(l-r) Don Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson

Today, I have a special treat in the form of a guest blog by my fiancee, Noelle Phillips.  Besides being an award-winning journalist, Noelle has a deep appreciation for music and a keen ear for new, unique voices in nearly every genre of popular music.  She introduced me to M.I.A. long before “Paper Airplanes” hit it big in the United States and sold me on Cage The Elephant when I was about to dismiss them as just another wimpy, indy rock band.  Also, remind me to tell you about the time we managed to get backstage after a B.B. King performance to snag the blues legend’s autograph and some hors d’oeuvres off his snack tray.  I’ve already decided on who should be the first female recipient of The Unsung Bad Mother****** Award, and I’m trying to get Noelle to write that entry.  In the meantime, enjoy her discussion of the gifted and brilliant Carolina Chocolate Drops.  (She didn’t mention it, but they do a mean cover of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘em Up Style,” too.)

If you think Auto-Tune showcases excellent musicianship….

If you think a series of “uhs” and “yeahs” is display of vocal prowess…

If you think fiddles and banjos and bones belong to old white hillbillies…

Then do not listen to the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

But if you’re interested in the roots of Black music that gave us rock-and-roll, then pay attention to the history lesson the Drops offer listeners.

This trio of Black musicians from North Carolina makes its living playing old-time country and blues. But they bring a youthful exuberance with an understanding and respect toward their roots.

In the words of Justin Robinson, who plays fiddle, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer. We play an older tradition but we are modern musicians.”

Earlier this year, the Carolina Chocolate Drops released its fourth album, “Genuine Negro Jig.” The record is a banjo-picking, fiddle-sawing, bone-tapping, throat-singing salute to the history of Black music. The Drops teach us a thing or two about the rich musical history of Black America, long before Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank, and Master Gee treated audiences to a “Rapper’s Delight” and even before Chuck Berry duck-walked across the stage for the first time.

The Drops are Dom Flemmons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson.

The three met in 1995 at the Black Banjo Gathering in Asheville , N.C. Flemmons, who was living in Arizona at the time, learned about the gathering on a Yahoo! chat site. Giddens and Robinson were from North Carolina .

After Flemmons decided to make North Carolina his home, the three began making weekly trips to Mebane , N.C. to sit on the front porch of Joe Thompson’s home. Thompson, an elderly Black man, learned to play the fiddle as part of a family tradition. He spent his life jamming on the fiddle after long days of field work. The Drops have toured with Thompson, recorded one album with him and play one of his songs – “Cindy Gal” — on “Genuine Negro Jig.”

Flemmons first became fascinated with folk music after watching a PBS documentary on the history of rock and roll. He began listening to other forms of roots music and borrowed a banjo from a friend. The banjo was missing a fifth string so Flemmons taught himself to play with four. Other musicians at the Black Banjo Gathering explained the banjo has five strings and taught him how to properly play it.

Giddens began her musical career as an opera singer in college. But she got into the folk scene after seeing a flyer for an English Country Dance. She was attracted to it because she was a fan of Jane Austen’s books. After learning to call the dance moves, Giddens picked up the fiddle. Her first band was Celtic but she expanded her horizons after hearing about Thompson. Her vocal chops are showcased on the song “Reynadine” on the Jig album.

Robinson started playing violin when he was 8 years old because his parents were classical music fans. Later, he turned his violin into a fiddle after listening to country music. He sought out Thompson, realizing time could be short to learn from a man who already was in his 80s. Thompson chided Robinson for not bringing a banjo player so he started bringing other people, including Flemmons and Giddens. Thus began the Drops apprenticeship under Thompson.

Today, the band travels full-time and this summer they’ll hit up music festivals across the United States . If you’re hear they’re coming to your area, they’ll be worth price of admission.

