Short Lived Comic Series #34 - The Big Prize (Eternity Comics)

Before I get started with this post, let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room. The author of this 2-issue comic series published back in 1988 got into trouble in 2016 and ended up being sentenced to six years in prison for a horrible crime.  This post is not about the author, and it's not about my thoughts of the crime he committed.  This post is about the two-book comic series that was published by Eternity Comics (a division of Malibu Comics) back in 1988, and how much I enjoyed the story.  I'm not looking to discuss the writer; rather, I'm looking at discussing the work itself, and quite frankly, it was worth the read.

 

The Big Prize (The Timedrifter's Odyssey) was intended to be a six-issue mini-series, the first of several mini-series that would tie together to tell the story of Willis Austerlitz.  Unfortunately, "best laid plans" and all that ... Eternity, for whatever reasons, decided to not move forward with the planned series, and the comic ended after its second issue.  Which is a shame, as the premise was fun, and the set-up in these first two issues definitely provided some wonderful fodder for future stories to come.  It is kind of a mix between Quantum Leap and Back to the Future, and it features some fun characters.  Although the author indicates in that second issue his hope to find a way to bring the series back under another title or a different publisher, sadly, that never happened.  Thus, we are left with only these two issues to tease us with the time-traveling odyssey of Willis Austerlitz.

 

The first issue introduces readers to our main character, a data entry clerk who daydreams about his favorite era - the 1930s.  Unfortunately, that daydreaming causes problems at his job.  He is an insecure, glasses-wearing nerd who has trouble with girls.  Walking home from work one day, his destiny literally falls right on top of him in the form of a plastic credit card with a full color hologram of a grinning man.  Approached by a man desperate for change, Willis stuffs the card in his pocket and rushes home.  He sits down to watch an old film, but falls asleep.  He awakes to discover he missed recording a show, and to make matters worse, he finds that card in his pocket.  And that is where things start getting weird.  While talking to his mother on the phone, the man whose face is on the card suddenly materializes right before his eyes, congratulating him as the "lucky winner!"  Willis learns this is his chance of a lifetime, as this three-dimensional hologram says his "Big Prize" is one 24-hour journey to any point in space and time.  He could actually go back in time to the 1930s and experience his favorite era live and in person!  Only, the trip back is not what he expects.  As soon as he and Glint Sparkle (roving emcee for The Planetary Lottery) reappear in his apartment, albeit in 1934, things go from bad to worse.  A woman is being threatened in the next room, but when Willis goes to her aid, he finds himself at the mercy of men with guns!  Glint disappears, Willis takes off running, and the adventure in time begins!  Matters become even more complicated when, on the last page of this issue, Willis finds out Glint has been killed - and he is now stuck in the past with no way home!

 

The excitement does not let up with the second issue.  Willis is driven by these fanatics up to where the Hollywoodland sign looks down on Los Angeles, where they are preparing to dump Glint's body and silence Willis permanently.  Willis manages to come to his senses and convince the men he is from the FBI, and that he is looking for bigger fish then them.  Once they take off, Willis ponders his predicament - only to have Glint come back to life (after all, he is only a hologram, and as such, he cannot really die).  Willis convinces his benefactor to allow him to stay in 1934 for the full 24 hours before returning to his own time, so he can experience more of life in the '30s.  He hopes to aid a certain damsel in distress, meet an actress who was involved in a huge scandal back then, and unintentionally gets involved with some very mob-like men who have plans for him.  Willis gets more than the experience he was hoping for, and once he has had enough, he heads for the place Glint told him holds the jump point for them to return home - Union Station.  There's only one problem - in 1934, Union Station is still under construction and will not be completed until the next year!  And Glint Sparkle is nowhere to be seen!  "It finally begins to sink in," Willis thinks, "I was going to be here for a long time..."

 

The art for the two issues is provided by Bryon Carson and Mike Roberts, who do a great job of creating a sense of that 1930s film style for the book.  The black and white pages, the shading, the action sequences, the looks of the various characters.  I think I actually prefer the interior art to the full-color covers by Tim Hamilton and Scott Bieser (issue 1 colors) / Brooks Hagan (issue 2 colors).

 

This comic turned about to be a surprising little gem, as I had never heard of it prior to stumbling across both issues at a local toy store that had a few boxes of comics in the back.  It is a shame the story was never allowed to continue, even with another publisher. I, for one, would like to have seen where Willis Austerlitz would have gone from here.  (Plus, loved his excitement at being able to pick up first printings of some now-valuable pulps and magazines when they were first hot-off the presses!)  But, I suppose like Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, he will be forever left without an ending.

 

RATING:  9 time-drifting, 1930s-loving nerds out of 10 for a different kind of time-travel tale with some great art and fun geek-loving antics!

