Kin Dza Dza: The Best Science Fiction Movie You Ain’t Never Seen
Kin Dza Dza is a deliriously wonderful sci-fi flick, made in the Soviet Union in 1986 – one year after Back to the Future! I'm therefore ashamed I'd never heard of it until last week, when a friend directed me to a bootleg up on Google videos, right here.
I can only describe this movie as the bastard offspring of Monty Python and Louis Buñuel, and it really is a tragedy has yet to be released in the United States. The story follows Vladimir Mashkov, a Moscow construction foreman, who, along with a despondent Georgian music student, stumbles onto a deranged homeless man who insists he's from another galaxy.
Then things get really weird.
The two earthlings find themselves transported to the mysterious, backwards galaxy of Kin Dza Dza, where matchsticks are worth hundreds of times their weight in gold, where all the water has been sucked up and turned into spaceship fuel, where all anybody knows how to say is "Koo".
Koo!
It surprises me this film got past the Soviet censors. The entire thing is a biting satire of the Soviet Union, where thuggish "Ecilops" (that's "police" backwards) can zoom out of the sky at any moment to steal all of your stuff, where artists are – literally, now – forced to perform in cages, and where the high and mighty masters of the universe will turn you into a plant or stuff you into a metal box just for trying to escape your miserable existence.
I repeat: Koo!
But Kin Dza Dza is more than satire, it's a beautiful movie, beautifully photographed, with beautiful set design, despite the fact the entire thing was probably made for close to $50 (I don't know what that comes to in rubles). Everything, from the writing to the acting, is just about as close to perfect as you can get this side of Tenture.
Very highly recommended. Again, you can see the whole thing right here.
And, in completely unrelated news, Queen Sonja #9 came out last Wednesday, the next-to-last, a.k.a. "penultimate", issue of my first Sonja story arc. More good, clean family fun from Yours Truly and the folks at Dynamite Entertainment. I just got my comps of this issue, and the cover looks even better on paper! You can get this issue, and the four that came before it, from my good friends at tfaw.com.
Koo!
Queen Sonja #7 in stores
The second installment of my five-issue run on Queen Sonja hits stores today. Come and get it! We're trying to show another side of Sonja – not a "kinder, gentler" she-devil, that would suck, but definitely more human. Whether or not we succeeded, the art by Jackson Herbert is worth the price of admission alone.
Check out the ax in Lucio Parillo's front cover to the left – the reflection of the face. I love little details like that.
And a little correction: the credits for the previous issue listed Joshua Ortega as the writer. Josh is a great writer, but #6 was all me, bay-bee.
Queen Sonja #6 in stores
Queen Sonja Issue 6 front cover
And, er, it has been for exactly a week.
The story is, of course, by me, with art by Jackson Herbert. Jack does emotions and facial expressions really well, one of the hardest things to achieve – and his combat sequences are full of storm and fury. This is definitely a set-up issue, but we managed to pack a lot of action into it, too.
Check out a review from Major Spoilers right here. Quoth Scott Hunter, the reviewer: "I definitely recommend that you go out and give this book a try, and I know that I’ll be looking out for the next issue." Thanks, Scott!
Read a preview of the first five pages courtesy of Comixology right here.
The Red Queen
There's a saying in German: "Better to be burned out twice than to move once". I hope I never find out if that's true, but moving definitely sucks. Robyn and I just schlepped all our stuff from Queens, New York, to our new home in Northampton, Massachusetts. I owe my Dear Old Dad and my friend Kenny a huge debt for helping us pack the truck so artfully, like a gigantic 3D Tetris puzzle.
Queen Sonja #6 front cover
And a Red Sonja miniseries by moi debuts this month: Queen Sonja: The Red Queen. It's – believe it or not – a love story. We wanted to explore some of the deeper parts of Sonja's character; yes, she's the "She-Devil with a Sword", but she's also a very complex human being, and deeply wounded. A big part of love, for me, anyway, is about being vulnerable. So you're going to see some things Sonja usually keeps buried deep down bubble to the surface.
But the story's totally bad-ass and Sonja-licious, too. At least I hope so – a Sonja story in which people sit around and talk about their feelings all the time is, let's face it, a weak Sonja story.
It's five issues, Queen Sonja #6 to #10. First installment drops March 31st! There's a little interview with me on the series up at Newsarama.
