Customer Reviews

What They Did to Princess Paragon

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Brian Parrish, a brass gay cartoonist, leaves Comet Comics for a new seven figure salary at Bang comics, where he is assigned the task of changing a non seller old comic book--Princess Paragon--into a new best seller by turning her lesbian.

His boss, Heloise Feritay, assigns him a lesbian editor, Perpetual Cotton, to help him deal with the transformation.

The first issue is out and it's a best seller. But it causes a loser "comic-phile," Jerome T Kornacker, to get extremely angry because of what a pervert is doing to his heroine.

Rodi takes us to a comic convention where Jerome describes the type that reads comics as: "In one sense he (Jerome) wasn't hallucinating, though nearly everywhere at the convention there was a misfit of some recognizable type. Jerome had never seen such a number of them, stuffed into ill-fitting clothing, peering out at the world from beneath stringy pubic-fuzzy hair."

Parish is presented as a prick and refuses to appear in the Bella Martinez Chicago talk show. Because when Brian learns that the originator of Princess Paragon, Roger Oaklyn, is to appear with him, he has a fit and kicks Mr. Oaklyn off the show. Anyone who is from Chicago recognizes Bella as Oprah, and NO ONE pisses Oprah on her show, so Brian pays a steep price. The taping goes terribly for him.

Meanwhile, Brian is confronted by Jerome and is beaten pretty hard by him. Jerome gets scared and Brian decides that he'll make Jerome pay by invading Jerome's home and making him his servant until he writes the next chapter on Princess Paragon.

But Jerome has plans of his own. He takes the finished copy from Bryan's hotel and rewrites it to fit his view of what Princess Paragon should be and faxes it to Bang Comics with Brian's signature.

Brian's adventure ends really bad when he is stuck in Jerome's old work site (he was a nightwatchman at Carter Foods). Jerome is fired and Brian is stuck there until they have a second confrontation because Brian learns what Jerome has done to him.

This time Jerome throws a gun at Brian's face and ends up in the hospital with a broken jaw. There he finds out Jerome is not the only one who is jobless; Bryan has lost his job to Perpetual.

As he leaves the hospital he goes to a bar and is approached by Mr. Oaklyn who gets his revenge from being thrown out the show. He learns how bad Mr. Oaklyn had it, after creating Princess paragon he sold the perpetual rights for four hundred dollars at age 23, and was never able to have a comeback.

It is at the bar, after two drinks that Brian realizes that "Jerome and Perpetual had exactly as much right to Princess Paragon as he had--which was no right at all. By any moral reckoning, she belonged to Roger Oaklyn. It was as simple as that. As plain, and terrifying as that."

This is the first Rodi book in which Chicago is not one of the characters of the story. Most of the action happens in NYC. Although the book is an easy and fun read, I missed his old form--making fun of an aspect of gay life with Chicago as the background.

What They Did to Princess Paragon is a fun read. It is primarily comedy with a wit somewhere between a Kevin Smith movie, an episode of Fawlty Towers, with perhaps a shade of Seinfeld.

Other reviewers have made the criticism that one of the protagonists, Jerome Kornacker, is a cliched stereotype of the hapless geeky comic fanboy, and granted, Rodi walks the fine line between stereotype and caracature here. However, given that nearly all of the remaining cast are caracatures (often, amalgamated characatures of actual people), I think it more likely to assume that caracature is the author's intent. Further, Rodi simply knows too much about the personalities and trends of the comics world that he is satarizing to believe that he has written the character of Jerome "from the outside." For example, his character, comic book author Nigel Cardew, is clearly an amalgamated parody of the primary authors of a movement in comics known as "the British Invasion," with the speaking style of Comic writers Garth Ennis (and/or Grant Morrison), the anti-Thatcher politics of writers Alan Moore and Jamie Delano, the fashion sense of Warren Ellis, the writing style of Frank Miller, and the first name, Nigel, probably derived from Neil Gaiman. Most of the characters are similarly derived. (Hiriam Krapp= Robert Krumb/Harvey Pekar, Jodi Lipmann=Gary Groth,others etc.) In addition, the details of the comic books these characters write are too acurately lampooned, the minutial trivia too cleverly and thoughoughly referenced, to believe that it would have emerged from the casual research of an otherwise uninterested author writing about "guys he knows that are just like that." No, Rodi has a little Jerome Kornacker inside him. Likely he has taken out, exaggerated for comic effect, and dressed up his Jeromeness in a manner reminicient of the stereotypical geek, but true stereotyping implies ignorance; a blanket lable for one who is relegated to being of "a type" that the one doing the stereotyping is only vaguely familiar with fram afar. Rodi's parody is too precise, his mockery too intimate --and is does sting, to those of us that have a dollop of Jeromeness in ourselves-- to accurately term his protagonist either stereotype or cliche.
Despite how the above may sound, no special knowledge of comic books, their writers, or their jargon is necessary to enjoy this fine comedy. This is the first book of Rodi's that I have read. It will not be the last.

