THE MASK: THE COLLECTION
THE MASK RETURNS
By John Arcudi & Doug Mahnke
(Dark Horse/Titan Books £8.99 & £7.99)
The sugary movie version of Dark Horse Comics’ slapstick/horror-comic The Mask is a treat for kids; the original run of comic books resuscitated in these collections is an even greater treat for psychopaths. The Mask itself is an all-powerful Instant Id Kit, a pass-the-parcel Mr Hyde capable of seducing the most steadfast Dr Jekyll: slap it on and all of a sudden you can not only do whatever you want, but you can no longer think of a single good reason not to do exactly what you want. As it stands, The Mask is utterly unfilmable: Jim Carrey and his cinematic co-conspirators laundered the concept by performing a heart transplant on a spectacularly violent comic strip whose proudest boast is that it never had a heart in the first place. The Mask’s most consistent joke is the inhuman indestructability which the Mask confers on its various hapless wearers; the joke’s punchline is the human vulnerability of every other character. Artist Mahnke spends most of the first book trying a variety of graphic styles — Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, Robert Crumb, Los Bros Hernandez — on for size before triumphantly finding his own identity in a clear-line European idiom; author Arcudi wallows in The Mask’s malevolence with an appropriately obscene relish. As thoroughly stylish as anything done in comics during the last few years, but emphatically not for the squeamish — or for the young fans of the movie.
Time Out, 1994
