Wolf Hall: The Mini-Series

As you may or may not know, I'm a fan of historical fiction and among the best works in that genre that I've read recently are Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Out the Bodies, the first two books in a planned trilogy, written by Hilary Mantel. So, when I heard that BBC was making a mini-series based on these books, I was, of course, eager to check it out. I was not disappointed with the result.

For those of you not familiar with Mantel's novels, Wolf Hall is the story of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, who ran away from home at an early age to escape his abusive father and eventually ended up becoming the right-hand man of the infamous Henry VIII. In her books, Mantel draws a nuanced and human portrait of a man who has often been depicted as a pure villain (see Robert Bolt's excellent play A Man For All Seasons for an example of this). In the mini-series is portrayed by Mark Rylance, who does an excellent job. Rylance's Cromwell is a subtle man who never allows his true feelings to be known and who always measures his words before speaking. That is, until he has his enemies where he wants them, at which point, he strikes without mercy.

Rylance is backed up by a strong supporting cast. Damian Lewis plays Henry VIII in what must be one of the best performances of his that I've seen. Lewis' Henry is a terrifying portrait of a capricious and unpredictable individual whose power has clearly gone to his head and Anton Lesser does an excellent job as a very negative depiction of Thomas More. At one point, More utters his famous "I say none harm, I do none harm" - line, which prompt a furious Cromwell to throw the words back in More's face: Cromwell mentions some of the men who More had tortured and burned for being heretics and then asks him how he can claim to do "none harm".

Since she's such an important character, I should also mention Anne Boleyn, played by Claire Foy. Honestly, Anne was my least favorite character, both in the books and the mini-series. This version of her comes across as petty and arrogant, to the point where I found myself wondering what Henry could see in her. That said, she does become more sympathetic in the last two episodes, as her imminent end comes closer and closer.

Wolf Hall is not a series for the impatient viewer, much like its protagonist it takes its time to achieve its goals. Despite the somewhat slow pace, I was never bored watching the show. My only quibble with it is a certain scene: At one point, Cromwell witnesses a play in which his late patron, cardinal Wolsey is carried off to hell by demons. Cromwell silently swears vengeance against the people involved in the play. The scene itself is fine, its the way the show keeps returning to it that I have issues with. Showing the scene once or twice to make sure that the viewer remembers why Cromwell is persecuting these men is fine, but after awhile I found it repetitive. I get it, move on.

As I said though, this is a fairly minor complaint. As a whole, Wolf Hall is an excellent adaptation of Mantel's novels and something that I recommend to anyone who wants to watch a well-made historical mini-series in the vein of I, Claudius and the like.

Cobra

I'd like to begin this post with a bit of personal history: Back in the late 80's/early 90's, the Swedish comic-book company Epix published two anthology magazines with Japanese comics. The first one was called Samuraj (sic) and featured the classic Lone Wolf and Cub, as well as The Dagger of Kamui. The second one was called Cobra and featured, aside from Pineapple Army and Crying Freeman, the manga which gave its name to magazine: Cobra or, if you prefer, Space Adventure Cobra by Buichi Terasawa. Now, I didn't read either of these magazines when they first came out, being too young at the time, it was not until some years later that I would encounter them. Let us jump forward in time to the late 90's-early 00's; during this period I was an avid fan of manga and anime and eagerly gobbled up any of it I could find, regardless of quality. At the time, a friend of the family owned a few old issues of Samuraj which he allowed me to read when we visited. It didn't take long for me to want more Samuraj and so, I began to search the second-hand stores and flea-markets for whatever issue I could find. It was during one of these hunts, that I happened upon a few issues of Cobra. I bought them and took them home to read, the titular manga was a lot of fun; it had action, an impossibly cool male lead and beautiful women in skimpy clothing. In short, my adolescent self found it as enjoyable as you might expect. However, despite this, the adventures of Cobra must have failed to capture me as much as those of Itto Ogami, for while Lone Wolf and Cub has remained one of my favorite comics over the years, as I grew older, I put Cobra out of my mind and didn't think about it for many years.

Flash-forward to more recent times. One day, while browsing the Internet, I stumbled upon an anime blog called Mecha-Guignol. The owner of the blog, a certain Landon had made a list of his top 50 anime and since I've always had a soft spot for lists, I decided to check it out. Anyway, to cut to the chase, at the top of Landon's list, ahead of such masterpieces as Cowboy Bebop and Revolutionary Girl Utena is none other than Space Adventure Cobra. When I first saw the list, I must admit that this choice surprised me somewhat. Sure, I remembered enjoying what little I had read of the manga, many years ago, but I wouldn't classify it as a master-piece or anything. That said, having not seen the anime, I thought I'd give it a watch. At the time I've been writing this, I've watched both a fair bit of the original series as well as all episodes of the more recent Cobra the Animation. There's not much different between the two regarding story and characterizations, so what I've written in this post, applies to both of them.

