My Big Bad Madman Page

MATA

MATA


Madman and the Atomics – This picks up where one of the earlier Madman stories left off, namely the one where Madman is attacked by bitter, misanthropic beatniks who live in the sewers of Snap City, only to have one of them (Nana’s boyfriend Sleek), kidnapped by Zenelle, an alien “black widow spider” creature out man-hunting for Mott from Hoople (or any male with a pulse); ’nuff said about that. The story explores the fate of the beatniks, basically showing how they were infected by alien spores that mutated them, each in different ways. They mold and intersect with each other, their fates now intertwined with Zenelle’s and her time traveling son (the offspring of the original kidnapped beatnik Sleek) and other strange concoctions, including renegade beatnik Bert who got a raw deal – while most of the beatniks got desirable new bodies and powers (Luna Romy, for example, turned into the glamorous It Girl), he turned into… The Cadaver!

The stories are zany! First there’s the Atomics’ encounter with Shrek, the giant fly creature bodyguard of Boone Gehr, who goes berserk for a while before he’s tamed, Zenelle’s runaway son Boone Gehr (we learn more about him, his training, his friends, and the life and loves he left behind on a cruel man-eating world in another part of the galaxy), Adam and Luna’s budding romance, Adam’s insecurities, Dorrie and Phil’s weird symbiotic relationship (especially Dorrie’s slug-ness), Luna’s recipe for meatloaf, brief appearances of Snap City superstar Cool Cat, the cute farmer-and-the-airplane joke, Adam’s cool angel dreams, his future light-self helping save our heroes, crazy space-time tunnels appearing randomly (and with incredibly strange mechanics), The Skunk’s attempt at bank robbery, Dr Flem’s crazy head hijinx, Adam’s band, Mr Gum’s weird Jagger moves, Sleek’s future self as The Laser, Boone’s reunion with a vengeful Tarkus in a dimension of slavers, the “Sub-Atomics” as shrunken creatures, a second battle with the Cadaver, Boone and Tarkus’ battle, crazy Kirbian two-page space-dimension-smash murals with bodies flying everywhere in confusion, every page full of beautiful action, battles with Savage Dragon in the forest, the weird Mook beast, battles with lamprey slug creatures in the mystic hills of the wizard, who turns out to be The Cadaver (a third battle with the crazy guy). Sweet, even though Madman himself hardly has anything to do with this book. Groovy!!

Naturally, the book is full of really groovy art, and incredibly weird non-sequitur storytelling, as well as silly, weird, touching superfluous scenes of touching humanity… and hip grooviness. Who is more hip and groovy in comic-dom than Michael Allred anyway?

MAMMV2

MAMMV2


Michael Allred’s Madman Volume 2 – I’d never heard of Madman or Michael Allred before, but I only needed to read this volume to become a huge fan. Madman is impossibly cool! Named Frank Einstein (after Frank Sinatra and Albert Einstein, supposedly, but also a pun on Einstein), the comic is fast-paced and Frank moves from one strange adventure to another. Frank has a girlfriend, Joe, that he’s inseperable from and is deeply in love with, and he hangs out all day with a group of scientists. The storyline develops rapidly, and he is regularly and inexplicably attacked or befriended by strange space beings, hostile beatniks, strange robots, evil masterminds and Lovecraftian demons. He survives a murder mystery aboard a cruising ship, hangs out with the armoured government agent Big Guy, and escapes from a disgusting puke creature. The artwork is incredible, each panel is a masterpiece, and Madman, with his weird mask and white suit with exclamation point (!) and boots is somehow pretty nifty. No Marvel-like scupted muscle cool guy posing to be seen in Mad Man Comics, only Fifties-like superheroes and robots with weird names like Factor Max (Max Factor… get it?) and other taken-for-granted protagonists that enter and exit without introduction or explanation – n0ne asked, none needed. Hellboy makes a guest appearance in one of the stranger stories in the book, which is about the Blast, a terrorist who has been tricked into becoming an assassin, and how has been put on Frank’s trail.

MM

MM


Madman, Atomic Comics volume 2 – This volume is full of experimental art techniques, meaning that Michael Allred took some of the methods that animators use and applied it to Madman. You get a lot of scenes that look like stills from a Disney or Ghibli film, with great backdrops and semi-transparent effects with a lot of fluid activity. Allred also uses plenty of double-page spreads to tell his story, in fact it seems that one issue was nothing but double spreads (they connect in real life and are considered to be the longest continuous comic book panel ever)! There are flashbacks to Madman’s life as the assassin Zane Townsend as he tries to penetrate his past, and we see Frank without his Madman suit watching a movie of his life. We learn that Joe has been annihilated and her molecules integrated with those of It Girl, Luna Romy, who lost her beau Adam Balm, the Metal Man, when he was destroyed and turned into the powerful Zombot.  Of course, by the end of the book, science restores Adam and separates Joe from Luna, and everything is peachy. The book is virtually popping, bursting at the seams with tons of awesome artwork!

One episode involves the weird material transferium and what happens when Joe helps a bit of it get exposed to the world. In another adventure, Frank and the Atomics (those evil beatnicks who once fought Frank but have now become his super-powered accomplices) have conversation as they fight weird alien fish-lip snake creatures who want to devour a knocked-out It Girl, and they stretch a battle all across town, another adventure caused by Curious Frank using science he doesn’t understand. Check out the Jay And Silent Bob’s Secret Stash bookstore that they swing past in their battles. In another story, Madman clashes with Dr Flem, then gets from him some information about his past – a safety deposit box owned by his father! Haley Fou Fou comes down from space to explain the alien technology (non sequitar), and Frank checks the safe deposit box to get… a photo of a house and a key. In true David Lynch fashion, it’s his old family home, where he grew up. He investigates the house alone, and of course it is haunted by some crazy Mormonic angel who explains the meaning of life (I think that’s what he explained), someone called Zacheus who was a friend of Frank’s in a pre-existence.  Cool.  The lab is attacked by a blue-bodied super-powered Monstadt, who throws everybody into a fire, but they survive when Joe calls upon special powers, and appears in her own white Madman bodysuit as a sort of Madwoman/Jean Gray Phoenix.  Cool.  The last 40 pages of the book are full of Allred sketches and some tribute drawings, as well as storyboard art from the non-starter movie project at Universal. There are also 12 pages dedicated to a “world’s biggest comic book panel project (seen across the 14 double-page spreads when Frank and the Atomics are fighting the fish-lips snake monsters). The book says the full scrollable art is to be found at cialis shoppers drug mart, but I can’t find it when I go there.

Hey, look what I found at the Michael Allred website – the link to the free online display of the generic cialis overnight shipping in Popgun Volume 1!

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