Michael Eury

As mainstays of comic book literature, apes and monkeys have appeared regularly in comics since 1939. Following the 1951 publication of the first ape cover on DC Comics' Strange Adventures #8, the comics industry realized that issues with simians on the cover sold more than those without -- a truism still evident in today's supposedly more sophisticated graphic novel market. In Comics Gone Ape!, Michael Eury lovingly explores this phenomenon and assembles a cornucopia of comic book ape knowledge for gorilla lovers.

There exists a large covert subculture of simian fans -- usually men -- fascinated with popular culture depictions of apes and monkeys. Eury spends little time analyzing the hows and whys of this group, but rather focuses on the whos and whats.

While the histories, especially of the individual simian characters, often intrigue, his meager attempts to explore and explain the ape curiosity fail to offer any satisfying conclusions. Eury shows moments of clarity and style, but his feeble attempts at humor distract the reader. Clunky interviews of eleven prominent ape creators fall especially flat, offering little information of note.

Copiously illustrated with black & white simian reprints and previously unpublished work from popular artists such as Arthur Adams, Bruce Timm, Joe Kubert, Tony Millionare, Sergio Aragonés, and Jack Kirby, Comics Gone Ape! provides a tantalizing package for any ape fan. Littered throughout with art, each of the six chapters concludes with two pages of related ape covers and, as expected, the interviewee's work decorates their interviews. As a pictorial account, Comics Gone Ape! succeeds.

Eury's book disappoints this ape fan -- a gun-toting gumshoe gorilla graces the cover of my own collection of essays Geek Confidential: Echoes from the 21st Century -- and presents little new information to any but the most casual fan. Comics Gone Ape! fails to interest readers outside this sub-genre and beyond the images, ultimately bores the simian fan.

(The review originally appear at RevolutionSF.)
Link: [http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=3751]… (altro)