One of the comic book industry’s surprise hits this year has been the mini-series Chew from Image Comics. The series, written by John Layman and illustrated by Rob Guillory is set in a near-future world ravaged by the avian flu to such an extent that chicken is now outlawed.  Chew is the story of a federal agent named Tony Chu who is blessed (cursed?) with the ability to divine psychic impressions from anything he eats.  Yes, ANYTHING he eats.  Chew has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR), and the first issue has gone to press at least four times, and has sold out on each occasion.

John Layman enoyed a previous career as an editor for DC Comics’ Wildstorm imprint, but he established his name as a comic book writer with offbeat, humorous, high concept creator-owned work, like Puffed (a man’s nightmarish odyssey after finding himself stuck in the costume of a corporate mascot) and offbeat, humorous licensed material, like Tek Jansen (Steven Colbert…in SPAAAAACE!) and Army of Darkness/Xena:Why Not? (Um, no further explanation needed).  Chew is just the latest of Layman’s inventive creator-owned books, but one of his earliest efforts was a Blaxploitation-themed series called Bay City Jive.

Bay City Jive was a three-issue mini-series published by Wildstorm in 2001.  The series is set in San Francisco in 1976.  The protagonist, Sugah Rollins, is a “playboy, raconteur, daredevil adventurer…and lover,” which could easily describe Fred Williamson’s character Jefferson Bolt, from the 1973 film, That Man Bolt.  With his looks, outsized personality, and trouble-shooting background, Sugah Rollins is your standard Blaxploitation hero, albeit one with access to Batman’s “sci-fi closet.”  Early on, Sugah’s dialogue gives tantalizing glimpses into his previous, undocumented adventures.  “Why, just last week I single-handedly fought off an invasion of outer space aliens,” Sugah offers on page one of the series.  Hoping to seal the deal for a threesome with two buxom ladies, Sugah brags, “Got a big pay-day last year when I rescued the President.  Terrorists with a time machine kidnappd him and sent him back to the era of the dinosaurs.” 

Layman teases the reader with offhand comments of Sugah’s prior genre-busting exploits, but the plot of the mini-series, entitled “The Demon-Gate Freak Out!” is equally wild.  The story revolves around a cult of hippies tampering with demonic forces beyond their comprehension; a collection of four ancient Chinese jade statues, known, among other names as “The Ugly Ladies of Huang-Ti;” a busty martial artist in a leather bustier; and the quest of  “Chinatown corporate fatcat” named Victor Fang to control, or destroy, them all.

Despite Sugah’s obvious Blaxploitation influence, Bay City Jive’s locale and focus on Chinese mysticism, owes more to John Carpenter’s 1986 film Big Trouble in Little China than it does to Gordon Parks’ Shaft.  Rollins is an egotistical braggart, who’s handy in a fight, so he could easily be a spiritual successor of Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton.  Like its cinematic cousin, Bay City Jive even ends with a scene of a demon sneaking out of the city on the highway, leaving the open possibility of a sequel. 

Downplaying some of the traditional Blaxploitation themes in favor of Sugah’s mystical quest is a double-edged sword and is one of the few drawbacks to Bay City Jive.  On the one hand, it is refreshing to see a Black action hero tackling something besides inner city crime and drugs.  On the other hand, there is little about the story to justify its setting in the 1970s, as there’s nothing particularly unique about the occultists that would require them to be hippies, especially since the hippie movement was definitely on the decline by the late 1970s.  However, these are minor points that don’t detract from an otherwise fun, rolicking story.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the art for Bay City Jive.  The first issue of the series featured a variant cover by J. Scott Campbell (Shown above.  If you know who has the original art for this, tell them to e-mail me).  I’ve always been a fan of Campbell’s dynamic, exaggerated naturalism, so at first, I was a little disappointed to find that he did not contribute any interiors to Bay City Jive.  However, the work  of the series’ interior artist, Jason Johnson, has a quirky, expressive, cartoony charm reminiscent of Joe Staton (E-Man, Guy Gardner).  Johnson’s Sugah Rollins is a huge mountain of a man with hams for fists, while his women are willowy, pillowy, and curvy in all the right places.  He also does a solid job of creating unique body types and character designs. 

If you enjoy Chew, Big Trouble In Little China, or even the 1974 Blaxploitation flick Bamboo Gods and Iron Men, which also features a two-fisted Black brawler (James Inglehart) scrapping with Chinese hoods over a statuette, I would recommend Bay City Jive.  It’s a strong early effort from one of comics’ funniest, and most unique, voices.  You can still snag copies for a pretty good price on eBay.

Sorry for the quality of the scan. It looked much better on my monitor.

- JEP

P.S.  Be sure to complete your entry for WORLDOFHURTONLINE’s HARD-ASS TRIVIA CONTEST.  The deadline is Monday, September 28, 2009 for a chance to win a free “FIGHT SMACK IN THE ORPHANAGE” t-shirt from the new Blaxploitation film, Black Dynamite, which opens in theaters nationwide on October 16th!  How “hard-ass” is it?  It managed to stump the director AND one of the producers!  I’m not namin’ any names, though…yet.

