Reviews of Tiki Joe Mysteries
Here are a couple more reviews of Tiki Joe Mysteries by Mark Murphy, each offering a different point of view of the immersion in an era that the graphic novel attempts. I'm going to call it Graig vs. Greg, just to make a deal out of it.
Greg Burgas at Comics Should Be Good was somewhat bothered that the story does not address the wider issues that existed in 1959, when the book is set: "if you’re going to set a comic in 1959 because you want to evoke a certain 'feel,' it’s frustrating that Murphy ignores whatever else is going on during that period. Anyway, it’s a minor point, but one that bugged me."
However, Graig Kent at Rack Raids has a different view, noting it's precisely the lack of inclusion of anything extraneous to the story that makes it feel authentic: "There’s no commenting on the politics of the Sixties, there’s nary a nod or wink to the audience about any retro cool pastiche, and there’s nothing to imply that there’s anything more to it than what’s presented. In fact, if I hadn’t been told otherwise, I could swear that the book was reprinting actual 1960’s material."
One of Burgas's misgivings was in regards to the character Samantha, a "career girl" (as they were called then) whom the main character Joe is dating. Samantha, he writes, is "remarkably liberated for 1959, and it doesn’t ring terribly true." But from the point of view of Kent's assessment (though this isn't a topic he covers in his review), the career girl main squeeze is a standard trope of the genre -- and of other comics genres, too. I've been reading The Atom from 1963, I believe, and the love interest in that is a "lady lawyer" (she looks like Dr. Girlfriend) who wants to prove she can be a success in her career before she "marries and settles down." In the second story in Tiki Joe, when Samantha's father tries to find out if Joe has any intention of marrying his daughter, I was reminded of this reality of the era: It was a woman's role and ultimate goal in life to marry. Subtly, Mark Murphy works this in simply as a reality of the time, not by bringing attention to a sociological issue.
Both reviewers make the reference to Mad Men because, well, Mad Men is just the coolest thing on TV right now and they're set in approximately the same time period, though as I mentioned in my last post about Tiki Joe, it represents a different side of society and has different intentions. More importantly, both reviewers found Tike Joe Mysteries to be a fun read.
Burgas's summation: "There’s two-fisted action, adventure, double-crossing, and the requisite sexual tension. Murphy doesn’t bother with digging too deep into the actual culture of 1950s Vegas, but that’s okay. This book is more to have some fun with guys wearing tiki masks thwarting crime. There’s nothing wrong with that."
And Kent's: "It’s an impressive work, not just because of Murphy’s ability to resurrect a style, a culture, and a time (or as it is represented in the entertainment of the era), but because he also makes it enthusiastically enjoyable."