Gutbrain Records

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

If you look at Xavier Cugat's Wikipedia page — a silly thing to do, I know — you'll see a list of pop culture references to Xavier Cugat (I Love Lucy episodes, the third scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, etc.).

I'm much too lazy to add to this list, but Cugat appears in Leonard Starr's great comic strip Mary Perkins On Stage, sometime between September 18, 1961, and March 9, 1963.

That panel is from one of the weekday strips, but he's in a Sunday strip as well. This is in Mary Perkins Volume 5, recently released by Classic Comics Press. I just finished reading it and I think it's my favorite volume of the series so far.

There certainly seems to be more action in this collection than in others. The return of the mysterious horror-movie star Maximus inspires some beautiful images.

Starr's writing in this volume is better than ever. I think. The storyline about the playwright and the critic is one highlight. The Sunday strip which reveals the true nature of the conflict is a masterpiece, just amazingly well written, drawn and composed. Starr also came up with some great antagonists for Mary and her husband, Pete, as well as for their friends and colleagues.

Great stuff. They can't reprint it fast enough for me.