Review: Doris Danger
Way back in the day, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee stumbled on a simple and essential truth: Giant monsters are freakin’ awesome.
This is also the central premise of Chris Wisinia’s Doris Danger, a tribute to Kirby and Lee’s old monster comics. Two parts homage to one part affectionate satire, Doris Danger is nostalgia at its finest. Wisinia has Kirby’s style down pat, from the crackles, to the cat’s-eye glasses, to the apparently randomized military insignia, and he does a damn fine job aping Lee’s bombastic writing, complete with randomly-bolded nouns, a generous helping of exclamation points, and a plethora of footnotes referring readers to the minutiae of past (and in this case, mostly fictional) issues.
Although it’s nominally the tale of an eponymous photojournalist obsessed with giant monsters, Doris Danger isn’t exactly a narrative masterpiece. The flame story is flimsy, and while the interspersed prose history of the “real” Doris Danger is pretty funny, it doesn’t add much in terms of structure or cohesion. Doris and the other characters are flat and static.
Normally, all of these things would be drawbacks. In Doris Danger, they’re not, because the comic doesn’t set out to be a great or epic narrative. What it does shoot for–and achieve–is a thoroughly enjoyable romp: I don’t think it’s a great comic, but I know it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Also, Wisinia uses exclamation points in the indicia, which makes me extraordinarily happy.
Almost as cool as Doris Danger itself are the pin-up galleries in the back of the two oversized issues. Wisinia’s not the only comics creator with a passion for Kirby monsters, and the lineup he’s assembled here is a veritable Who’s Who of comics artists: Arthur Adams, Mike Allred, Peter Bagge, Guy Davis, Dave Gibbons, Los Bros. Hernandez, Mike Mignola, Steve Rude, John Severin, Bill Sienkewicz and a slew of other comics luminaries take pens in hands to create a phenomenal display of creeping, stomping, lurking, and roaring monsters that would’ve done the King proud.
On a non-Doris Danger note, I’m going to be gone for the next few weeks, getting and then recovering from surgery. However, I’ve lined up some awesome guest columnists, who will delight, inform, and entertain you while I’m out, so stay tuned!
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