The cover shows a woman apparently tearing at her hair in approved Joan Crawford style, but if you look closely at the illos near the bottom, you may be able to see the character in a karate-gi doing *katas.* But if you can't, no great loss.
This is the first of a three-issue series that debuted in 1989 from Innovation Comics, a company that blossomed with the boom of the 1980s direct market and went bust about four years later, despite (according to Wikipedia) having garnered an impressive market share thanks to the company's many comics-adaptations of established franchises. MEDIA STARR, essayed (it says here) by "Dennis Duarte, Allen Curtis, John R. Statema, & Tom Vincent," was not such a franchise. However, since it was all about the adventures of an actress who did her own fighting-stunts and also got into real-life battles (think Harvey Comics' BLACK CAT with no costumed ID), the vague Hollywood-ish vibe might've helped this mediocrity get published.
MEDIA STARR isn't worth ragging on for being a comics-turd. It's just dull, like most of the Innovation books I've read (always, I should say, culled from quarter-boxes when I had nothing new on hand to read). HOWEVER, though the art in MS #1 is absolutely average, the issue does feature two boxing matches-- one where the titular "Starr" defeats a female opponent, and one where she defeats a male in an extensive four-page bout. I'm not sure why an actress would be doing so much exhibition boxing but FWIW, this longish battle does move MEDIA STARR up from the level of "forgettable junk" to "moderate curiosity."
The cover image is not just any woman; it's a photo swipe of none other than British singer/composer Kate Bush, apparently taken from one of these images:
ReplyDeletehttp://gaffa.org/wow/k325.jpg
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kate_Bush_The_Big_Sky_picture_disc.jpg
The two photos aren't identical, but are clearly from the same session.
Yeah, when I searched MEDIA STARR to see if anyone had written about its contents online (apart from GCD or dealers), all I found was that PROGRESSIVE RUIN had put MS on a list of "celebrity cover" comics.
ReplyDeleteIt seems pretty quixotic to try selling an indie comic book about a kickboxing actress by putting a picture of a famous singer on the cover. But I guess that's 80s comics for you.