An entertaining novel that satirizes the comic book industry through a recasting of the early 1990s in which a well-regarded comic book writer/artist decides to make his mark in the new, mature field by taking a character from the golden age and remaking her as a lesbian. Like all good satire, there's an edge here--although John Bryne did do a retelling of Wonder Woman, I don't think he has remade her sexual orientation, but one quick look at the field and the various changes that have been made and it does not seem that it would be too much of a stretch. Batman is a ruthless vigilante, Superman's been dead, Spiderman has an alien costume...it's enough to make any fan think that the field has no sacred cows.

Rodi picks up this idea and uses it effectively, if a little heavy handed and without a measure of sympathy in some cases. Everything works out in the end (this is a comedy, after all, and it wouldn't do to have anyone really hurt), along the way there's enough pain to make you think that Rodi's been watching too much Seinfeld and not reading enough P.G. Wodehouse. Actually, I probably should compare Rodi to Joe Keenan, because he shares Keenan's sexual preference and is also writing humorous novels. Keenan's fare is meringue pie--light and fluffy and leaving you wanting for more; Rodi's dessert has a bitterness to it, as if it may have stayed in the oven a little too long.

Picking on the unwashed masses of comicdom may be a little like shooting fish in a barrel, and Rodi's talent at poking things with a sharp stick should probably be utilized where something is bloated out of proportion with its importance. Too much of this novel is the same stereotypes that we know have a basis in reality, but are not quite what they seem. The one redeeming factor to Rodi's cruelty to his comic fanboy is that he doesn't restrain himself from a jab or two at his gay protagonist (although mainly through the Broadway schtik of his lover).

OK - It's my turn!! Here I was stuck for a month in some ridiculous backwater business assignment so I took a chance and bought all the Rodi books to keep me company. The GayMuse of Entertainment was watching over me! This guy is literate, amusing, profound, and definitely has the ear of his audience. I could go on and on about all his books: comparing & contrasting & up-thumbing and down-thumbing... but the bottom line is that this man WRITES with a wit and wisdom that is oh! so rare in Gay Fiction today. Now do a little 'search' here at amazon.com on 'rodi' and pluck up anything that pops up. I guarantee you that you will be pleased... if not just a little bit moved!

Being a white, heterosexual male, I have often wondered why some people get so insulted over stereotypes of the groups they belong to. Don't they realize that this is just meant to be one person out of a group that is being depicted, and that it is done for laughs? But I had my beliefs challenged when reading this book. You see, I am a 40 year old comic book reader. The people who read comic books in this story are not treated well, and I am not referring to just the main character. The people that Jerome meets in the shop or at the convention are not portrayed in any better light than he is. I have not read any of Mr.Rodi's previous work, so I can not speak to the accusation that this is repetitive. I picked this book up because I thought I would enjoy the subject matter, the creation of comic books. If you are easily insulted by stereotypes, do not get this book. That said, however, I will also add that I enjoyed reading it. Perhaps it is because I do not see myself in Jerome. I do have a mortgage to worry about, and a very good job that I enjoy. I do not live with my mother. Or perhaps it is just because I do not take myself(or comics) too seriously. I also enjoyed, no matter how true-to-life it was(or wasn't), the inside look at the world of comics.

I picked up a copy of this book ... in large part due to the hilarious cover and the recommendation on the back. I had no idea what to expect.

It's hilarious.

Others will complain that it's full of stereotypes, but walk into any gaming or comic-book store and you'll see a roomfull of the kinds of people that populate this book. Sometimes, the world really IS this way, and this book struck my funny bone in a totally unexpected manner. Highly recommended.