Books

Today, of course, was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Although I don't really have any 3-D pirate-related things to post right now, I do have a seafaring romance between a ferry pilot and a garbage scow hand.

"Scowboat Sadie" was a 3-D parody of the popular "romance" genre of comic books, published in Whack Comics Number 1, October 1953, edited by Norman Maurer and Joe Kubert.

There are two other great stories from this issue online, "The 3-D-Ts" and "Dirty Mouse."

The Man of Steel travels to alternate universes in this new 3-D issue from DC Comics, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, number 1.

Superman has changed since I was a kid. The art, by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy, is some of the best comic book work being done today. The 3-D effects are by Ray Zone. Here are three panels that I scanned. (It's very blue; there's nothing wrong with the scan, this was just a very blue scene in the book.)

The story, by Grant Morrison, is very interesting, I'm sure. When I was a kid, D.C. heroes would fight costumed arch-villains who were robbing Fort Knox or stealing the moon or something. Now, they're always skipping off into trans-dimensional multiverses, battling alternate versions of themselves, while searching their souls for ultimate meaning. So, this is one of those.

I do very much approve of the appearance of Merryman, who forty years ago was the leader of The Inferior Five, one of my favorite comics of all time (besides Groo the Wanderer and Megaton Man). In this series, Merryman has a new role as the King of Limbo, where forgotten superheroes are stored for eternity.

The book, very reasonably priced at $4.50, comes with red/cyan 3-D glasses bound inside, only here they're called "4-D Vision Overvoid Vewers," and they're forged from Superman's own cosmic armor! But you can still cut them out with normal scissors.

In keeping with the whole "alternate versions" theme, this issue has two different covers. I think it's so serious collectors will have to buy at least two copies. (It worked on me.)

This is just as good as the movie! Which is to say, insubstantial and barely adequate. I would reluctantly recommend it as (1) a cheap gift for a child you don't know very well, but you know he liked the movie; or (2) a way to get an okay pair of 3D glasses at a local bookstore in an emergency.

I don't want to be too critical. It's not that the pictures are bad. In fact they are very good scenes, and the 3-D effects are well done. It's just that there aren't enough of them. The book only has 20 pages, and too many of those are filled with make-work "activities" such as easy mazes. I didn't buy this volume -- I just read it in the Barnes and Noble -- and I do not recall exactly how many 3D images are actually inside, but a dozen wouldn't be far off. Twelve pictures for six dollars is just not a competitive deal in the Internet Age, when you can look at much better stuff for free.

It does come with 3-D glasses bound inside, so it might come in handy if you need a pair right away, and cannot wait for mail delivery. The glasses will work well with any regular red/cyan anaglyph images, but I have two warnings: (1) these are the "hand-held" kind, with no stems, so you have to hold them to your face; and (2) make sure they are really in the book! The bookstore I visited had three copies, and the glasses had been removed from all three. They hadn't been stolen, just torn out by curious book-shoppers and then put back on the shelf.