From Booklist
One of the most accomplished comics creators today, Baker is too idiosyncratic for his original work to appeal much to mainstream comics readers. But observant, droll stories like the hip downtown sitcom Why I Hate Saturn (1989) and the media satire The Cowboy Wally Show (1987) are too polished to fit comfortably into the alternative-comics scene. Undercover Genie isn't even typical of Baker's usual books. It is a miscellany of short strips, illustrations from noncomics publications, including the New Yorker, and other work. Adept as Baker's celebrity caricatures and editorial illustrations are, they float contextless here. The strips, however, are all first-rate, the strongest of them harking back to his earlier work in stories about neurotic urban singles a la Saturn and a brief appearance by Cowboy Wally. This "odds and sods" collection should hold Baker's fans, though, until his next major project, a revamping of Jack Cole's classic Plastic Man, which might just pull off the trick for Baker of appealing to both superhero fans and his usual audience. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