There’s very little to like about Parker, but in Parker, Richard Stark created a compelling, durable character that has earned a legion of fans and inspired other creators to adapt or pay homage to Parker in their own works, including Jean Luc Goddard, who adapted the Parker novel, The Jugger, into the 1966 film, Made In The U.S.A. and Mel Gibson, who starred in Payback, a 1999 adaptation of The Hunter.  However, the most famous translation of a Parker novel into film was the 1967 John Boorman classic, Point Blank, which starred Lee Marvin as “Walker.”  Point Blank was notable for Boorman’s lean, experimental storytelling and Marvin’s career-best performance.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the film Point Blank, in it’s location, mood and style, was also an inspiration for me when I was deciding on a name for Pastor’s hometown.  I’m a fairly recent convert to the work of Donald Westlake, so I eagerly sought out most of the works I referenced above.  However, there was one additional adaptation that I knew I had to find.  In 1968, MGM released The Split, an adaptation of Richard Stark’s novel, The Seventh.  The film starred a remarkable cast of past and future Oscar winners and nominees, including Diahann Carroll, Julie Harris, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland, James Whitmore, and Gene Hackman.  However, heading up this all-star ensemble in the ”Parker” role was a relatively new actor named Jim Brown.

The Split is about a felon named McClain, played by Jim Brown, who returns to his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles to make one more big score. Jim Brown still busts heads and kicks down doors like he did in his later films like Slaughter and Black Gunn, but the tough guy persona he adopts in The Split is somewhat more understated than what we would see from him in those films.  Brown’s approach toward McClain, the Parker character he portrays in the film, is appropriate for the time (which I will discuss shortly) and the character.  As a thief, it behooves McClain to be as unobtrusive as possible, and as much as a muscular, 6′4″ inch Black man can, Brown does a surprisingly good job of fading into his surroundings to not draw attention to himself or his activities.

When we first see McClain, his car’s just broken down in the desert.  Over the strains of a Quincy Jones score, we see McClain bumming rides and finally arrives by bus outside a cut-rate hotel owned by an old friend/accomplice named Gladys (Julie Harris).  Together, the two brainstorm ideas about McClain’s next score and ultimately decide to hit the box office of the upcoming playoff game between the New York Jets and the Los Angeles Rams.  With no advance ticket sales, and cash only at the gate, they expect to haul away nearly half a million dollars.  McClain buys a ticket to an earlier game and scopes out the security.  After McClain realizes that the plan is doable, it is agreed that Gladys will fund the operation, handle logistics and help assemble the crew.   There is a strong implication that the two might have been lovers in the past, especially when Glady’s demeanor abruptly changes after McClain inquires about the whereabouts of his ex-wife, Ellie, played by Diahann Carroll. I think that the chemistry Brown had with his two female co-stars was better than in any of his other films.  What I enjoyed about his early scenes with Harris was the easy familiarity and tenderness between Harris and Brown, as they drive around, eat Chinese food together and make their plans.  Given the time in which this film was shot, it was especially brave of Harris. Diahann Carroll was every bit the female version of Poitier.  Her diction and bearing exuded confidence and class, but you could easily see how her character could be attracted to a hulking, brooding mysterious guy like McClain.

After McClain and Ellie reunite, we are treated to scenes of McClain testing out the crew he needs for the job.  I don’t know if this modus operandi fits the literary Parker, but it’s fun to see Brown use his strength, cunning, skill, and intelligence to put the prospective criminals through their paces, particularly in a honey trap that he sets for James Whitmore’s Herb, an expert in security systems, which involves alcohol, a curvy prostitute, and a bank vault with a motion-sensitive electronic eye.  The other recruits are Ernest Borgnine as the muscle, Jack Klugman as the driver, and Donald Sutherland as a sniper, doing that cerebral, creepy thing that he excelled at in his youth.  Most of what follows in the film is the set-up for the heist, and its execution, which does not go off flawlessly, but it is successful.  The plan actually has some nice twists and surprises, especially with how McClain deploys Sutherland’s gun-for-hire to clear the way/clog the path for their getaway.

Unfortunately, the wheels come off after McClain stores the loot at Ellie’s apartment until the gang can meet later to split the proceeds.  While McClain is away, Ellie has a shocking run-in with her landlord that pits McClain’s crew of criminals against him to recover the stolen loot.  Eventually, McClain has to find unlikely assistance from the very law enforcement community that is searching for him, in the form of Lt. Det. Walter Brill, played by Gene Hackman.  McClain’s first meeting with Brill in the detective’s own bedroom is a clever bit of directing.  With a nervous, sweating Hackman backed into his closet, yelling out at the mysterious figure of Jim Brown, who is completely swathed in impenetrable shadows, I was reminded of the opening of The Professional, when Jean Reno’s Leon emerges from the darkness to slip a knife at the throat of the drug dealer.  McClain is able to leverage his suspicions about Brill to enlist him as an ally during the a climactic shootout with his former partners in crime.  In the end, in typical Parker fashion, McClain manages to get what’s coming to him -nothing more and nothing less.

