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Buckaroo Banzai Graphic Novels #1
Return of the Screw
Everyone's favorite adventurer/surgeon/rock star is back again just in time to save the world! Along with his Hong Kong Cavaliers, Banzai must battle more than one surprise arch enemy, each with their own motives, but all acting in concert to bring Banzai (and the universe as we know it) to his knees! All this sandwiched between a couple of great rock and roll guitar solos, a few surgical procedures, a crazy gun battle on land and air, Buck's one chance for the ultimate revenge, his soul in turmoil, all the chicks digging him, engineering synchronicity, pretty toilets, a human pickle and a giant sombrero! It just doesn't get more fun than this!
120 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2007
About the author
Earl Mac Rauch
23 books25 followersAn American novelist and screenwriter, best known for writing the screenplays for A Stranger Is Watching, New York, New York and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 4, 2014
More lectroids! More jet car! More cryptic non-sequiturs!
At the end of the 1984 cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, a sequel is promised for the superhero/rockstar/surgeon: Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. But Buckaroo was too weird (and too poorly marketed) to find a mainstream audience, so the second movie never happened. There was buzz many years later about a TV pilot, but that too fizzled on the drawing board. For decades, Buckaroo fans were left wondering about Hanoi Xan and his league of evildoers, until Moonstone Books stepped up with Return of the Screw, a comic book miniseries that finally continued the saga in 2006.
Written by Earl Mac Rauch, Buckaroo's creator (with creative input from film director WD Richter), Return of the Screw is based on "Supersize Those Fries," the unmade TV movie. The story is in-your-face bizarre, a torrent of overlapping scenes, goofy plot twists, and terrible puns. Potato-powered death rays? An assassin in a pickle suit? Sure, why not? But so much happens here, and so quickly, it's all but incomprehensible until the action-packed third issue finally connects a few of the dots... but not all, of course: this is still Buckaroo Banzai!
Pacing and structure aside, there's some pretty good stuff here, especially when sidekick Perfect Tommy is in the frame - of all Buckaroo's associates, he gets the best material. We finally get to meet Xan and a few of his minions, as they team up with a familiar bad guy to make the world miserable. I love the artwork. And this trade paperback edition has some terrific extras: character dossiers, alternate covers, interviews, and conceptual designs from the TV project.
Moonstone and Mac Rauch published a few more Buckaroo Banzai stories after this one, which are collected in No Matter Where You Go, There You Are... . I'm interested to see how they further expanded Buckaroo's zany fictional universe, even if Return of the Screw was a bit of a letdown.
At the end of the 1984 cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, a sequel is promised for the superhero/rockstar/surgeon: Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. But Buckaroo was too weird (and too poorly marketed) to find a mainstream audience, so the second movie never happened. There was buzz many years later about a TV pilot, but that too fizzled on the drawing board. For decades, Buckaroo fans were left wondering about Hanoi Xan and his league of evildoers, until Moonstone Books stepped up with Return of the Screw, a comic book miniseries that finally continued the saga in 2006.
Written by Earl Mac Rauch, Buckaroo's creator (with creative input from film director WD Richter), Return of the Screw is based on "Supersize Those Fries," the unmade TV movie. The story is in-your-face bizarre, a torrent of overlapping scenes, goofy plot twists, and terrible puns. Potato-powered death rays? An assassin in a pickle suit? Sure, why not? But so much happens here, and so quickly, it's all but incomprehensible until the action-packed third issue finally connects a few of the dots... but not all, of course: this is still Buckaroo Banzai!
Pacing and structure aside, there's some pretty good stuff here, especially when sidekick Perfect Tommy is in the frame - of all Buckaroo's associates, he gets the best material. We finally get to meet Xan and a few of his minions, as they team up with a familiar bad guy to make the world miserable. I love the artwork. And this trade paperback edition has some terrific extras: character dossiers, alternate covers, interviews, and conceptual designs from the TV project.
Moonstone and Mac Rauch published a few more Buckaroo Banzai stories after this one, which are collected in No Matter Where You Go, There You Are... . I'm interested to see how they further expanded Buckaroo's zany fictional universe, even if Return of the Screw was a bit of a letdown.
July 1, 2008
He's back!
After years of waiting, Buckaroo and company are back to save the world as two of his arch foes team up to unleash an evil plan ( involving potatoes) to blackmail the entire earth!
It's a bizarre, wonderful mix of cliffhanger serial, pulp novel and saturday morning cartoon sprinkled with wonderfully odd, quotable dialogue and weird sci-fi ideas.
Buckaroo is a cross between Doc Savage, Leonardo Da vinci and Adam Ant.
