Review: Blake & Mortimer Vol. 9: The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent Part 1
India is one of those countries that is both revered and speculated. The British have been there for years to the point that one of the UK’s most popular food is Chicken Tikka Masala. My father was born and grew up in one of Britain’s colonies, I can see their influence everywhere when I go back. Even my Dad still talks about how you don’t need a passport to go from Trinidad to England.
From where it started to now what it is, has been a long journey between India and England. It has never been completely cordial, as much of the long seeded hate and discontent also has existed just as long. Can there ever be true harmony between the once colonized and the colonizer? In the ninth volume of Blake & Mortimer, our intrepid heroes solve a mystery while revisiting his past in India.
We’re taken to Simla, the former capital of British India, where a gathering of the Maharajas is taking place at the former Viceroy palace, where we meet a shadowy figure known as Emperor Ashoka. As we soon find out Blake and Mortimer has a long strange history within the country, as this was the place where they met. We soon find out that Mortimer had grown up there, even saving an Indian princess and he had encountered Ashoka once before, whose stance was against the British foreign occupation. Years later Ashoka has his agenda against Mortimer and enlists the duo’s favorite villain, Olrik into his scheme against our protagonists. That is just when Blake and Mortimer find out that Ashoka has a plot to use uranium to cause a major catastrophe which leads them to Brussels. By Blake & Mortimer Vol. 9’s end, an Indian Government agent joins their ranks, and our intrepid duo heads to South Afrika to reckon with Ashoka and Olrik.
Overall, the ninth volume of Blake & Mortimer is a gripping adventure that has the guys deal with the sins of colonization. The story by Yves Sente is exciting. The art by André Juillard is stirring. Altogether, an excellent globe trotting adventure..
Story: Yves Sente Art: André Juillard
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy
Purchase: comiXology – Amazon – Kindle
Retaliation, Revenge and Get Back was one of my favorite albums that Daz Dillinger had put out back in the late 1990s. For those who don’t know who I am talking about, he was one of the lessor known artists assigned to Death Row Records, the same music label who was responsible for Dr.Dre’s solo success and 2Pac’s resurgence before his death. The album itself was a modern hip hop masterpiece, as it was probably one of the better albums that came out that year.
One of the most overused tropes in procedural stories is the “avenge my death” device, which makes you either hate or love the protagonist. Within the reader, there is a part of them that wishes for them to catch the killer. The other side, and the one which is more pragmatic or pessimistic depending on your outlook, knows there is no way to catch the killer. Both sides are extremes, and ones that do neither any good.
If you have read a newspaper, or an article, or watched the news, somewhere along the line, you may have heard the name “Banksy.” The mysterious person is known for their artwork exhibited around the world. Their pieces are lauded, and their appearances are more “slight of hand,” making the proximity to the art a unique experience. This is not the first time the world has been fascinated with someone anonymous.
The 1980s were the heyday of action movies. The decade brought movie fans the many film adventures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Steven Siegal, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Sylvester Stallone. They made a genre into a multimillion dollar industry, one that would generate imitators and classics all their own. One of those movies that became a franchise without much staging as they do now, was Iron Eagle.
When it comes to 80s movies, many thoughts run across many people’s heads with numerous adjectives describing the ridiculousness of many of their premises. Who can forget Red Dawn, a film that’s both far fetched and plausible considering the hostile geo-political climate of today’s world relations. Then there is Weird Science, a screwball comedy where two boys accidentally create the perfect woman. Then there is the Tom Hanks fantasy Big, which is both fun and melancholy while not forgetting the innocence of childhood.
Tom Hanks is one of the most iconic actors of recent memory, who fits a type of actor, who rarely get celebrated, the character actor. Very few including Hanks com to mind other than Samuel L Jackson and Luis Guzman. All these actors blend right into heir character without any expectation for fanfare, yet that is where their star quality lies, in the life they give their characters. One of Hanks’ most memorable characters just so happens to exist in real life, Charlie Wilson.
I remember growing up, I loved history, so basically consumed everything history related. Especially American History, as every day, historians are finding out new facts every day, as I pretty consumed with everything American Revolution related and Civil War related. Eventually I would branch out to other countries histories, and to what I have come to call, self-knowledge. Knowing where your family is from and your family’s roots to those places, became part of identity, much like every child.
The Americans on FX, is one of those shows that both interesting and nostalgic. The storyline revolves around two planted USSR agents in 1980s Virginia, much like the brilliantly under watched Little Nikita. It romanticizes an era in our country and really in our world, that many movies and tv shows tend to parody, but really it was kind of magical. Growing up in that era, I think back on how much of how the times was just leaving the style and rational of the 1970s and the much more liberal philosophy of the 1980s.