The Split is rather hard to find on DVD.  The copy that I managed to find was released by Blax Films, and is about as barebones as you can get.  There are no extras -it doesn’t even feature a scene selection option- and the picture quality isn’t that great.  Nonetheless, if you have the opportunity to snag a copy, I would recommend that you do so.  It is a solid crime caper with a nice revenge story thrown into the mix.  It is also interesting from an art historical point of view.  In some ways, The Split is a proto-Blaxploitation flick that stands somewhere between the stoically proud Sidney Poitier vehicles of the 1960s like In The Heat Of The Night and the brash and boldly defiant Black cinema of the early 1970s.

- JEP

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the music of Blaxploitation is inextricable from the Blaxploitation film experience.  The music defined the film movement as much as any of the fashion, dialogue, or the recurring visual or thematic motifs.

With his soundtrack and score of Ivan Dixon’s 1972 film, Trouble Man, Marvin Gaye delivered what some consider to be his finest album.  Isaac Hayes earned an Oscar for his “Theme From ‘Shaft’” in 1972.  James Brown delivered the imminently funky soundtrack for the Fred Williamson vehicle, Black Caesar, which is still sampled by hip-hop artists today.

When Michal Jai White, Byron Minns, and director Scott Sanders were putting together their new film, Black Dynamite, an homage to Black action films of the 1970s, they enlisted Adrian Younge to write the soundtrack.  Adrian Younge follows in Blaxploitation’s unique, and proud cinematic tradition, of having a single artist  craft the entire soundtrack.  Younge wrote, composed, and performed every song on the album, with the exception of the final track, “Dynomite (Suckapunch Re-edit),” which features the loopy, Tom Jones-esque vocals of Sir Charles Hughes.  Younge receives powerful assists from singers, such as Loren Oden and Toni Scruggs, and is backed up on several cuts by musicians like Jack Waterson on drums, and WORLD OF HURT regular C.E. Garcia on electric bass and electric guitar.  (If you’re lucky, you may be able to find them on tour, performing live as the Black Dynamite Sound Orchestra.)

Much like the visuals and story elements of the film, Adrian Younge’s music for Black Dynamite straddles a line between humor and homage.  The lyrics to a number of the songs provide a humorous, deadpan, point-by-point narrative of the films’ events.  In this regard, the soundtrack reminds me of James Brown’s vocal work for Black Caesar, which often repeated what was occurring onscreen, like the captions in a Silver Age comic book.  At other times, Younge’s lyrics can serve as a surrogate for the audience (Somebody broke into Jimmy’s pad/Are they still here?/Sucka could be anywhere in the song, “Jimmy’s Apartment”) or Black Dynamite’s conscience (I miss the best brother I ever had/Oh, now I’m back/So I’ve got to kill that jack, yeah in “Jimmy’s Dead”).  Basically, the lyrics from any song with the word “Jimmy” in the title are guaranteed to deliver a chuckle or two.  However, when you strip away the lyrics,  as with the instrumental version of “Jimmy’s Dead,” you will find in the soundtrack to Black Dynamite, a  beautiful, soulful body of work with a remarkable fidelity to the era it is intended to evoke.

Reading the liner notes, you discover that Younge’s attention to detail extended far beyond the songs themselves, but to how those songs were created and recorded.  He used analog recording techniques, not digital, and to the extent possible, every piece of equipment used to record the album  was created prior to 1979.  The very fact that Younge includes liner notes beyond lyrics and a laundry list of thank-yous is another welcome throwback to the days of vinyl.