Come on, the jet car now flies and Buckaroo is attacked by a guy in a pickle costume! What more do you need to know?
Only gripe is we are give hints of things that happened between the movie and the comic that never get fully explained and one of them is kind of a big deal thing. That and I don't remember Perfect Tommy being this big an airhead in the movie.
After years of waiting, Buckaroo and company are back to save the world as two of his arch foes team up to unleash an evil plan ( involving potatoes) to blackmail the entire earth!
It's a bizarre, wonderful mix of cliffhanger serial, pulp novel and saturday morning cartoon sprinkled with wonderfully odd, quotable dialogue and weird sci-fi ideas.
Buckaroo is a cross between Doc Savage, Leonardo Da vinci and Adam Ant.
Come on, the jet car now flies and Buckaroo is attacked by a guy in a pickle costume! What more do you need to know?
Only gripe is we are give hints of things that happened between the movie and the comic that never get fully explained and one of them is kind of a big deal thing. That and I don't remember Perfect Tommy being this big an airhead in the movie.
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September 15, 2020Another laudably odd film gets the sequel in comic form which box office receipts from a mostly baffled public could never have justified on the big screen. It's from a script by creator Earl Mac Rauch, so the core is there, but crossing the media barrier is always tricky and for me this doesn't quite pull it off, not helped by the likenesses only occasionally looking like. I'd never thought of it before, but Peter Weller's face had some of the same odd quality as Matt Smith's, and just as some Eleventh Doctor comics lost a little by making him too conventionally leading-man-like, so it often happens here. It's good to see that long-promised showdown with the World Crime League, and there are some delightfully bonkers ideas along the way - ever get the feeling the world is out of sorts? That's because it's been tilted off its axis. Using potatoes. But some tie-in comics convince on the page, and others just leave you longing to see another dimension's screen version. Even if the box-office would probably have been about the same as the returns on a small press comic.
September 16, 2021
The story is pretty outrageous, even considering the craziness of the original movie, but entertaining. The real gems in this volume are the interview with Earl Mac Rauch and the background on the legal status of there franchise and the troubles with continuing with other media.
April 20, 2009
Although most of the characters, even the new ones, and the theme were true to the spirit of the movie, the plot and pacing left a little to be desired. Hanoi Xan and a couple of his cronies are brought in as some of the minor villains, sure, but why bring back Lizardo slash John Worfin as the main baddie? He had his run in Across the Eighth Dimension. He lost. Let's see something new here.
The constant cutting from scene to scene needs to be signaled better, either by changing the colors or the look of the environment, or hell even a "Meanwhile, across world..." tag thrown into the panel.
In addition, the several grammatical and typographical errors and some very confusing panels gave the book a slap-dash, unpolished feel. This is especially disappointing, because the drawing is so nicely done.
Granted, as a fan of the movie I was expecting a lot out of this book, but, even if I'd not been, I think I still would have been a bit disappointed.
The constant cutting from scene to scene needs to be signaled better, either by changing the colors or the look of the environment, or hell even a "Meanwhile, across world..." tag thrown into the panel.
In addition, the several grammatical and typographical errors and some very confusing panels gave the book a slap-dash, unpolished feel. This is especially disappointing, because the drawing is so nicely done.
Granted, as a fan of the movie I was expecting a lot out of this book, but, even if I'd not been, I think I still would have been a bit disappointed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 12, 2010
Some great stuff, some not as great stuff, and an artist that has some storytelling issues makes for an uneven but welcome return for the inimitable Dr. Banzai. I enjoyed this story so much more on my second reading. There's just so much happening and the dialogue is lightning fast, just like in the film. Overall an entertaining read. I only wish Moonstone could afford to get a stronger artist for the project.
October 17, 2012
Couldn't do it!
I loved the Movie, it was so wonderfully campy.
This, well the story was crap, the villain was the same one from the movie (Who dies an the end of the movie) so its crap again, and the idea of stealing the earth is crap.
So its a hat trick of $#!t!
Just don't bother. not worth your time.
I loved the Movie, it was so wonderfully campy.
This, well the story was crap, the villain was the same one from the movie (Who dies an the end of the movie) so its crap again, and the idea of stealing the earth is crap.
So its a hat trick of $#!t!
Just don't bother. not worth your time.
July 19, 2010
Boring, confusing, and full of quirky almost-funny non-sequiturs. So, like the movie, only horrible. Art sucked big time.
April 13, 2021
If this was what the sequel to Buckaroo Banzai was supposed to be then yikes. I can’t unsee an orgasming electrode.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews