...continued from The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Part One

 

 

After being called “faggot” for the sixth time in three days as punishment for the horrendous crime of walking on the sidewalk, I took a detour from my usual route home to hit the Bookmans on Speedway and Campbell and pick up some much needed Pop Escapism.

Not that I really needed a great reason to justify picking it up (again: fifty cents), but flipping through The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #3 immediately revealed that the thing had been tailor-made for me by some wonderful patron angel. Not only does it feature a Neal Adams drawing of Jim Kelly (my favorite Chop Socky actor of all time) right on the cover, but it also features fake (and sort of offensive) Chinese parables from Gerry Conway, a blow-by-blow tutorial on how to perform “The Deashi Herai” (which translates roughly to “shin kick”, I think) by a real life YMCA instructor from the mysterious lands of Westport, Connecticut, and last but so far from least “least” isn’t even sure that it actually exists: an endearingly racist review of Black Belt Jones penned by Tony Isabella.

 

 

I love Tony Isabella because he does what people say couldn’t be done and tackles complex issues of race, gender and socially contextual identity within the medium of comic books.

…and does so with all the talent and grace of an eighth grader.

Mr. Isabella is probably best known for the creation of “Black Lightning”, a superhero who—you guessed it—has the ability to manipulate electricity, and is of brown dude descent. He’s basically a Superman analogue who maintains his alter ego by wearing an afro wig when he’s out on the prowl. It’s one of the saddest, most racist creations in all of science fiction, and a giant stain on the public perception of the superhero genre.

But hindsight is 20/20. Back in the day, Tony Isabella was THE MAN to talk to when it came to anything non-aryan (being the first mainstream guy to dip his thoroughly Caucasian toe in the forbidden waters of ethnicity since Jack Kirby’s click-clack-speaking African King “T’challa” (aka The Black Panther) took over Jungle Action Comics a decade earlier. And it’s because of that that Tony Isabella was offered the gig of reviewing Jim Kelly’s Black Belt Jones.

 

 

And I cringe as I type the word “review”, not because he wrote a particularly bad one, but because the sloppy, six page train wreck I’m staring at isn’t really a review at all, but an awkward recap of the entire film, sporadically spiced up with faux jive like “foxy momma”.

It’s the sun. It’s a high school yearbook quote. It’s a misspelled tattoo. It’s New Year’s Day roadkill. It’s suuuuper hard to look at.

And thank God for that.

As much as I love comics (And I do. I really, really do. Eleven tattoos, fourteen long boxes, four book cases, five ex-girlfriends and twenty three lonely, lonely years can attest to that), it’s sort of fantastic to pick up a steaming pile of shit every now and then, just to remind myself that the majority of them are unbearable wastes of the pulp they were printed on.

As a young-ish idiot with knuckle tattoos, absolutely no higher education, no “plan B” and no ambition for anything in life other than to pay my rent writing funnybooks (and to one day find that God damn classic red/white Madman T-shirt in an adult human male Medium), it feels good sometimes to be reminded that one doesn’t necessarily have to be any good at what they do to be a LEGEND in the industry. A well paid, celebrated, steadily employed, abrasively mustachioed LEGEND.

 

 

Eric M. Esquivel is the author of the critically acclaimed graphic novel “Horrible Little People”, the critically tolerated “Adventures of Bikini Automatic”, and the critically despised “Childish Delusions of Grandeur and Superiority”. He also wrote a whole bunch of mini comics that the critics know nothing about, and can be found at www.ModernMythologyPress.com.

His upcoming works include “Calabrese!” for Spookshow Records, “Pop! Science” for Modern Mythology Press, and “Statuesque” for whomever will give him money for it.

His column “Post-Modern Myths” runs every Tuesday on the quirkily British www.BleedingCool.com.

Tony Isabella and members of The Arizona Citizens Militia: Eric can be reached on Twitter @ericMesquivel or by email at ericMesquivel@gmail.com.