Saturday, September 28, 2013

BOOK REVIEW: Monster Island Three edited by Billy Mavreas (2007 Conundrum Press)


Review by Scott Lefebvre

     One of the wonderful things about attending the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is the hospitality of the Canadians.   Possibly the most well-intentioned, polite, and friendly people I've ever met.
     While smoking a cigarette on the back deck of The Irish Embassy, I found myself in a conversation with Rupert Bottenberg.   Rupert invited me to join him and his friends at their tale and I spent the better part of the night in the company of my new friends.
     Rupert Bottenberg works for the Fantasia Film Festival in some capacity that I must admit I forgot the particular details of, but it's got something to do with writing the content for, or designing the program, and something to do with hospitality, as far as I can surmise.
     When he asked why I was at the Fantasia Film Festival and I gave him the shortest possible synopsis of all of the ventures I was involved in, I mentioned that I review books.  At this point, Rupert produced a book that he had been a contributor to.  Monster Island Three.
     Flipping through the book at first, I didn't know what to make of it.   There was text and pictures, and the style changed every three pages, like flipping channels while flipping through a book.
     What I was experiencing was a Canadian anthology of art and writing with a very loosely defined "Monster" theme.
     When I was a teenager, my mother sent a letter into Marvel Age stating that I was a raging comic book fan and asking if there was anything cool out there she could get me into.   Two awesome things resulted from that letter.
     One was a Marvel Universe poster that was the coolest thing ever, but sadly succumbed to nicotine yellowing when I started smoking in college, and the wear and tear of my perpetual change of residence.
     The other was that I was invited to join an Amateur Press Association or an A.P.A.
     The zine went out under the banner 'Nuff Said and I'll always remember the wonder that I experienced as a member.
     There were 25 or so members from all over the world.   Each member would produce an 8 X 10 format zine, and mail 25 copies to the Central Mailer, who would collate the disparate zines, bind them with plastic ring-binding and mail a copy of the assembled incredibleness out to the members.
     This may seem insane in these days of internet fan groups and MySpace, but remember that this was when the internet was primarily a text only phenomenon, and sites like Timothy Leary's attempt to immortalize himself on the worldwide web were amazing.
     Reading Monster Island Three reminded me of the joy I experienced while thumbing through each issue of 'Nuff Said.
     The shining star of the anthology, in my opinion, is the essay on Jack Kirby's "Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers" by Andy Brown.   This essay is representative of the type of fan journalism that I aspire to.   Fastidiously researched and complete, yet pleasurably readable.
     Another essay, "Trans-Atlantic Pulps of the 20s and 30s: Monstrous Images of Africa?" by Patrick R. Burger, was just as well researched, but the presentation of the material was difficult to follow which decreased the enthusiasm I had when approaching the article.
     In conclusion, I am very happy to have Monster Island Three.   It's an excellent book to leaf through on a lazy sunday and makes a great short-attention span distraction for the living room coffee table or the back of the toilet bathroom book.   At $15, the price is not prohibitive, considering the incredible assortment of art and excellent writing contained within.




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