Appropriately, here’s your Blaxploitation theme of the day: The Four Tops’ “Are You Man Enough” from Shaft In Africa.

Long-time readers of  WORLD OF HURT know that I’m a tremendous fan of Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s explosive homage to Blaxploitation, Afrodisiac, and I’m always on the lookout for new Afrodisiac material.  Well, with all apologies to Jim Brown, on December 23rd, “The Baddest Cat That Ever Walked The Earth” is coming to a comic shop near you in a graphic novel featuring the collected adventures of Afrodisiac.  If you don’t know who Afrodisiac is, then I suggest you start here to find out.

Ever since I learned that Adhouse Books was publishing an Afrodisiac collection, I’d been itching to get my hands on a copy.  Jim Rugg was kind enough to let me review an advance PDF copy of the book, and I wasn’t disappointed with what I found.  Afrodisiac just gets badder and badder with each adventure!  He not only defies gods, but the Devil and God himself…and wins.

The book collects Afrodisiac’s previously published appearances, such as the 6-page story “Shock-A-Con,” which was first seen in Adhouse’s Project: Superior, in one handy volume.  It also includes, for the first time in color, the story “Punch Card Preach,” which was previously printed as a limited edition, black & white ashcan that Jim Rugg quickly sold out of during the 2007 convention season.  The colors in “Punch Card Preach” are bright, bold, flat colors that pop off the page.  Besides these stories, Rugg and Maruca also provides a wealth of new Afrodisiac material.  

In short, I love the new material as much as the previously published stories.   In “It’s Not The Size of The God In The Fight,” Afrodisiac has to bring a  typically boisterous and cocky Hercules down to size.  “Sting, Stang, Stud” pits Afrodisiac against federal law enforcement officials who want to bring down Wilkesborough’s Number One Pimp.  They are reluctantly joined by local cops who know how foolhardy it is to underestimate Afrodisiac’s cunning, and particularly his appeal with the ladies.  Watch out for a sight gag featuring Afrodisiac pimp some Dan DeCarlo-esque girls from Riverdale in “Night Of The Monster Cock-roach.”  The joke is made funnier by the fact that the very next panel is a prosaic shot of Death-mackin’, Devil-fightin’, lady-charmin’ Afrodisiac going over his accounting ledgers wearing a pair of granny glasses.  In “Night Of The Monster Cock-roach”  rushes to save one of his hookers, 72, from the clutches of a giant insect rampaging through the streets of Afrodisiac’s hometown of Wilkesborough.  Rugg does a magnificent job of capturing the feeling of a monster movie with “Cock-roach,” particularly in sequence where Afrodisiac slowly and steadily pushes his car against the human tide fleeing from the creature.  Also, I might add that not only is Afrodisiac nice with his hands, but his “car-fu” technique is unstoppable.  I have to admit that the manner in which Afrodisiac extricates himself  and 72 from their plight is a bit of a groaner, and the only off-note in the series, but Rugg and Maruca save the story from an overly cute, saccharine ending by having the ever-pragmatic pimp immediately put 72 back on the street to pay for her rescue.

As fun as “Night of The Monster Cock-roach” is, Rugg and Maruca save their most impressive storytelling for the short tale, “Death Comes For Afrodisiac.”  The title alone is brilliant, because the entire story (and I mean the ENTIRE story) is conveyed in those four simple words.  And what a story it is!  Rugg and Maruca cleverly play with elements of time, page design and layout to shatter the fourth wall, and deliver a satisfying story with a whopper of a conclusion, that reminded me of the stunning conclusion to Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers Of Victory mini-series where the “spear” thrown at the Dawn Of History lands at just the right time and place millennia later to defeat a feared enemy.   Speaking of Morrison, the coda to “Death Comes For Afrodisiac” features one of those those marvelous Kirby-esque/Grant Morrisonian throwaway ideas that suggests a world of possibilities and an infinite number of stories which just beg to be written. The non-story extras in this compilation have a similar quality.  Rugg’s mock covers and illustrations pull in the reader by suggesting a lot of world-building that occurs along the margins.  They spark the reader’s interest, while still letting their imagination do much of the heavy lifting to fill in the gaps.  For instance, I’ve now got it in my head that I NEED to see a) the full story of Afrodisiac vs. the Jim Kelly-esque Dragonfly story, and b) a real live Afrodisiac Saturday morning cartoon.

Finally, be on the lookout for the return of a familiar epithet used by Marvel Comics’ resident Hero For Hire.  Coming from Afrodisiac’s lips, the much-maligned phrase somehow becomes cool.  If you’re a fan of Blaxploitation, you definitely can’t go wrong with the collected Afrodisiac.  Anyone who finds this book under their tree this year will definitely be in for a “Sweet Christmas!”

- JEP

(NOTE: Jim Rugg recently released another non-Blaxploitation graphic novel,  One Model Nation, which was reviewed by my Blog@Newsarama colleague, J. Caleb Mozzocco for this week’s edition of Las Vegas Weekly.  Caleb also runs a great daily comic-related blog of his own, and it’s a daily online destination for me.)