Pop Culture Diary: This Week's Reviews, Reads and Roundups

What I've Been Into...

"Breakdown: 1975" (2025) This is a breezy, albeit not terribly brainy, survey of a pivotal time in U.S. politics and film and how the two intersected.

Jodie Foster narrates and we see lots of cleverly edited news and film clips, including memorable bits of "Nashville," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Jaws," etc.

There also are lots of talking head observations (none very deep) from Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Albert Brooks and the like, along with a bunch of people who were barely around at the time, such as Patton Oswalt (born 1969), Josh Brolin (born 1968), or weren't even born yet, like Seth Rogen (born 1982!).

Also oddly, many of the events and films related in the film also fall outside the confines of 1975. Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation, for example, occurred in 1973, which "Network," "All the President's Men" and "Taxi Driver," were all released in 1976, just like the film's adopted theme tune, "Breakdown," by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

But, hey, it was all in the same ballpark. And the doc nicely frames this general period as a highpoint of thoughtful, original, socially aware American cinema that, sadly, ended with the success of "Jaws" and the blockbusters that followed in the big shark's wake.

The doc could've/should've been much better, but it's an entertaining diversion, nevertheless.

"The Stranger" (1946) This one is worth a look, seeing as how we're battling Nazis on our home turf again.

Playing against type, Edward G. Robinson is a fascist-fighter hunting down a German baddie (Orson Welles) who's assumed a new name and identity as a college professor in small-town Connecticut. Loretta Young stars as his unwitting bride.

It's pretty suspenseful stuff, with moody direction by Welles and deep-shadow cinematography from Russell Metty, along with excellent performances by the entire cast, including the great Billy House providing comic relief as the front-counter man at the local store.

Also notable is the film's great final showdown, set high up in a bell tower. I'm betting Hitchcock was remembering this when he made "Vertigo."

"Sense of Wonder, My Life in Comic Fandom: The Whole Story," by Bill Schelly (2018) Anyone who's life was changed — maybe even saved — by comic books should love this book by the late fanzine pioneer and comics historian Bill Schelly.

Like many of us (I'm figuring), Schelly didn't fit in as a kid. He wasn't an athlete or in the cool crowd in school, and he got picked on. As a special bonus, he also was gay.

But superhero comics, with their sense of empowerment and foundation in justice, appealed to him and he found fellowship with other fans. Growing up in the early 60s, he also was at just the right age to hop into the Silver Age and the fanzines it inspired, including several he published himself.

Schelly talks about his interactions with notable fans such as Jerry Bails, Roy Thomas, Don Thompson and other, along with comics pros such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.

Post college, Schelly drifted away from the hobby due to work and other distractions, but got involved again in the late 1980s and ultimately launched himself into a new career as a comics biographer, writing books about Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, John Stanley and other greats. The book also details his life as a gay man and as a parent.

Altogether, it's a heartwarming and inspiring life story that, sadly, was cut too short.

Sunday Reads

The Comics Journal chats with Spanish cartoonist Jordi Lafebre:

I read somewhere that the Glorious Summers books are a personal tribute to the classic comics you read as a kid. What were some of those?

I grew up in Barcelona in the '80s, and in Barcelona at that time, you could find any comic. So I didn't realize that there were French comics, American comics, Spanish comics ... I just read what I loved. I remember having some Garfield, Asterix of course, Superman and Spider-Man. And the first mangas as they appeared, Dragon Ball ... I read them all at the same time, just amazed by the stories and the characters and the movement implied ... everything. It was only in my late teens, when I had already decided I wanted to be a comic book artist, that I realized they came from such different places and markets, such different traditions. So I started to read all of them in a different way. You realize that Asterix and the French comic books have a kind of family. And Dragon Ball and Goku come from manga, a very different language to Spider-Man and Superman. And as a professional, you can study the differences as well as the things they share. But when I was a kid, I was in it just for the characters and the stories and for the worlds they built in your mind. They all shared space in my head and I just loved them. I still try to catch that feeling when I do a book, that feeling of being amazed by a story. I try to make the reader forget that they are they are reading a comic book. I want them to live the story, to be inside it and forget about their lives for a moment. That's the feeling I had when I was reading comic books. And that's still the thing that I try to do today. To have people get absorbed by the story, because it’s amazing when that happens.