Black Dynamite co-writer, Byron Minns,  also stars in the film as Black Dynamite’s confidante, “Bullhorn.” His voice is the first thing you hear, and he sets the tone for the rest of the album by hollering out to the listener: I wanna tell you a STOO-ry/’ Bout a friend I had/He’s a mean muthafucka/And he’s SUPERBAD. He delivers the line and the rest of a short verse about Black Dynamite in an uncanny Rudy Ray “Dolemite” Moore impression which segues seamlessly into the husky, soulful vocals of LaVan Davis, who contributes vocals on several other tracks as well. One of my favorite moments is when Davis climbs a register to deliver the line after, “Better watch them politicians/Trying to shrink y’all n***** dicks,” in a soaring falsetto.  It’s funny, but it’s a natural vocal flourish that fits perfectly into the song.  It also encapsulates the focus on humor, craft, and attention to detail that is a hallmark of every aspect of Black Dynamite.

Another aspect of the Black Dynamite soundtrack that I appreciate is that it’s not some crass commercial effort by some huge media conglomerate to load a soundtrack with their hot artists or justify the A&R costs of the new talent they’re developing under the heading “Songs From And Inspired By The Major Motion Picture [FILL IN THE BLANK].  What the hell is “inspired by?”  Inspired by the desire for royalty checks?  Inspired by a need to stay relevant before they kick you off the label?  Most of the songs you find on today’s soundtracks aren’t even in the actual movie, unless you stay until the very end of they final credits or if you electronically filter out the background noise during some crowd scene, you MIGHT be able to hear a snippet from some Macy Gray tune.

The Black Dynamite soundtrack is available through Wax Poetic Records, and it’s not the sort of album you want to pop into your iPod while you’re running around doing errands.  In the tradition of the soul albums that inspired it, it’s the kind of album that you want to put on your stereo and LISTEN to while you flip through the well-illustrated liner notes.  The layered live instrumentation, with everything from Younge’s breathy, jazzy flutes to the mournful hum of the Hammond organ, bear repeated listenings and deserve your full attention.   The highest praise I can offer for what Younge created is to sayI played it back to back with a best of Willie Hutch CD, and the transition from Hutch, who gave us the soundtrack to The Mack, to Younge, was flawless.  It felt like I had dropped the needle on the second half of a double album featuring the best of ’70s soul.

To find out more, check out the Wax Poetics site, and for nice insight into the history of the album and Younge’s process, you might want to check out this mini-documentary about the Black Dynamite score.  Like the album itself, it is well done, with great attention to detail, and I highly recommend it.

- JEP

Clocking in at nearly 200 pages, Rachel Rage Vol. 1: Heartland is Blaxploitation-themed graphic novel from the mind and pen of John Aston.  Rachel Rage debuted as a webcomic by John Aston, the self-described head honcho over at OldeTowneComix.com, at which he posts Rachel Rage.  I had the pleasure of meeting John in 2009 at HeroesCon, and he’s a genuinely nice guy, but thankfully, John and I have staked out two separate areas within the Black action genre, otherwise there might very well be blood in the streets as we fight over Blaxploitation webcomic supremacy.  Whereas WORLD OF HURT follows a male hero in the tradition of the characters portrayed by Richard Roundtree, Fred Williamson, and Jim Brown, Rachel Rage works the other side of the Blaxploitation street and centers around a bad-ass, take-no-prisoners female protagonist cut from the same mold as Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown or Tamara Dobson’s Cleopatra Jones.

Set in the American South during the 1970s, Rachel Rage is a violent, blood-soaked, seedy tale of a young Black woman’s quest to avenge the death of her adoptive father at the hands of the corrupt, local sheriff, James Stewart.  Rachel Rage begins in medias res, with Rachel launching a one-woman assault on the sheriff’s drug supply chain.  Although she racks up a decent body count, Rachel’s initial attack against the sheriff quickly falls apart, and she is captured by Sheriff Stewart’s deputies.  While in his custody, Rachel is psychologically abused by the twisted sheriff, who has a habit of referring to our heroine by the sarcasm-laden, tender endearments like “sweet potato pie”  and “sugar dumpling.”  Coming from his perpetually sneering mouth, the phrases are delivered like wicked, cutting bromides against his captive. 

Despite the body count Rachel has left behind even before the story begins, and the damage she’s done to Sheriff Stewart’s drug running network, the lawless lawman has no intention of physically harming her…yet.  For reasons that I can’t go into without giving away the plot, Stewart merely wants to break Rachel’s spirit and bring her into his organization.  Recognizing that her first plan is now in tatters and  finding herself alternately bound, gagged, and/or hooded and at the mercy of the sheriff, Rachel agrees to go along with the Stewart’s scheme, but she will not be denied her revenge.