The first thing that strikes one in either Cobra anime is the sheer creativity on display. Both Space Adventure Cobra and Cobra the Animation are filled with interesting and unique alien creatures and locations. The first real story-arc of the original anime, the one that focuses on the search for Captain Nelson's treasure, is also a really good piece of pulp-fiction, with lots of exciting stuff happening. Space Adventure Cobra is also directed by Osamu Dezaki, so it has that going for it as well.

Now, let's have a look at the characters. First of, we have Cobra himself, who is your typical wise-cracking action-hero. These days, I'm not really a fan of that type of character.That said, Cobra pulls it off quite well, the guy's pretty charismatic and fun to watch. Then there's Lady, she's Cobra's sidekick, who is never seen outside her robot-armor and really that's all I can say about her. Yeah, as you have no doubt guessed, the characterization in Cobra is pretty shallow. Look, I'm not expecting Shakespeare from 80's pulp-space opera, but I can't help but think that some hints of depth would have been nice.

The villains are all the same; they are bad guys who do bad things and that's it. For example, take the franchise's most iconic villain, Crystal Boy. He has a really cool design (the guy really knows how to rock that hooded cloak look) and his indestructible body makes him a perfect foil for Cobra's psycho-laser. He's also quite sinister and menacing, but again that's all there is to him. He fulfills the basic requirements necessary for a villain in this type of story and that's pretty much it.

Finally, we have the women of the series and shockingly enough, I don't have much to say about them either. Pretty much all the women Cobra encounters are gorgeous and dressed in extremely little clothing and of course, unless they turn out to be evil, there's a high chance that they will eventually fall for our manly hero's charms. 

Despite this, I found myself enjoying both of the Cobra anime that I've watched. The characterization is paper-thin, but the varied and interesting world the stories take place in does a lot to make up for that. I wouldn't put either show among my absolute favorites, but they're quite fun.

Bacchus vol. 1 & 2

Ever since I got my Ipad mini, I've started to buy a lot of my reading material in digital format. Of course, I still enjoy physical copies of books, but there's no denying that the digital format has its advantages. For example; it takes up a lot less space when you travel, for one thing. Which brings us to the subject of this post, Top Shelf Productions recently published the entirety of Eddie Campbell's comic Bacchus in five digital volumes. Bacchus is one of those comics that I had heard about for years, but for some reason I had never gotten around to read it, until now that is. So, pour yourself a glass of wine and let's dig into the first two volumes (which collects volume 1-4 of the comic's original run) of Eddie Campbell's Bacchus.

I guess I should begin by telling you what its all about. As you have no doubt guessed from its title, Bacchus stars Bacchus a.k.a. Dionysus, the Greek god of revelry and his adventures in the present day era(present in this case meaning the 1980's which is when Campbell created the comic). Bacchus himself is one of the last remaining gods of the Greek pantheon, the majority of it being long since dead. Bacchus himself is far from the handsome youth he once was, the gods may age slower than mere mortals and after 4000 years, time has begun to take its toll on him. When we first meet the aging god, he's in a jail cell having been arrested for being drunk and disorderly. His neighbor in the other cell  comments that he looks a bit too old for that kind of behavior, which leads to the following exchange:

Bacchus: Does four-thousand years sound old enough?
Guy: Four-thousand years? Jesus Christ.
Bacchus: Who?
(Beat)
Bacchus: That was my little joke.




I just love that bit, it does a great job at introducing us to the comic's titular character and what sort of person he is. Anyway, Bacchus is soon released, thanks to one of his few remaining followers, Simpson, paying the bail. From there on out, Campbell introduces the reader to a host of memorable characters. Aside from Bacchus and Simpson, we also get to meet the former's antagonist, Joe Theseus (yes, the guy who killed the Minotaur). Unlike Bacchus, Theseus knows the secret of immortality, which was given to him by his father, Poseidon. Theseus have since spent his time building a financial/criminal empire. There's also the Eyeball Kid, who is perhaps the weirdest character in the entire comic. The grand-son of Argus of the 100 eyes, a few centuries before the comic began, the Eyeball Kid managed to steal the power of Zeus and used it to kill all the gods on Mt. Olympus, except for the few who had moved out, like Bacchus and Hephaestus. Although insane and not all that bright, the Eyeball Kid is nonetheless the most powerful being in the World. Naturally, it doesn't take long for him to become the target of people who wants the power of Zeus for themselves.

Other characters include Chryson, the god of capitalism, who, from what I can tell, serve as the comic's main villain. Hermes, the ancient messenger of the Gods and of course, all the ordinary men and women who inevitably get caught up in the petty conflicts of these ancient gods, heroes and monsters.

Bacchus is the first solo comic of Eddie Campbell's that I've read. Prior to it, the only work of his I was familiar with was From Hell (a.k.a. the best thing Alan Moore's ever written). With Bacchus, Campbell has proven himself in my eyes as being just as talented a storyteller as he is an artist. Tapping into the rich vein that is Greek mythology, Campbell has created a great narrative populated with a colorful and engaging cast of characters. I'm eagerly looking forward to reading the rest of Bacchus (as well as some of the other comics from Campbell's pen) and encourage anyone with an interest in great comics to do the same.
Cheers!