Post by rberman on Aug 3, 2019 14:49:12 GMT -5
The Bozz Chronicles #1 (December 1985)
The Story: In an attic apartment in Victorian England, Mandy Flynn the hooker with a heart of gold rescues an alien from a suicide attempt by hanging.
Six months later, Mandy and the alien, now dubbed “Bozz” or “Boswell” (a human approximation of his buzzing name), are running a thriving detective agency out of a posh apartment. Bozz has mastered the English language but wears clothes only reluctantly, and he’s still despondent much of the time due to being stranded on Earth. Their latest client wants Bozz and Mandy to investigate her (the client's) employer Lord Giles, a politician who has just survived an assassination attempt. Or was he somehow resurrected, and not for the first time?
Just after leaving Mandy’s flat, the client is incinerated by a bolt from the blue. A warning shot— from whom? Mandy and Bozz go undercover as journalists to interview Lord Giles at his country estate. Giles is uncooperative, but a series of chirps from Giles’ pet cockatiel tells Bozz about medical records which could solve the case. But where have they been taken?
After a fact-finding trip to an urban tavern proves unfruitful in producing leads, Bozz constructs a primitive electromagnetic detector which leads the intrepid pair to the warehouse district. A mad scientist, funded by several gentry, has constructed a resurrection machine. Also a stasis field, which hold Bozz in place.
Mandy escapes and makes a new ally: Salem Hawkshaw, an American cowpoke/boxer seeking his fortune in England.
With Salem’s help, Bozz is soon free, and in the ensuing fracas, the villains and their machine are consumed in flames. Happy ending, and our duo is now a trio. But Inspector Fitzroy from Scotland Yard finds the whole thing curious…
My Two Cents: In the mid-80s, Epic Illustrated transitioned from an anthology magazine to an imprint of adult-aimed series in the usual comic book format. One of the first out of the gate was this one. Micheline was riffing on the Steven Spielberg movie “E.T.”
Epic was known for art better than the typical newsstand comic book. In this case, the painted covers are selling a product that doesn’t exist on the inside. Blevins starts off promisingly in the first issue, but he was unable to keep up the pace even on a leisurely publication schedule. His art became progressively less detailed, and John Ridgeway had to pinch-hit on art for issue #4. But the photo-referenced panels look consistently good throughout.
What if an alien was stranded on Earth, but in a historical period when no tech was available to allow him to construct a distress beacon? In other versions of this story (such as the Doctor Who episode “City of Death”), the alien meddles with human affairs to hurry up the development of the necessary tech. But in this version, the answer is that the alien becomes despondent and constantly thinks about or attempts suicide. There’s a powerful metaphor at work here. What does one do when his world ends? It could be divorce, or serious illness, or losing a job, or any other major life transition. Many songs have been written about how the end of a romance feels like the end of the world. Despair is a common response.
So perhaps it’s thematically appropriate that Micheline’s heroine Mandy Flynn is a prostitute, symbolizing a rejection of romance. Salem Hankshaw appears to have been modeled after Logan “Wolverine,” the popular X-Man character who was inescapable in the late 80s and early 90s.
What of the title character? Despondency is a tricky personality trait for a lead character. E.T. was longing but plucky, not despondent, because he had hope of getting home. Perhaps if we had a chance to know Bozz before his marooning, we’d like him more. But as he stands now, compassion for him is difficult since he mainly mopes and makes suicidal gestures and complains of being bored. How nerve-wracking for Amanda to live with him!
She puts up with him partly out of compassion and partly out of necessity, since his special abilities have allowed her to rise out of prostitution into a posh lifestyle. But she has very few ideas on how to cheer him up. Pretty much just “find another interesting case” punctuated by occasional unsuccessful “wouldn’t you like to have sexual intercourse with a human?” gambits.
Speaking of which: Epic Illustrated Magazine was no stranger to the notion that sex sells, and periodic (or sometimes constant) female nudity was one of its staples. This series sports frequent rear nudity from Bozz, but his tail constantly covers his gluteal cleft, as seen above. Two gratuitous panels of Mandy rising nude from bed are included, which is anachronistic due to the latitude of London. Londoners in those days wore piles of bedclothes.