Aston creates a complex tale of intrigue, deceit and betrayal with Rachel Rage.  The language in Rachel Rage is absolutely brutal, and Aston does a strong job of capturing a sort of Tarantino-esque cadence for the characters.  (Physically, Sheriff Stewart strongly resembles the late David Carradine, so I found myself reading all his dialogue as the master assassin wrangler, Bill, of Tarantino’s two-part cinematic epic, Kill Bill.)  Aston emphasizes the film parallels by setting the action within panels bordered by a set of weathered curtains, to mirror the effect of sitting in a sticky-floored,  popcorn-strewn theater.  The panels have the muted, but lurid, coloring of an aging film stock, complete with scratches on the film.  However, despite his reverence for the cinematic experience, Aston also recognizes the possibilities inherent in the comic medium.   Aston works large and his big panels are chock-full of interesting details.  Aston’s technique of moving his virtual “camera” around various parts of the same panel to create mood and ratchet up the tension is one of the most effective uses of aspect-to-aspect panel transition that I’ve ever seen.   It establishes mood by lingering on a detail and effectively ratchets up the tension, as when the bound Rachel is slowly revealed to the reader over the course of several panels.  Also, I have to applaud Aston for the way he draws Rachel herself.  Rachel’s not a wasp-waisted waif.  She’s a wide-hipped, big-legged, Afro-puff-wearin’ daughter of the South.   Beneath her round, cherubic face, Rachel Rage is all butt, boobs and curves.  To use today’s vernacular, she’s thick, and ain’t a damn thing wrong with that.

Rachel Rage is filled with some of the seediest, most cruel characters this side of Eduardo Risso’s and Brian Azzarrello’s Vertigo series, 100 Bullets.  Finishing the book is the literary equivalent of staying in a strip club until the lights come on.  You had a good time while you were there, but in the harsh, unrelenting light, you suddenly realize that you don’t want to spend any more time with these people than you have to. ..but if your buddies gave you a call, you’d go back in a heartbeat.

Speaking of which, I might be that buddy who’s inviting you back to the club.  Word has it that John’s planning to release a new, shorter volume of Rachel Rage stories this year, so make sure you stop by the Olde Towne for a visit.

- JEP

Long before WORLD OF HURT came along, David Walker was keeping the Blaxploitation flame alive with his Blaxploitation-centric magazine BadAzz Mofo.  David is a tremendously talented writer with a wicked sense of humor.  Although BadAzz Mofo is no longer being published, he now runs a website of the same name, which features reviews of new films, movies and DVD releases, and occasionally, he will post some of the content that was originally published in the magazine.  The often-hilarious Blaxploitation film reviews alone are enough to make Walker’s site a regular online destination.

I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with David and his wonderfully sweet mother, Bonnie, and I’ve come to realize that David is apparently one of those restless creative souls, because in 2007, he also funded, wrote and directed the self-described “mini-epic” Black Santa’s Revenge.  The film stars Ken (The Devil’s Rejects) Foree as the titular hero who embarks on a bloody path of vengeance against a gang of crooks to recover a cache of stolen toys that were intended for impoverished kids.  Clocking in at about twenty minutes,the movie delivers exactly what you’d expect from a film called Black Santa’s Revenge, and a lot more.  Although little backstory is given for Ken Foree’s Black Santa, the veteran actor invests his character with a haunted quality.  Foree’s large physical presence and the thundering bass of his voice make him seem like a viable threat for any gang of crooks, but his sad, tired eyes suggest that there’s a lot more at stake than principle or a bunch of action figures and stuffed animals.  Black Santa is a guy who will go through Hell and back, and dish out a lot of pain,  to make sure that children don’t have to do without for the holidays.  Walker, who directed the film, obviously didn’t have a big budget, but he gets a lot of literal, and figurative, bang for his buck.  The action is well-staged, and Walker makes strong use of his night-time locations, from the seedy strip club where Black Santa spends his down time to the industrial hideout of the crooks.

In the interest of full disclosure, David contacted me earlier this year to collaborate on turning Black Santa’s Revenge into a longer feature.  Although external circumstances beyond the control of David or myself prevented that from becoming a reality at this time, in a way I’m glad, because the request posed such a difficult challenge.  The original featurette did a strong job of establishing everything you needed to know about Black Santa’s world, in such an effective and economical way, that I feared my meddling might undercut what Walker had done so well in this version.  David’s offering a digital download on BadAzzMofo.com, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the short trailer of Black Santa’s Revenge, above.

