Emergency!
Season Four
Starring Randolph Mantooth, Kevin Tighe, Robert Fuller, Julie London
Paramount Home Video
Available: Jan. 29, 2008

In the early 1970s, if you wanted to get a glimpse of what paramedics do in the course of a typical day, your options were kind of limited. Basically, you could either: (1) become a paramedic; or (2) wait for a car accident to occur on your block. Obviously, both of these involved an investment of time somewhat disproportionate to the goal at hand.

Enter Emergency!, a one-hour television drama chronicling the goings-on of a Los Angeles fire station and the nearby emergency hospital served by it. Premiering in 1972 and co-created by Jack Webb, the show was not altogether unlike Dragnet — only with emergency medical personnel instead of hard-boiled detectives. The series mostly follows the work of John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe), two paramedics from Engine 51. A second component of the show’s focus is the emergency room staff at Rampart General Hospital, to which the victims attended to by Engine 51 are typically transported. This staff includes Dr. Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller), Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup), Dr. Mike Morton (Ron Pinkard), and head nurse Dixie McCall (Julie Lond on). The series’ remaining regular cast consists of the other members of the Engine 51 crew, some of whom are played by real-life firefighters who go by their real names in the show.

Putting aside for a moment whether it’s a worthwhile endeavor, if one were to divide early-1970s TV shows into a Brady Bunch school of thought and an All in the Family school, Emergency! would, I think, be considerably more aligned with the Brady Bunch mentality. Sure, things go wrong on the show — sometimes disastrously (after all, the plot action is essentially a succession of life-threatening emergencies of varying scope) — but the overall vibe is incongruously chipper. (Or perhaps “CHiPper,” as Emergency! frequently projects a feel very much like its later-1970s California Highway Patrol counterpart.) To more fully impart the strange juxtaposition of medical emergency and lightheartedness that permeates the series, I refer to a description Gilbert Gottfried once gave of a possible Disney TV series, in which one of the main characters was a rotting, maggot-infested corpse. “But they were cute little Disney maggots,” reassured Gilbert, if I recall correctly. So it goes with Emergency! — even though the victims on the show often present with grave injuries (and sometimes even die), just about everyone seems to live happily ever after by the time each episode ends.

Death By Chocolate: Redux
Written and Drawn by David Yurkovich
Top Shelf Productions
Cover Price $14.95; Available Now

Read that title again.

Death By Chocolate.

Do I even need to write this review? I mean, you see that title and you can probably decide on the spot whether you’re going to give the book a try or not. You’ll either have the, “Now that’s just odd enough to make me curious” reaction, or the, “Uh… no thanks. Not my bag” reaction.

You’ve already had that reaction, haven’t you?

It’s okay, you’re not alone. It’s just that kind of title. Hell, it was the title that made me choose to review this book in the first place! So, here’s what I’m gonna do… I’m going to do my review thing, tell you my observations, voice my opinions, tell you what *my* take on it was. And then, afterwards, I challenge you to reassess your initial reaction and see if you don’t still feel exactly the same way about it as you did when you first read the title.

I bet you will.

It’s just that kind of title.

Death By Chocolate tells the story of Agent Swete, an (eventual) operative of the FBI’s “Food Crime Division” who has the inimitable distinction of being world’s only person comprised of living organic chocolate.

A weekly struggle between my husband and I is the single-issue vs. trade comic book argument. He likes to read our favorite comic book titles as single issues, whereas I like to wait for the trade paperback editions. I do understand his anticipation to grab the latest installment, but I find it frustrating to have to wait after getting through one issue, therefore, I like to have a few collected issues so I can read it all at once.

As you can imagine, we have to compromise on each title. For example, he won the single-issue argument for B.P.R.D.; I won the trade argument for Y: The Last Man. And it was working out well for me … until today, which sees the release of the 60th and final issue of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra‘s series, Y: The Last Man.

And now not only will I have to wait until June 3 (!!!) when the final trade Volume 10 is released to find out how the series ends, but I’m going to miss out on all the hoopla going on right now — AND, the husband will probably never let me hear the end of it (and I can’t blame him, can I?).

The arrival of this final issue — which concludes the tale of Yorick Brown, the sole human male survivor of a plague, and his pet monkey Ampersand — has garnered plenty of attention, with a feature in USA Today and a $100 per person Y: The Last Party charity event next week in Los Angeles with keynote speaker Joss Whedon.

New Line has plans to adapt the best-selling Vertigo series for the big screen with Disturbia director D.J. Caruso at the helm, Carl Ellsworth penning the script, and David Goyer producing. Caruso said that the movie will cover the first 14 issues of the comic book series, which would leave room for a film trilogy.

Empire has a new image from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which shows Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones with a bazooka, together with Shia LeBeouf and Karen Allen.

Check out the preview image here at right (click for larger view).

Producer Frank Marshall tells the magazine that director Steven Spielberg is “pretty much done editing” and that the film’s composer John Williams is currently writing, with scoring to start in February.

Marshall also said that the fourth film will be closest in tone to its predecessor, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, stating, “I think the banter between the characters is as fun as it was in the third movie.”

Atomic Robo #4
Written by Brian Clevinger
Art by Scott Wegener, Zack Finfrock
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Letters by Jeff Powell
Red 5 Comics
Cover price: $2.95; On sale: Jan. 16, 2008

I gave the ending of the last issue a bit of a hard time, since the issue just kind of stopped without any indication it was the end. Well, it’s okay, because the story continues here, before going into another flashback. I was kind of worried about this series after the last issue, but with issue number four, it’s rocketed right back into my heart, with probably my favorite issue so far. I think I enjoyed it so much because it lived up to my expectation of what I thought the series was going to be, as opposed to what the first three issues actually were. That said, I’m really starting to enjoy the main character as I get a feel for his personality, and this issue helps to fill in some of the reasons why he is the way he is.

After the events of last issue, Atomic Robo is in the Egyptian desert, having just destroyed a moving pyramid along with its undead inhabitants. Unfortunately, he suffered some damage, so the Action Scientists go to work to get him back online. The repair sends Robo into a flashback of his trip to Mars back in the 70’s. There are cameos from Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, and the writer, Brian Clevinger describes the issue as “the only comedy issue we did for this mini-series.” I can see where he’s going with that comic, because while the first few issues have had a few funny moments, this issue had me laughing out load at several points. I guess one of my problems with this series is that I know Clevinger as largely a comedy writer, and this series is really going for something different, more a pulp adventure with sometimes humorous moments. And it’s doing that well. The creative team is really starting to find it’s footing, and this issue has a much better cliff hanger than the previous issue did.