Sunday Trade
May. 13th, 2007 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkerwithout
Two trades this week. American Century: Scars & Strips and American Century: Hollywood Babylon
Writer: Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
Pencils: Marc Laming
Inks: John Stokes
Letters: Ken Bruzenak
Colors: Pam Rambo
Seperated: Jamison
Covers in the first trade are by Chaykin with John Van Fleet on the second
American Century is based on the true-to-life story of one Harry Kraft, though a few of the names have been changed. Harry, a WW2 pilot fakes his death when he gets drafted to fight in Korea. And then ends up in South America. The book says Guatemala, but the story matches pretty closely with events in Peru for 1949. So Harry works flying a plane for a smuggler while a revolution starts. And after that Harry is dodging revolutionaries, the CIA and pro-government forces...
"Hollywood Babylon" has Harry back in the US, working as a night watchman for "Quality Studios". Paramount maybe? Who had a super-hero show on in the air in 1951? Anyway Harry has to deal with Commie hunting Congressmen, feuding celebrities, gossip columinists and gangster Mikey Roach...
The books are packed with two-fisted action and hard, gorgeous dames. Noir sex & violence with Chaykin (and partner Tischman) at the top of their games). Sadly the series from Vertigo lasted less than 20 issues and the remainder have yet to be colledcted in a trade. But for fans of the noir genre or Howard Chaykin these are both must haves...