Have a safe, wonderful, and blessed Christmas, everyone!

- JEP

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.)

- JEP

Last week, friend of WORLD OF HURT, raconteur, entrepreneur, podcaster, talent wrangler, noted satirist, and fellow Blaxploitation fan, Chris Sims ran a series entitled “Dracula Week” on his hilarious and always informative blog, The Invincible Super-Blog (The “The” is mandatory).   I was traveling late last week, so I missed his review of the Blaxploitation film, Scream, Blacula, Scream.  I’m passing this along to you, so you don’t make the same mistake.  Enjoy!

- JEP

Recently, I discovered Obama Action Comics!, a webcomic by Jason Buckley.  Buckley describes it as a “blaxploitation webcomic featuring an Obama action figure.”  Now anybody who knows me knows that I’m a bleeding heart liberal and two of my biggest passions are comic books and politics.  If you check my Facebook status from today, you’ll find me waxing on about creating a Thundarr, the Barbarian comic, and admonishing Sen. Harry Reid to pull the seniority and chairmanships of any Democrat that would support a Republican filibuster of the healthcare reform bill.  Now, it would seem that this would be the perfect webcomic for me, especially since Buckley is a fellow progressive.  Sadly, as promising as the idea is, the execution leaves a little to be desired.

Now this may seem like a bit of territorial pissing, since I have “The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic,” a tongue-in-cheek title I bestowed on WORLD OF HURTwhen I believed there were no other Blaxploitation-themed webcomics on the internet.  Since then, I have discovered John Aston’s gritty and innovative Rachel Rage, and Maurice Fontenot’s humorous Ghost Pimp.  I have corresponded with and befriended both creators and have actively supported and promoted their work.  Obama Action Comics’ creator, Jason Buckley also seems like a guy with whom I’d have a great time.  We seem to share the same liberal philosopy.  I even support Buckley’s outrage over President Obama’s frustratingly glacial progress, or outright reversal, on some of his campain promises, but in terms of “Blaxploitation” and “webcomics,”…Dude, you’re doing it wrong.

There’s nothing inherently “Blaxploitation,” or humorous, about a Black man cussing or threatening violence.  The best kind of celebrity satire plays off or, or exaggerates,  the audience’s established perceptions of that person, and Jason Buckley’s depiction of Barack Obama as a violent, angry Black man is merely a caricature of a stereotype.  This Barack Obama is every Samuel L. Jackson and Dave Chappelle soundbite wrapped up in a presidential seal.  Buckley himself states,  ”I doubt [Barack Obama] goes around pistol whipping right wing talk radio douchebags, let alone referring to them as douchebags. Even in private, he probably has a very clean mouth.”

The image of the first Black President of the United States threatening to “choke a bitch,” even presented satirically from a fellow progressive, just feeds into the paranoid fantasies from the conservatives about how threatening Black men are.  It is only because these fantasies are so powerful, insidious, and deeply rooted in the fabric of the American subconscious, that people could even entertain the notion that Barack Obama would want to kill their grandmothers via health insurance “death panels.”  The humor is occasionally short-circuited by Buckley’s use of conservative frames to portray his subjects, such as the impression of Vice-President Joe Biden as a man who must be muzzled.

In terms of the webcomic goes, it’s a fumetti.  Buckley admits that he is using borrowed images, which he reuses liberally (no pun intended) throughout the course of the strip.  That makes it basically the photographic equivalent of a sprite comic, which are generally held in lesser regard in the webcomics community, because a) you’re merely re-contextualizing images that someone else took the time to create, and b) the relatively low level of skill required to do so.

I honestly believe Jason Buckley has a solid premise here, and I cannot find any fault with his passion for his work or subject matter.  A serial editorial webcomic that speaks painful truth to power about a president you want to believe in would be a fresh and welcome voice in the webcomic community.  However, Obama Action Comics! seems a little obvious and facile in its humor, and when you have to read the author’s blog notes to divine whether his intent was to support or vilify his subject, it is questionable whether the jokes are hitting their target.

