that Doug Wildey had done an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. In point of fact he seems to have done an adaptation of one of the stories which comprise the collection -- "Mars is Heaven". It's the gentle but yet brutal story of how the Martians use powers of illusion to protect themselves from what they understand to be invaders from Earth. I could find very little about how Wildey came to be on this project, but the results are still quite impressive. 

Here's the three-page story in its original artwork form. 

To read this story in its full-color form with the blessing of a cover to boot check out this link. Later this week, there will be more on The Martian Chronicles. 

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