Friday, January 06, 2006
The Return of Buckaroo Banzai
I dig movies, I love comics, but comics based on movie franchises have never really rung my bell. That said, the news that Earl Mac Rauch is going to be writing a new Buckaroo Banzai miniseries for Moonstone Comics has definitely piqued my interest.
Mac Rauch was the creator of Buckaroo Banzai, and the sequence of events leading to the production of the film is a pretty strange one. Some of the details are here, but as I remember the story Mac Rauch was a novelist who'd come up with this crazy idea for a pulp adventure character, and had mapped out a whole supporting cast, wide-ranging setting, and history of past adventures long before the project was ever picked up for development. He even wrote several of the character's pulp adventures as a novel, complete with footnotes referencing previous (unpublished, of course) installments, one of which was later published as the film's novelization (recently rereleased with a truly horrible cover by Pocket Books). The character and his work are a note-perfect reincarnation of pulp adventure in a post-modern gonzo style, something that functions both as a commentary on and parody of adventure stories while at the same time functioning as a rollicking adventure story in its own right.
There have been hints and rumors about new Banzai projects for years, including of course the sequel, Buckaroo Banzai Versus the World Crime League. This comic series will be the first such to materialize, and the fact that it'll be written by Mac Rauch means that it'll be canon, not just a franchise spin-off. I'll be picking it up, how about you?
"Nothing is ever what it seems but everything is exactly what it is." - B. Banzai
Mac Rauch was the creator of Buckaroo Banzai, and the sequence of events leading to the production of the film is a pretty strange one. Some of the details are here, but as I remember the story Mac Rauch was a novelist who'd come up with this crazy idea for a pulp adventure character, and had mapped out a whole supporting cast, wide-ranging setting, and history of past adventures long before the project was ever picked up for development. He even wrote several of the character's pulp adventures as a novel, complete with footnotes referencing previous (unpublished, of course) installments, one of which was later published as the film's novelization (recently rereleased with a truly horrible cover by Pocket Books). The character and his work are a note-perfect reincarnation of pulp adventure in a post-modern gonzo style, something that functions both as a commentary on and parody of adventure stories while at the same time functioning as a rollicking adventure story in its own right.
There have been hints and rumors about new Banzai projects for years, including of course the sequel, Buckaroo Banzai Versus the World Crime League. This comic series will be the first such to materialize, and the fact that it'll be written by Mac Rauch means that it'll be canon, not just a franchise spin-off. I'll be picking it up, how about you?
"Nothing is ever what it seems but everything is exactly what it is." - B. Banzai
# posted by Chris Roberson @
9:20 AM
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There was a later sequel in development in the 90s called Supersize My Fries. Around that time, Rauch was supposed to pen four follow up novels for Pocket. I've been a huge fan of Buckaroo since the film initially screened, and I managed to catch it in the one week it was in theatres. With his fan club, comic books, rock band, etc... he was multi-media before there was multi-media!
"The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once."
"The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once."
I hadn't heard about "Supersize" before. I did a bit of Googling, and this(http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/q37.html ) suggests that it was actually the script of the pilot for a TV series Fox was considering, "BUCKAROO BANZAI ANCIENT SECRETS & NEW MYSTERIES."
Ah,what might have been...
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Ah,what might have been...
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