Boaz Yakin & Erez Yakin: The Remarkable Worlds Of Professor Phineas B. Fuddle: Book 1

Since Tim Burton's 1989 adaptation of Batman, the bond between Hollywood filmmaking and comic books has grown stronger. While many projects (Superman, Fantastic Four, and, until recently, Spider-Man) have languished in production dead zones, there now seems as much interest in adapting superhero comics as there once was in updating old TV series, a trend sure to be compounded by the success of X-Men. While the established icons of the comic-book world get suited up for big-screen treatments, what of the smaller world of independent comics? A rough corollary to the world of independent filmmaking—distinguished by having the word "independent" seem less of an oxymoron—the indie comics community has so far yielded little more than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mystery Men (both more or less superhero projects themselves), and the forthcoming Ghost World. Given the amount of talent and creativity in comics, it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect more. But as writer and artist Brian Michael Bendis found, success in the film world doesn't come easy. Best known for the crime comic Jinx but fast becoming a welcome unavoidable presence (for proof, check out the new series Powers), Bendis became the unexpected subject of studio attention after a Spin profile. Attempting to capitalize while maintaining his creative integrity, Bendis became ensnared in the production machinery, an ordeal he describes in the witty new graphic novel Fortune And Glory. Free of thesmug, self-involved, wannabe-insider tone that has turned accounts of "making it in Hollywood" into an unpleasant, cliché-ridden subgenre, Bendis' book simply portrays an absurd situation in all its absurdity. "Everything you've heard about L.A. is true," Bendis writes, "except much, much more bizarre." Drawing himself as a cross between a grown-up Charlie Brown and Munch's The Scream, the native Clevelander enters a world overrun with helpful but powerless friends and clueless gatekeepers, including a development exec who memorably insists that Eliot Ness wasn't real. Bendis, whose film came close to getting made at Miramax, doesn't really have any new insights into his subject, but he's able to spin his own experiences into an amusing story that illustrates why it's sometimes best to hold onto a day job. Filmmaking is writer-director Boaz Yakin's day job, but he's lately turned to moonlighting in comics. Best known for the outstanding Fresh and the forthcoming Remember The Titans, Yakin, with The Remarkable Worlds Of Professor Phineas B. Fuddle, has crafted a story he'd have a hard time making into a film without a mammoth budget. Illustrated by Erez Yakin, Phineas starts off in a version of Victorian London that's suddenly become overrun with strange devices and mysterious landmarks. Two quarreling friends trace their origins to a time-traveling scientist fixated on Ancient Egypt and are soon themselves transported back to the land of the pharaohs, only to find it equipped with trains, flying machines, and all sorts of anachronistic technology. The Yakins' first installment of Phineas seems largely an excuse to have fun with the connections between 19th-century England and Ancient Egypt, but its lightheartedness goes a long way toward compensating for its lightness. Promising, if somewhat unpolished, it further suggests that there ought to be more than spandex binding the worlds of comics and film.