Judge Parker - The Wurst Story

I've written before about the imaginative ways writer Francesco Marciuliano and artist Mike Manley approach a daily adventure strip. They've taken Judge Parker from a somewhat staid dramatic strip into the realm of international intrigue -- and then some.

Most recently I wrote about the sequence surrounding the off-stage death of a supporting character, Godiva Danube. It's revealed that the purpose of Danube's death was to lure April Parker and her father (both ex-CIA agents) back into the country. Their former employers, a rogue branch of the Agency, wanted them eliminated.

And you thought the daily funnies were just for kids.

It's revealed that April and her father's handler, Wurst, set them up. But not by choice. What happens next is the subject of this sequence from August, 2018,

It's a sequence that would have worked in any current spy movie. Once he knows his sister is safe, Wurst takes his revenge. And it turns out his sister is in the business, too.

Two people die violently in this sequence, but it's implied rather than shown. And, given that only one strip is revealed each day, Marciuliano and Manley artfully keep the tension high and the pacing tight.

Artistry such as this is why I keep reading the daily comics page.

Death in Comics - Godiva Danube

There's an advantage to writing a gag-a-day strip as opposed to those with continuing stories. Each strip is self-contained. Panel one sets up the gag, panel two puts it in motion, and panel three delivers the punchline. 

An adventure strip has a different outline. The first panel provides a thumbnail recap, panel two continues the story, and panel three is the cliffhanger (panels two and three are often combined). There's an art to pacing the story. Make the recap too detailed, and regular readers will get bored. Have a ho-hum cliffhanger, and new readers won't come back the next day. Don't move the story along far enough and everyone gets bored. And if there are no surprises, then over time there will be no readers.

Writer Francesco Marciuliano and artist Mike Manley continue their masterful run on Judge Parker with some truly innovative story-telling. Excerpts from this sequence that ran May-June 2018 are a good example. Marciuliano has several stories arcs running concurrently and uses them to great advantage.

In a long sequence, two contract killers return to the US. April and her father are both ex-CIA black ops agents. April's escaped from federal prison and is reluctant to return to the states. She's also the ex-wife of Judge Randy Parker.  

The person at left is Neddy Spenser. She's the adopted daughter of Abby Spenser. Her husband and Randy Parker were part of the same law firm. Did April unknowingly accept a contract on a family member?

The first twist: the door the assassins are knocking on isn't the one Neddy's behind. Note that Neddy lives in apartment 3G. Apartment 3G was started by Nicholas P. Dallis in 1961. He also created Rex Morgan, M.D. (1953), and Judge Parker (1952). 

So whose door were the killers knocking on?

Godiva Danube was a singer/actress/celebrity. She had been in a failed business with Neddy Spenser (see Sophie's Crash, part 2). Earlier in 2018, she had returned to the strip to invite Neddy to come to Hollywood with her as her PA. Neddy did go to LA, not as Danube's assistant, but as an aspiring screenwriter. That's why she's waitressing. Marciuliano also frames her sequences with movie script settings in the upper left corner.

The second twist: the cause of death. The casual reader might not remember that the contract stipulated the death was to look like natural causes.

The third twist: change of location. Danube switched hotels suddenly. So April and her father were at the wrong location. And Danube was using an alias she couldn't possibly know (as just an actress/singer).

The fourth twist: enter the CIA.  Early on in this story April was concerned that they were being lured to back to the US. The mystery of Godiva Danube's death will only deepen, and I suspect Marciuliano will keep me guessing -- one panel at a time. 

Judge Parker - Sophie's Crash, Part 2

Last week I shared a major development in Judge Parker. Writer Francesco Marciuliano and artist Mike Manley are past masters at the art of newspaper comic strip storytelling. And it is an art.

Since the  1950s, real estate for comic strips has shrunk. For editors, it allowed them to put more strips on fewer pages -- but it also meant leaving less room in each strip for art and text.

Gag-a-day strips managed the transition, but adventure and dramatic (soap opera) strips struggled. For a continuing story strip, each daily installment must provide a synopsis to get readers (both old and new) up to speed and significantly advance the story. Here's an example from Judge Parker from 1952.

Note the level of detail, particularly in the background. The first panel sets the scene and provides the synopsis. Mr. Santo has an incriminating letter, and he needs to see the judge. The last panel shows us the men who want to stop him and promises danger tomorrow.

By contrast, here's Judge Parker today.

In order to have any dialogue at all, Manley's forced to use two panels instead of three. There's no space for a synopsis, but the caller's dialogue sets up the situation. And the picture of that angry father with a shotgun should encourage readers to come back tomorrow to see how this will play out.

As for the art, note the thinness of the lines. Manley uses simple block shadows instead of cross-hatching and textures. There's a reason for that.  Look at what happens to our 1952 example when shrunk to modern dimensions. The text is difficult the read, the drawing details just make the panel look cluttered.

Despite these restrictions, Marciuliano and Manley excelled in November 2016. In addition to the Sophie storyline, Marciuliano kept three other storylines in play.

1) Neddy, Sophie's adult sister was building a clothing factory to produce her fashion line.
2) Judge Parker, retired and now a best-selling author, was working on a screenplay for his most recent book.
3) His son Randy (also a judge) and his wife April are expecting their first child.

Then tragedy struck all four story lines simultaneously. And the week after Sophies' crash, these daily strips followed.

Neddy's factory collapsed into a sinkhole, leaving her to face the consequences.

Sophie's body is missing from the crash site, so her adoptive parents don't know if she's alive or dead.

The screenwriting project is stalled, leaving Alan Parker to doubt his abilities to write, Plus, their daughter-in-law April is missing.

April's father and his associate (both with espionage backgrounds), head for Europe on the trail of April. 

It was a powerful week of reading if you (like me) had been following all these story lines. And they're not yet all resolved. But there's still plenty of incentive to keep me reading every day. I can't remember another instance of a comic strip -- current or vintage -- that had more than two story arcs going at the same time. 

Genius.

Judge Parker - Sophie's Crash, Part 1

Comic strip writer Francesco Marciuliano is responsible for the innovative changes to Sally Forth (as I've noted many times). When he took over the writing assignment for Judge Parker. things changed for those characters, too. Storylines became less predictable and so more interesting.

When teenaged Sophie wanted to travel with her band to an out-of-town gig, the stage was set for a major plot development.

Young drivers on a mountain road at night in the pouring rain. I, like most readers, had an idea of what would happen next.

Especially when alcohol was added to the mix.

This storyline started in July 2016, just two months after comics page readers saw a horrific -- and fatal -- car accident in Gil Thorp (Gil Thorp - Death in Comics). But just as the wreck that took high school athlete Boo Radley's life in that strip happened in an unexpected fashion, the events in Judge Parker also played out in an unusual way.

Note the masterly pacing of Mike Manley's art.

The moment of impact is represented by a solid yellow panel. From there, we slowly pan back as a disoriented Sophie gradually sorts out where she is and what just happened.

The dreaded call comes to Spenser Farms. Sam Driver and Abby Spenser, Sophie's adoptive parents, race to the scene. And this is where things take another unexpected turn:

Notice that we don't see the girl's face. We assume that it's Sophie -- but it's not. 

I usually wait until a sequence has run before commenting, but in this case, I couldn't. This storyline is still continuing in February 2017. Marciuliano changed things up -- the major event in the story arc wasn't the wreck, it was the aftermath. The girl the police recovered was Honey, not Sophie. Sophie and the other passengers had disappeared. 

Who took them and why is only now being revealed. But that's not where this part of the story ends  -- as we'll see in part two.