The Story: In an attic apartment in Victorian England, Mandy Flynn the hooker with a heart of gold rescues an alien from a suicide attempt by hanging.
Six months later, Mandy and the alien, now dubbed “Bozz” or “Boswell” (a human approximation of his buzzing name), are running a thriving detective agency out of a posh apartment. Bozz has mastered the English language but wears clothes only reluctantly, and he’s still despondent much of the time due to being stranded on Earth. Their latest client wants Bozz and Mandy to investigate her (the client's) employer Lord Giles, a politician who has just survived an assassination attempt. Or was he somehow resurrected, and not for the first time?
Just after leaving Mandy’s flat, the client is incinerated by a bolt from the blue. A warning shot— from whom? Mandy and Bozz go undercover as journalists to interview Lord Giles at his country estate. Giles is uncooperative, but a series of chirps from Giles’ pet cockatiel tells Bozz about medical records which could solve the case. But where have they been taken?
After a fact-finding trip to an urban tavern proves unfruitful in producing leads, Bozz constructs a primitive electromagnetic detector which leads the intrepid pair to the warehouse district. A mad scientist, funded by several gentry, has constructed a resurrection machine. Also a stasis field, which hold Bozz in place.
Mandy escapes and makes a new ally: Salem Hawkshaw, an American cowpoke/boxer seeking his fortune in England.
With Salem’s help, Bozz is soon free, and in the ensuing fracas, the villains and their machine are consumed in flames. Happy ending, and our duo is now a trio. But Inspector Fitzroy from Scotland Yard finds the whole thing curious…
My Two Cents: In the mid-80s, Epic Illustrated transitioned from an anthology magazine to an imprint of adult-aimed series in the usual comic book format. One of the first out of the gate was this one. Micheline was riffing on the Steven Spielberg movie “E.T.”
Epic was known for art better than the typical newsstand comic book. In this case, the painted covers are selling a product that doesn’t exist on the inside. Blevins starts off promisingly in the first issue, but he was unable to keep up the pace even on a leisurely publication schedule. His art became progressively less detailed, and John Ridgeway had to pinch-hit on art for issue #4. But the photo-referenced panels look consistently good throughout.
What if an alien was stranded on Earth, but in a historical period when no tech was available to allow him to construct a distress beacon? In other versions of this story (such as the Doctor Who episode “City of Death”), the alien meddles with human affairs to hurry up the development of the necessary tech. But in this version, the answer is that the alien becomes despondent and constantly thinks about or attempts suicide. There’s a powerful metaphor at work here. What does one do when his world ends? It could be divorce, or serious illness, or losing a job, or any other major life transition. Many songs have been written about how the end of a romance feels like the end of the world. Despair is a common response.
So perhaps it’s thematically appropriate that Micheline’s heroine Mandy Flynn is a prostitute, symbolizing a rejection of romance. Salem Hankshaw appears to have been modeled after Logan “Wolverine,” the popular X-Man character who was inescapable in the late 80s and early 90s.
What of the title character? Despondency is a tricky personality trait for a lead character. E.T. was longing but plucky, not despondent, because he had hope of getting home. Perhaps if we had a chance to know Bozz before his marooning, we’d like him more. But as he stands now, compassion for him is difficult since he mainly mopes and makes suicidal gestures and complains of being bored. How nerve-wracking for Amanda to live with him!
She puts up with him partly out of compassion and partly out of necessity, since his special abilities have allowed her to rise out of prostitution into a posh lifestyle. But she has very few ideas on how to cheer him up. Pretty much just “find another interesting case” punctuated by occasional unsuccessful “wouldn’t you like to have sexual intercourse with a human?” gambits.
Speaking of which: Epic Illustrated Magazine was no stranger to the notion that sex sells, and periodic (or sometimes constant) female nudity was one of its staples. This series sports frequent rear nudity from Bozz, but his tail constantly covers his gluteal cleft, as seen above. Two gratuitous panels of Mandy rising nude from bed are included, which is anachronistic due to the latitude of London. Londoners in those days wore piles of bedclothes.