- JEP

Similar entries: “Barack-sploitation“

Today, I was wondering what I would do for my Friday blog.  I actually had a piece on Luke Cage in the pipeline that I needed to finish, but my heart really wasn’t in it tonight.  Thankfully, this week, I received two Blaxploitation movies that I had never seen before: Black Caesar and The Candy-Tangerine Man.  I’d wanted to see both for a long time, but I had to show my respect to Fred Williamson first.  So, while I thought about the gameplan for my Luke Cage article, I popped Black Caesar into the DVD player.  Twenty minutes into it, I thought, “Why don’t I do a liveblog review of the movie?”  I’d never done a liveblog before, but I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

Therefore, I present to you, Black Caesar, the story of a Black shoe-shine boy who works himself up from errand boy for the Italian mafia, to the boss of the New York rackets, starring Fred Williamson, D’urville Martin, and Gloria Hendry,

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.

00:32  - Caption “September 5,1953″

00:42 – Based on the outfits of the bystanders and the principals, I’m not fully convinced.

02:12 –  The kid playing a young Tommy Gibbs, shoeshine boy, looks a bit too much like Chris Brown for me to root for him wholeheartedly.

03:15  -  Director Larry Cohen is doing a nice job of keeping cars and other anachronistic details off-camera with smart shot selection, but it’s not obvious unless you’re looking for it.

04:51  - Nice creepy lighting in the stairwell.

05:44 –  The cop starts roughing up and then frisks Tommy.  Suddenly, there’s the sound of running water and the cop and the kid pause for a moment and look down.  Was that meant to imply Tommy pissed himself?

05:55  -  The cop on the take, named McKinney, is accusing young Tommy Gibbs of skimming some of his mob pay-off money.  Love the righteous indignation from lil’ Chris Brown here.  ”Look you fuckin’ ass, I didn’t take your money.  You don’t get pissed at me!”

06:21  -  They’re fighting and Tommy is down!  The cop wails on him with his nightstick.  Nice use of the trash can lid as a shield, Tommy, but, man, your ground game sucks.  Who do you think you are?  Kimbo Slice?

07:01  -  Tommy’s laid up in a hospital with a broken leg chatting with Joe, his nerdy friend.  Tommy’s going away to jail for a while after he heals up.  Acting’s a little weak here, but it nicely sets up the friendship.  He tells Joe to get laid while he’s away.

08:10  -  Caption: “October 23, 1965″  Fred Williamson’s now playing the adult Tommy Gibbs.  He limps into a barbershop where some mob goon is getting a shave from a Black barber.

08:32 – There’s never a good time to be a bigot, but you really don’t want to launch into a racist monologue while a Black man has a straight razor at your throat.

09:48  - Tommy’s holding the whole barbershop hostage while he toys with his prey.  Williamson is his usual devilish and devious self, but there’s a nice, subtle air of desperation there too.  This dude is hungry to prove himself.

11:41  -  He’s cutting off the ear!

12:00  - New scene.  There goes the ear into the pasta of the mob boss who called the hit.  ”I thought you could use some more MEAT in your sauce.”

13:47 – Tommy lays down a nice rap on why he’d be a perfect contract hit man for the mob.  ”I got a built in disguise.  They never look at me.  They never look at my face, my nose, my lame foot.  All they know is that I’m Black.”  It reminds me of the film Dirty Pretty Things (2002), with its theme of an ever-present, but still unseen, underclass of immigrant servants.

14:10  - Tommy’s always hustling.

14:33  -  Montage of James Brown’s “The Boss” over a sweet montage of Tommy’s rise to power!  Sing it!  ”I’ve paid the cost to be the boss!”  Just noticed “Chairmen Of The Board” on the marquee behind Tommy in the picture below as he surveys his domain.  Nice touch.  Real nice touch.

15:55  -  Love Williamson’s rueful glance at the neon shoe sign.

16:08  -  D’urville Martin as a phony, corrupt preacher, Reverend Rufus.

17:47  -  Gibbs has got himself a shiny new mob lawyer and he’s laying out his plan to consolidate his power by stealing the McGuffin some mob ledgers.

18:15  -  More James Brown incidental music is always welcome.  In the early 1990s, Das EFX jacked this instrumental for their debut song, ”They Want EFX.”

