Liberty Bell March, Day 28: "Trust me, madam. Your underwear is in good hands."

Tonight and on this very stage: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen!


covers of (L) King Classics #17 (King Features, 1978), painting by Antonio Bernal, and
(R) Classics Illustrated #146 (Thorpe & Porter UK, 1962), art by Denis Gifford
Hey, both those covers spotlight the same scene? Okay, Denis and Antonio...somebody step forward and admit he's the plagiarist!






cover of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen #1 (Now, July 1989), painted art by Mark Wheatley
Actually, what we're gonna look at tonight is the comic of the movie (directed by Terry Gilliam in 1988, so there's your Python connection) of the book (by Rudolf Erich Raspe, 1785) of the (highly fictionalized) life the real baron, Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen. I shall now pause the blog post so that you can say "gesundheit."

I'm a big fan of this film, probably because it fits squarely in Gilliam's wheelhouse (which is pretty weirdly shaped). The preposterous tall tales and the "Age of Reason" atmosphere are well depicted by Gilliam, and its extremely loose structure of a wrap-around story that slides away when convenient to flash back, via Munchausen's narration to his extraordinary life and adventures. It's chock full (and you know how stuffed those chocks are) of colorful scenery and larger-than-life characters with almost mythical superheroic powers. Out of Gilliams films, I find it the most gloriously mythical. I'd compare it to some of the great Finnish-Russo epic movies we've seen spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 like Aleksandr Ptushko's Sadko (shown here in its English-language version as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad):



Luckily Gilliam's movie...and the comic...don't have such washed-out color:

from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen #1; script by Matthew Costello and Mark Wheatley; breakdowns by Mark Wheatley; finishes by Ernie Guanlao, Damon Willis, and Insight Studios; inks by Insight Studios; colors by Damon Willis, Kathryn Mayer, and Mark Wheatley; letters by Kathryn Mayer and Marc Hempel
(Click picture to Copasand-size)
It's a book where the sometiems-garish coloring of the Now Comics line actually works in its favor. This is big, brassy Technicolor stuff.

When a play about his life is being performed in a beseiged city's theater, the real (or is he?) Munchausen shows up to protest. He says: "I protest!" Or flowery words to that nature.


Looks like the comic didn't exactly have full depiction rights to the film's actors, but I think it actually works in its favor. Too often movie adaptation comics sacrifice energy and motion to slavishly depict an actor's face, but this is a recognizable-enough cariature of star John Neville as the Baron.


The movie and comic both are a celebration of the art of storytelling. It doesn't matter if a story is true, all that matters is that it's entertaining. And ooh, this artwork plays that up just fine.


in addition to Gilliam directing and co-writing the script, there's another Python connection: Eric Idle plays Berthold, "The Fastest Man on Earth!" Yes, he's this Elseworld's Flash. That's why the Audience Favorite Film Moment at the 1989 Oscars was when Berthold entered the Speed Force.



I highly recommend both the movie (now streaming on the Roku Channel, and available for rental on Amazon Prime or Apple TV) and the comic (you can usually find it used for a buck or so an issue). Bully sez "dont ask, just buy it!"

I won't spoil the comic any further, except to say that yes, the comic does include the scenes with Robin Williams as the (head of) the King of the Moon, but more important, Uma Thurman as Venus. Hotchy-motchy! Caution: scene may be a little too sexy for some young bulls. But not for me, I can tell ya!



from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen #3 (Now, September 1989); script by Matthew Costello and Mark Wheatley; breakdowns by Mark Wheatley; finishes by Ernie Guanlao, Damon Willis, and Insight Studios; inks by Insight Studios; colors by Damon Willis, Kathryn Mayer, and Mark Wheatley; letters by Kathryn Mayer and Marc Hempel

Golly.