Escape From New York: Volume One by author Christopher Sebela and various artists

 

(pb; 2017: first graphic novel in a series of four. Publisher: Boom! Studios.)

 

From the back cover

“The name’s Plissken!

“Snake Plissken may have escaped from New York, but now he’s America’s most wanted outlaw. His only safe haven is the rogue state of Florida. But once he crosses the DMZ, his troubles continue. Florida’s mad dictators want the state to secede and they want Snake’s help. The man with no country is now caught between two.

“These are the new adventures of Snake Plissken, taking place directly after the 1981 classic film.”

 

Review

Also titled Escape from New York: Escape from Florida, this graphic novel begins with the last scenes of director/co-screenwriter John Carpenter’s 1981 film, with Snake walking away from the US President’s disastrous peace-plan announcement. Because of Snake’s switching of the tapes, the President’s men try to grab him but they fail, with much mayhem ensuing. Snake flees to the also-violent, chaotic “Free Republic of Florida” (FRF), the former state under the rule of two thirteen-year-old boys (the psycho-but-totally Remus and the completely psycho Romulus), watched over by a hulking former wrestler (Meemaw). What keeps the new President (Sutter)’s army from reclaiming the FRF is a line of nuclear warheads embedded along the U.S./Florida border, placed there by the eleven-year-old twins. (The former President was ousted after that disastrous press conference.)

Florida is an excellent, tone- and character-true (thus far) followup to the original Escape (1981), with its wild characters, humor (e.g., the news reporter acknowledging “General Michael Quay,” a reference to Mike McQuay, who penned the 1981 movie tie-in novel). The artwork is good as well. This is a fun, fast-moving and bursting-with-action read, one with a cliffhanger finish. Followed by Escape from New York: Escape from Siberia.

The Big Brain #2: The Beezlebub Business by Gary Brandner

 

(pb; 1975: second book in The Big Brain trilogy. Publisher: Zebra Books.)

 

From the back cover

“What good is a billion-dollar brain when there’s the devil to pay?

“It’s hell on earth for Colin Garrett—the Big Brain—when an assignment to investigate the President’s chief advisor on forgeign affairs leads him to the Beezlebub Club. The elite club is a haven of sex and Satanism for Senators and other Washington headliners: it may also be afront for undesirable political activists. Garrett’s Big Brain usually functions faster than a computer, allowing him to probe men’s minds and read their thoughts. But now a deadly, impenetrable mind shield, wielded by Beezlebub, has Garrett almost helpless in a masterful duel of brain waves. Because if just one circuit shorts, it will blow out the Big Brain forever!”

 

Review

The second Big Brain novel finds Colin Garrett and his Agency Zero boss (General Jefferson “J.J.” Judd) investigating Alec Danneman, friend and close advisor to the current US President—it seems that Danneman has been become secretive with his colleagues, his actions made more suspicious by the fact that Danneman is set to engage in important international negotiations with Chinese government officials (among them Chung Tao-Lin, head of the Chinese intelligence agency).

Garrett’s job becomes more complicated when Judd’s friend, Darrell York, member of Executive Committee of Foreign Affairs board, is publicly stabbed to death; York was the one who gave Judd the heads-up on Danneman. Another violent death, possibly connected to York’s killing, widens the scope of the investigation, bringing two others into Garrett’s orbit: Norman Schuyler, husband of the recently deceased Bebe Schuyler; and Liona Wolfe, a satanic dominatrix linked to the notorious Beezlebub Club (which Danneman recently visited).

Fortunately for Garrett, Beezlebub‘s Garrett Woman (think “Bond Girl”) is Trudie McKenzie, a smart, sometimes girly, Washington D.C. guide who provides more than transportation help to the titular cerebral spy-detective.

One curious character, briefly mentioned as a “friend” of Judd’s, is Dr. Arnold Tesla. Arnold’s name is close to Bela Lugosi’s character, Dr. Armand Tesla, in the 1943 Lew Landers film The Return of the Vampire. Not sure if it’s a coincidence, or why it might be a cinematic-to-pulp in-joke, but given Brandner’s genre-smart pulp sensibilities, it perked my interest.

As with the first novel (The Aardvark Affair), Beezlebub’s writing is fast-paced, tightly edited and bluntly male-gaze in its language, with its casual-womanizer Garrett deftly, sometimes violently and carnally adapting to its corkscrew events and lots-of-suspects characters. (The two sex scenes are explicit enough to make the sexually shy blush, but fall short of being completely X-rated.) The killer (or killers) isn’t too hard to figure out, but it’s an entertaining action-flick, short-read trashy novel by an excellent, having-fun author. Worth reading, this. Followed by The Big Brain #3: Energy Zero.