18:58  - Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Ms. Gloria Hendry.

20:57 – Tommy rubs out the mob accountant, two gangsters and takes the ledgers.  ”You know what this is?  Power.  Political power!”

23:22  - The tension between Gibbs and McKinney, now a police captain, who crippled him as a kid, is really powerful.  Great stuff by Williamson, lulling him into a false sense of security. “I want him nice and fat before I kill him.”

25:59 – Tommy buys the lawyer’s apartment, clothes,  and everything in it, including his maid,  out from under him.  His wife seems haughty, highly medicated, and slightly attracted to Tommy, despite her better judgment.

27:47  - Just snatched the leopard shawl off the shoulders of the lawyer’s wife on their way out the door.  Lady, he said EVERYTHING!  Awesome, sometimes subtle, socio-political subtext throughout!  There are a lot of dog whistles for Black folks.

30:01 – Sweet twist with the maid.

34:46 – Tommy can lay a trap like a spider.  Most of the time, the last thing his victims see is his smile, but a surprising bit of mercy for the old mobster who took a chance on him.  Not much, but some.

39:06 – There goes the competition and one delicious looking turkey.  Tommy and his boys literally turned the pool into a bloodbath.

41:07 –  ”Everybody’s a liberal nowadays, McKinney.  Get with it.”  *Sigh*  How times have changed.

43:55  -  ”No” means “No,” Tommy.  Remember that.

45:10  -  The great Julius Harris as Tommy’s estranged father.  He was a really underestimated character actor.  I didn’t realize how much range he had.  For the first time, Tommy seems rattled.

49:41  -  Gloria Hendry is RIPPED!

52:35  -  D’urville Martin’s been playing a crooked preacher, and you get the feeling that this is the first time he’s had to pray and really mean it.

55:54  -  Re: The lawyer’s wife being attracted to Tommy.  I was right.

56:41 – Uh-oh!  Tommy made Joe promise that he’d get laid, but I don’t think he meant like this.

102:01 – Well I’ll be.  There really is a horse and buggy drive-by shooting in this movie.

102:29 –  Even the baby’s smart enough not to trust McKinney.

104:43 – Great framing with that shot.  Williamson could have used it to get himself cast as James Bond.

105:01 -Gloria Hendry’s way hotter with her natural hair.  She’s got fantastic skin, too.

106:29 – I wish movies today were ballsy enough to embrace nudity.

108:03 – Evocative use of the hand-held camera.

111:58 – That is one shoddy hit.  It’s like they’re hunting deer with a bow.  I guess they’re counting on Tommy bounding off into the brush where they’ll recover the body on they’re own sweet time.

113:34 – Tommy just garrotted (yes, that is a word) one of the would-be assassins with his tie.  Even with a bullet in his gut, Tommy Gibbs is still one bad dude.

115:45 – Love how Tommy incredulous is once he realizes that Rufus has actually turned into a real man of faith.

119:41 – Is she really going to let her husband walk into a trap?

123:40 – Finally the stand-off with McKinney.  Anytime a villain tells the protagonist to kneel,  it never ends well for them.  Just ask Zod.

125:43 – Shoeshine box-fu.

128:16 – Very powerful scene with Tommy painting McKinney in blackface and pistol-whipping him. A lot of raw, genuine emotion from Williamson here.

129:56 – Whereas Curtis Mayfield’s score for Super Fly was compared to a Greek chorus, providing a counterpoint to the action, James Brown’s score for Black Caesar underlines the scene in very blunt terms.

131:44 – The mighty Tommy Gibbs brought low by common teenage street thugs.  Meanwhile, the valued ledgers that everybody lied, fought, and died for are left scattered in the trash, their significance, or ultimately, their insignifance, exposed and ignored by the hoodlums.

CONCLUSION: This was a really good movie.  It was solidly acted throughout, and the director, Larry Cohen, was willing to take some chances that really paid off.  This is truly Fred Williamson at his best, because he was called on to bring sympathy to an often unsympathetic character and he knocked it out the park.  Despite his easy smile, there’s a lot of sadness and hunger for power and respect that drives him. Also, Fred Williamson has charisma to burn.  If you could turn it into an alternative energy source, you could light up Las Vegas for a year.  Black Caesar comes highly recommended.

- JEP