Death is a Tory - a political murder mystery

A good friend gifted me this book some months ago for a very specific reason.  I'm not one to normally pick up a book that is not a part of a series; but if the book has a connection to a series, then I might be apt to do so.  And this book, well, it just so happens that the author also wrote three books in the original Nancy Drew series back in the 1930s.  You might not recognize the name "Keats Patrick," but if I told you that name was nothing more than a pseudonym (just as "Carolyn Keene" is a pseudonym), then you might begin to wonder.  Well, according to my friend (as well as other sources online), "Keats Patrick" is a pen name for Walter Karig, the author of books 8 through 10 of the Nancy Drew series, as well as books 3 and 4 of the Doris Force series and books 2 through 4 of the Perry Pierce series.  My friend also shared with me that the pen name "Keats Patrick" is derived from Karig's two daughters, Keating and Patricia.  So, with these things in mind, I figured I'd sit down and read Walter Karig's political murder mystery and see how it fares.

Death is a Tory is definitely a far cry from Karig's Nancy Drew and Doris Force stories.  Published in 1935 (two years after his Nancy Drew stories were published), the book centers around a double murder in Washington, D.C.  In a nutshell - Tom and Homer are newspapermen in 1930s' D.C.  Homer takes a call at the office intended for Tom from Marshall Rich.  Marsh says that he just killed Cactus and Felix.  It turns out Cactus is his wife, and Felix is her lover.  Marsh says he came home early and found them together, so he killed them and intends to kill himself.  Tom stops him in time, but cannot prevent him from being arrested for the double homicide for which he has confessed.  Tom and Homer (and their wives) are shocked by these events, but not so shocked as Sally Shaftoe, a columnist who has a habit of sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.  Throw into the mix a congressman, A. Gilligan Lightfoot, who knew Cactus when she was just a kid, and you've got all the makings of a crafty little murder mystery.

I have to give Karig credit.  He definitely sets it all up.  The clues are all right there in front of your face, if you just know what to look for.  There's the simple fact that there were two guns at the scene - the one Marsh was holding and the one found down in the creek behind his house.  There's also the fact that Cactus was killed with one shot, while Felix's body had two - the same number of shots that happen to have been fired into the fountain in Marsh's back yard.  Then there's the fact that Marsh is proven to have been at work at the time of the murders, and he was seen by several people on his way home after the murders took place. Which all lead to the question - why in the world would this man confess to a crime there is no way in the world he could have committed?

While Sally seems to be the amateur sleuth in the story (I guess poor Karig just couldn't get away from writing those female detectives!), Tom and Mildred, along with Homer and Prentice, spend a good portion of the book going over the facts, proposing different scenarios, and discussing plenty of "what ifs."  As much as they try to stay out of it ... as much as they keep saying they don't want any part of it and want their lives to go back to normal ... they just can't seem to let go, especially once they decide that poor Marsh is innocent.  But, if Marsh is innocent, then that begs the question - who is the real killer?

I'll give you a hint.  Once of these people in the story is not really who they pretend to be!  You might say, "Well, the story is set in Washington, D.C. - is there anyone in that city that ever really tells the truth?"  And you'd be right.  But that's not how this story goes.  Karig writes the narrative as if he himself were a reporter simply telling us (the reader) the story of everything that happened.  He even gets sidetracked a few times and has to reign himself in (which makes for some interesting reading, as it leaves one to wonder if these side trips are Karig actually spilling some of his personal opinions, or just a fancy narrative meant to distract the reader from the clues planted in the story).  But the casual way in which the story is told is actually part of what draws the reader in - you don't feel like you are reading a formal mystery; rather, you feel like you're listening to a friend tell you what's happened.

Oh, and did I mention Mildred's sister, Katherine O'Day (better known simply as "Ka") plays a big part of the story?  And that she, Sally, and the congressman find themselves entangled in a love triangle (whether they want to admit it or not)?  Plus, there are the anonymous letters sent to Marsh while he is in prison, with Bible verses written on them ... and the poisoned candies sent to Sally ... and the dead dog ... and the sheriff who seems to be able to memorize anything he reads.  

I honestly thought I had it all figured out, but Karig threw in a rather interesting twist there near the end - and an even BIGGER twist in those final pages!  I was quite impressed, because it takes a lot these days for  murder mystery to surprise me as much as this one did.  Of course, once the killer is revealed, it all made perfect sense - which just goes to show that Karig had the writing skills to tell a marvelously engaging adult mystery.  This book may never have been one I would have picked up and read on my own, but I definitely thank Geoffrey for gifting it to me, as it is now a treasure on my bookshelf in the library!

RATING:  9 wadded up envelopes in the trash out of 10 for a murder mystery truly unlike any other I've read - one that manages to keep you guessing literally up to the very end!