New
Year’s Eve 2017
I
Die At Midnight
Hitchcock
thriller meets Loony Tunes as Y2K approaches
"Untitled”
Story and Art – Kyle Baker
Editors – Cliff Chaing
and Joan Hilty
December 1999
I’ve already extolled the greatness of Kyle Baker when I covered Web of Spider-Man #18.
I went over his ability to create expressive faces and capture emotion in the
little details.
Sometime
in the late 90’s, Baker’s style took a turn down Loony Tunes lane. I mean that
in a good way. Baker’s style of doing bodies either as “thick stick-figures” or
as realistic human physiques morphed into something else. He developed an odd melding
of Will Eisner and a Roger Rabbit cartoon. The character models conveyed action
and motion but in an exaggerated fashion.
Around
this same time Baker was given permission to do a single story in an expanded,
square-bound prestige format book as part DC’s Vertigo end of 1999 celebration.
Dubbed V2K, the event featured five titles that were used to usher in the millennium.
Three of the titles were spread out into 3-to-4 issue miniseries to cover the
fifth week holes. The other two titles were one-shots released around the end
of year.
Baker’s
was the only title that was given completely over to one man to work as both
writer and artist (not to mention letterer and colorist). That’s a lot of faith
in what he was bringing to the table.
What
erupted from that wild crazy head of his was the contents of “I Die at Midnight,”
a 63 page tale of Larry’s attempt at suicide on New Year’s Eve, 1999. I’m going
to truncate much of the tale and just give you brief tastes of Baker’s style
instead of my usual meticulous running commentary. I don’t think tearing it
down to that level would do the story justice, nor will my commentary. I Die at
Midnight, while having a few flaws, is decent fun and deserves the slow
unfolding that only a full read-thru of Baker’s book can give it.
We
begin with newscasters running down a gamut of Y2K predictions of power outages
and bad things that will occur on the last second of 1999. While Larry prints
out a suicide note and takes some prescriptions pills. Far too many to be safe.
Story-wise,
Larry is torn up over losing Muriel, his girlfriend. So torn up, in fact that
he has decided to end it all. He downs the rest of the bottle of pills and
reprints the letter when a knock comes from his door.
It’s
Muriel.
And
with this one panel, I’m on board for whatever and wherever this goes. I love
that character stance for the pure personality it radiates. So many tells. From
the out-thrust hip and the slight upward tilt of the head as well as the
crossed arms we get the impression that Muriel is a strong, confident, spunky
woman. Just an amazing job by Baker of packing so much information into one
panel.
As
for what this means for Larry, it means he jumped the gun on trying to kill himself.
And given what we know about Muriel from that brief picture and a few scattered
word balloons, we know she will leave him again if she finds out.
So
Larry is in a pinch here and Baker takes the route of making his getting rid of
the evidence and trying to throw up the pills a bit of physical comedy. He has
to cover up the empty pill bottle and the suicide note.
Magnificent
work on the “bokeh” (blurry background) in those top two panels. It is easy to
see why Vertigo would entrust so much of this project to just one guy. This is
top caliber work artistically.
As
for Larry, he next has to turn off the computer, so Muriel doesn’t see the electronic
copy of the note. However, Larry is unable to get past Muriel into the bathroom
and in the end, she locks herself in.
We
get this lovely, exquisite bit where Larry tries to find a place to “toss his
cookies,” but finds that some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb…
…including
this amazing scene…
…and
this bit with him trying to do it down the stairwell.
Larry
gives up on trying to get the poisons out of his system and decides to call in
a favor after checking to see if Muriel is close to coming out of the john.
The
book is full of these bits of physical character comedy that are just charming
and witty as all get-out.
Larry
calls his friend Charlie, who factors into the story in a big way. First, Charlie
knows a female doctor (named Gigi) that Larry seeks discrete help from so he can avoid the
inquires a hospital would make into why he ended up with so many pills in his system.
More importantly in story context, Charlie is meeting up with said female
doctor friend later this evening for a friendly night on the town. Even MORE
importantly is that Charlie just broke up with Muriel, who was living with him
after she left Larry. Even Mostest importantly, Charlie is an amoral killer who
will let nothing stand in his way of getting Muriel back.
Improbable
setup? Certainly, but no more than any Hitchcockian mystery. In fact, all the
story really needs is a macguffin to complete the feel of one of his films.
And
we get one in the form of a “special” pill that the doctor has that will prevent
Larry from dying if he can take one before midnight. But first she implores him
to call 911, throw up the pills, and not to eat anything.
Except
Larry doesn’t, spending the better part of the next hour in bed with Muriel.
Which
brings up the miracle pill that she has that will stop Larry from expiring. She
agrees to meet Larry at the party she and Charlie are scheduled to attend.
And
that is all the puzzle pieces lined up nicely in rows according to shape and
color. Let’s see a bit of how Baker puts this one together, shall we? He starts
with showing running clock numbers every page or so in red, counting down possibly
the last half-hour Larry has on this Earth.
Larry
wakes Muriel to take her to the party with him because he can’t just leave her
in his apartment alone.
While
they get dressed to leave for the party, Charlie and GiGi meet at the subway. Charlie
is dressed as a cop so people will buy him free drinks. Gigi comments that she
knows he’s sad about his girlfriend leaving him. Unfortunately, she goes a bit
too far in describing Larry’s predicament, sending Charlie off the rails.
And
Gigi off the subway platform into the path of an oncoming train.
She
ends up alive, but is chased by Charlie as she slips between cars and trainlines
to get to Larry. She gets as far as Times Square before he catches up with her.
Meanwhile
Larry is forced to make a detour to Muriel’s grandmother’s apartment for a
brief visit because her house is on the way. Muriel won’t take no for an
answer. While there she tries to get him to eat some pie, a definite no-no for
his poisoned condition.
He
sees Gigi getting choked by Charlie in Times Square and makes his way out of
the apartment fast. Gigi uses a scalpel from her purse to injure Charlie badly
enough that he lets her go and we now have a three-way chase.
From
here on out the book is a series of mostly wordless panels as Charlie chases
Gigi, Larry chases Gigi and Muriel chases Larry. Baker works a wizard-level
amount of magic in making effortless scenes like the one below that show action
and emotion while eating up tons of page space.
I’ll
admit the book becomes a page turner at this point and in no way could I convey
the level of ramped-up thrills it provides. And humor, too. Like this bit where
Larry gets in an elevator to rush to the right floor of the building only to
find the schoolgirl exiting it has hit ALL the floor buttons.
The
finale takes place as the two combatants wrestle for the pill bottle on the
ledges and rooftops of some of New York’s skyscrapers as the clock counts down to
the final seconds of midnight. There are harrowing escapes and drops and so
much good stuff…
Does
Larry make it to the pills in time? Does Charlie prevent him from seeing the
new year? Does Gigi survive her fall? And does Muriel end up finding out the reason for Larry’s odd behavior this evening?
I’m
not telling.
This
is a book that I can’t bring myself to spoil. Baker has done an exceptional job
of putting it together and Comixology has if for a very reasonable price (given
today’s elevated price-points $6 for 63 pages of story complete in one issue is
a steal.) Go pick up a copy.
It’s
as good as you think it should be.
