Cold Space (comic)

Writers: Samuel L Jackson, Eric Calderon
Artist: Jeremy Rock
Collects: Cold Space #1-4

So tell me. Are you, by chance, interested in a comic written by Samuel L Jackson, starring Samuel L Jackson doing Samuel L Jackson things for eighty pages? If so, well, Cold Space has plenty of that.

So, Samuel L Jackson is an outlaw who ends up in a space dogfight when he's caught doing... outlaw things. He subdues them, something goes wrong and he crash lands on a fairly desolate planet. Turns out it has a town straight out of the Wild West. This is alright, because we could all use more Space Western Samuel L Jackson in our lives. As you might guess, he plays both sides of the fence, things go wrong and shit starts blowing up.

Cerebral, it is not - or particularly original, as the foreword all but admits it's basically Yojimbo In Space - but I've had worse ways to kill an hour. It's got some good lines peppered throughout and while no scene stands out as truly exceptional, nothing about the story reeks either. It feels like a couple of guys not used to writing comics working out the kinks. Cold Space ends on a note that feels as though this were meant to be the start of something more. The first "episode" if you will.

That's the problem.

One of the practices that has taken root over the past decade is the movie pitch disguised as a comic. It's beyond cynical, essentially using comics as a stepping stone to more "important" things. Mark Millar is the king of it; half the shit he's put out since Wanted end up reading like it was written with a movie adaption in mind*.

Cold Space is nowhere near that bad, but something about it comes off as if the idea didn't start life with a comic in mind. It felt as though this were originally meant to be a pilot for an animated TV miniseries much like Afro Samurai, which Samuel L Jackson and Eric Calderon also co-wrote. It starts with the art, which feels very "animation friendly" and stretches all the way to the ending, which all but states there's more to come**. But this is also simply how it felt to me; the "TV pilot" feel could just come down to the fact that comics aren't exactly what they're used to rather than repurposing an idea meant for another medium.

Regardless, that's not enough to sink it. Oh no. The knockout blow? That one comes from the price. Cold Space is collected in a softcover Digest-esque size and the story is a good eighty pages. Guess what it goes for? If you said eight to ten dollars, you're thinking rationally. Boom wants fifteen. I've got Specials and Anniversary issues with as many pages for less than that. Cold Space is pretty alright, but that's more money than it's worth.

My Opinion: Try It

Cold Space is not great, but it's not particularly bad either. It sits somewhere in the realm of mediocrity, maybe just a hair above that given who is behind it. If you can find it in the library, it might be worth a flip through for you. Purchasing it is another matter entirely; it's just not worth the cash they want for it.

* I imagine what we got for a film version of Wanted didn't help matters. Aside from character names and the closing minutes the amount of things the film had in common with the comic are jack and shit. May as well just write them like you would a movie in that case, eh?

** As of the date I wrote this, I haven't heard anything about a second miniseries. Probably not TOO surprising, as Samuel L Jackson is a busy guy in Hollywood. Regardless, Cold Space feels like something they meant to come back to down the line, so I won't be too awful shocked to hear about a sequel at some point.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Vol. 1 (comics)

Writer: Phillip K. Dick
Artist: Tony Parker
Collects: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? #1-4, essays on Dicks work by numerous comic creators

This is exactly the sort of project I tend to question the existence of.

I get the trouble with adaptions. If you stick too close to the source, you risk utterly boring your audience; some segments simply do not work the same way in film, for example, as they do a book. Same for a comic book. Each form of media has its own strengths and weaknesses. Slavish devotion is the enemy of many an adaption; after all, the key word here is adapt.

If you go too far, however, you're going to piss people off. In some cases, straying too far will even destroy the entire message or purpose of a work. That's the point where you've failed outright.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" already received the perfect film adaption. Now they decided to give the original story a comic version. The problem is, it's more the former than the latter.

This book is slavishly devoted to the point where I could actually list Phillip K. Dick - long dead - as the writer. They literally took the text of the book and put it over comic art. Nothing was cut, from descriptions to dialouge.

Most any fan of comics will understand why this is problematic. Part of the strength of a comic is that it can be a medium between film and prose. But many of the same principles for other adaptions stand. The art - seen physically instead of the use of your imagination prose requires - takes care of descriptions; after all, a big rule in comics is to "show, don't tell" as much as humanly possible. But this "adaption" is a case of telling everything you're showing; not a panel goes by where the prose isn't describing what we're seeing reflected in the art.

While I appreciate the intention - keeping as close as possible to the original, which is indisputably a classic - as noble as it is it does not make for a good comic. Every panel is wordy as hell. It does make for a dense read, but in an odd way; words and sentences structured to feed your imagination clashing with artwork that shows what's described.

So, is there any worth to this? Well, there are essays by comic pros talking about Dicks work. There's also the fact that if you've never read the original story before, you won't lose anything by going this route. That is, unless you count money. This hardcover is twenty five dollars and collects four issues. The maxiseries collects the entire prose story in twenty four issues. At that rate, it will take six volumes and a hundred fifty dollars. Quite the investment when you could get both this and "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" for about twenty dollars, which is less than a single volume of this.

The Score: 6.5 out of 10

If I had to give a recommendation I'd say to get the original prose story. Even with the essays this isn't worth that much money. This is for hardcore Phillip Dick fans only; and even then only those with a lot of money burning a hole in their pocket. It's not worth it when you can get the paperback for a pittance, with the only tradeoff being that you may need to use your imagination.

Meanwhile, my imagination cannot dream up the thought process that led to Boom doing it this way.