AIR PLANE TICKETS CHEAP

Suspended Animation Classic #278
Originally published April 24, 1994 (#17)
(Dates are approximate)

Ray Bradbury’s Tales of Terror and The Illustrated Man
By Michael Vance

Ray Bradbury is one of the finest writers in comic books. Hopefully, he’ll write one someday.

Bradbury writes short stories and novels. When his stylistic integrity is honored, comic book adaptations of his rhyme and reason are magic.

“Ray Bradbury’s Tales of Terror” ($2.50, 30 pages), however, is sleight-of-hand … and talent.

“Skeleton”, the story of a man at war with his own calcium, is disjointed. “Uncle Einer”, a fantasy in flight, is wooden. Both are mundane. Virtually nothing of Bradbury remains in these poorly written, artistically mismatched mutilations.

That’s no virtue at all.

“Home to Stay”, the final piece in this anthology, is magic. Adapted (and plagiarized) by Al Fieldstein and drawn by Wally Wood, it originally appeared in the EC comic book “Weird Fantasy” (1952). It is the whispered horror of falling stars and fallen men, and was the first comic book adaptation of Bradbury’s work.

Up the other magic sleeve is “Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man” ($2.95, 28 pages), the point well illustrated.

A leper colony on Mars. The man that brings New York City to this planet of Death (weakened by art below P. Craig Russel’s usual high standards). The invasion of Earth by … children.

A man tattooed with pictures that move and foretell by an artist from the future.

The virtue of this Bradbury anthology is that his work isn’t reduced to titles and plots. His mixture of familiar and unfamiliar, of human responses to fantastic situations, is everywhere. This is no better illustrated than in the chance meeting of the tattooed man and a Wisconsin youngster that frames each short story.

Bradbury writes: “The colors burned in three dimensions. They were windows looking in upon fiery reality … this wasn’t the work of a cheap carnival tattoo man with three colors and whiskey on his breath. This was the accomplishment of a living genius … vibrant, clear and beautiful”.

Amen and implied for this adaptation as well.

Both titles are published by Topps Comics and are available in comics shops or by mail order.

(3/30 Gratitude)

I admit it - I’m a book addict. I keep buying new books even though I haven’t finished reading the last books I bought. I just love going into book stores, roaming the aisles, looking at all different kinds of books and flipping through pages of a book that catches my attention. If I like the first few pages, I buy the book. It's very difficult for me to walk out of Barnes & Noble with just one book. I have oodles and oodles of books to read. The books ought to keep me busy and keep me out of trouble :)
All I need now is time.