I love this book. It's mostly because the artwork embodies so much of what attracts me to classic 50s comic art. The story, with its breathless pace and exotic set-pieces, also pushes my happy button...even though it's a lousy story.
Most of the story's problems can be laid at Sax Rohmer's feet. Rohmer was not a good writer, whether as a plotter or as a stylist. His pulpy stories are mostly a series of over-the-top incidents bound together by the thinnest of plots. The fact that many were published serially probably encouraged that approach.
The Fu Manchu series' major problem is the good Doctor's omnipotence. In the final scene (one of those grand set-pieces), in which Fu gives Shan and Rima a wedding gift, Petrie's analysis is ridiculous. Why should Fu "respect" Greville? Shan and Nayland Smith simply fight a succession of futile holding actions necessitated by Sir Lionel's rash behavior. The only reason Greville has a clue about what happened is that Fah Lo Suee restores his memory. Having been adapted from a novel the comic moves too fast and is choppy in spots. Nevertheless the writer does a darned good job of making a complex narrative readable. The only clunker is the bit about Fah Lo Suee's white pill. I haven't read the original for decades and I don't remember this incident. I presume the pill played some part in the novel but the comic scripter fails to pay it off.
Everything to be said about Rohmer's racism has already been said. In the comic both the Asians and the Arabs are stereotypes, but the racism isn't laid on as thick as it is in the novels. It's odd that the colorist gives Middle Easterners the pale yellow skin usually reserved for Chinese and Japanese. The story has some amusing present-day echoes, what with "Mohammedan" fundamentalists threatening the Empire and a Westerner insisting on his right to extract local wealth without first consulting the locals.
Wallace Wood's art is perfect for this kind of tale. It was drawn at an early point in Wood's ascendancy, but it already has his hallmarks: larger-than-life characters, lush inking, a love for atmospheric detail. During this period even Wood's "realistic" art has an undercurrent of caricature that enhances overheated fantasies like Fu Manchu. Wood's backgrounds are movie sets, bogus yet wonderful. His Middle East is about as genuine as Agrabah, but it's what we imagine the Middle East should look like. Take the last panel on our page 14 as an example. Totally phony but totally convincing. By the way, I could swear Al Williamson pencilled a couple of pages in Part 3. It's not impossible, as the two worked together on other projects.
The filler story is okay. Hollingsworth has many good points but he struggles with proportions.
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Topic: Week 112 - The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu (Read 4599 times)
