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Underground > Comic Books >

Did Snow kill a Japanese Doctor for his Clothes and Haircut?

11:00 / 12.12.04

If I hadn't watched it right after reading the third collection of Planetary, I probably'd never have noticed. But I did, and I did notice, too.
Is it me, or does the doctor in the Japanese film, 'Gemini' (and his disturbed identical twin, I believe) dress as points, very, very similar to Snow's kit in the issue where he kicks in Dracula's crotch and begins his training with Holmes? Even the haircut seems identical. Snow has eyebrows, though, which is a good defense of creative dissimilarity.
Perhaps they're both a reference to something I'm unfamiliar with? White suits of that cut and that particular hairstyle more prevalent than I have ever noticed?
Or, did Snow, on top of killing a monster with it's arm, shooting Batman's parents, and taking The Drummer outside without a leash, actually go to a plague zone, and kill a doctor for his clothes and hairstyle?

Also, while I'm at it, does the concept of Ellis' upcoming Western iss, scare anyone else as much as it does me?

21:10 / 12.12.04

12:07 / 13.12.04

The film's and the issue's do seem a bit more similar to me, but it does make me inordinately happy to coalesce Yukio/Sutekichi/Snow/Black Jack with John Cale and (which one came up with the costuming I wonder?) Ellis and/or Cassiday. If only there could be a 'many faces of Snow' issue, like 'Night on Earth'. Angry old man Snow, superb musician Snow, Dr. Snow, hulking big uber-moralist Snow, campy sixties television program Snow... Marlon Brando as Snow (at various ages... Brando, I mean, though a Snow-as-he-ages (or doesn't) has it's amusement value).

12:30 / 13.12.04

(which one came up with the costuming I wonder?)

My money's on Ellis, since he'd used the "trademark white suit" thing before, with Jenny Sparks—as opposed to the trademark black suit" thing with, oh, seemingly every other character he's ever written. Because the suit is WHITE, you see. And Snow (and, it is implied, Jenny Sparks) is not so much an independent life-form as a defense mechanism—a single, specialized-function CELL in a larger organism, you might say—for this world, one of many in the BLEED. A WHITE CELL, if you will, oh and DO YOU SEE?

14:16 / 14.12.04

My goodness.

There's just as much to be said for thematic unity (no matter how hit-you-over-the-head it may be) as there is for complex shades of meaning varied enough to justify even Jack Fear's cleverness (no matter how hit-you-over-the-head he may be regarding said cleverness).

Now, sarcasm...there's nothing to be said for that. Oldest tripe on the Web, it is, and not nearly as interesting as you are clever, Jack.

14:36 / 14.12.04

Saracsm? I never touch the stuff. I heard it sends you blind.

14:38 / 14.12.04

(That would be "sarcasm," obv)

14:40 / 14.12.04

14:41 / 14.12.04

(No, this would be "sarcasm," genius—although as "clever" as you are, you probably already knew that. Doi-ee.)

14:52 / 14.12.04

Anyway.

Catjerome: that would be Hopkirk (deceased), yeah? A ghost of the 20th century...

I figure it's more a Dixie-gentleman type thing—from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe, the ice-cream suit has been a symbol of Southern gentility...

15:11 / 14.12.04

well obviously it's either

not the same sorta suit, but SF as fuck

though for those who care to read between the lines the significance of the following to elly's angry overweight funnybooks and belly has always been clear: