The Incredible Hulchalka?
I realize that I’m not holding up to my end of the comic book blogger bargain when I admit that I’ve yet to see the new Incredible Hulk movie. In fact, I’m a few superhero movie behind, this summer blockbuster season. That said, hopefully I can maintain a touch of geek cachet with the admission that I do, from time to time, check out some of the industry’s finer message boards.
During one particularly slow afternoon in the blogosphere last week, I happened upon an interesting thread over at the American Elf. A handful of James Kochalka fans were discussing similarities between a scene in the new film and one of the artist’s more infamous strips.
Initially appearing in a small black and white anthology and later remcomissioned and redrawn in color for 2001’s Incredible Hulk Annual, Kochalka’s four-page “Hulk vs. the Rain” explores the psychoses of Bruce Banner’s walking id in ways that Ang Lee’s film couldn’t even begin to broach.
That said, the climatic scene in Lee’s 2003 take on the gamma-radiated Mr. Hyde drew a few online comparisons to Kochalka’s short story, particularly of note is this blog post by Jason Lutes which also happily reprints the story in its entirety.
I asked Kochalka for his own take on the story. Like myself, the artist had yet to see the film (though if he had previously been on the fence, surely this minor buzz will be enough to put him over-the-top), and while he could neither confirm or deny any similiarities between one particular scene in the new movie and his own now-classic story, he was more than happy to stoke the rumor’s flames, ever-so-slightly.
So sayeth Kochalka:
Could my little four page story be one of the most influential Hulk comics of all time? My ambition has always been to create a powerful work of art that could stand up against the great works of history and be remembered and beloved for generations. It would be hilarious if my greatest work turned out to be my little “Hulk Vs. the Rain” comic.
The artist also pointed me toward a handful of blogs making similar claims:
If this does indeed turn out to be the sort of trend its purportedly shaping up to be, with Hollywood mining the national resource that is James Kochalka’s weird and wonderful brain, here’s hoping the screenwriters for that long-threatened Justice League film have caught up on all of their back issues of Superf*ckers.
–Brian Heater
