DC PRIDE: A CELEBRATION OF RACHEL POLLACK

In celebration of Pride Month, DC Comics has just released a special comic book honoring the memory of Rachel Pollack, one of my writing instructors at Clarion West '96. When Rachel passed away last year, I wrote this blog post about the significance of her work and its impact on me. If you've never read her fiction, I highly recommend starting off with the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel UNQUENCHABLE FIRE (1988), the Nebula Award-nominated novel TEMPORARY AGENCY (1994), and BURNING SKY (1998), a masterful collection of twenty-seven numinous short stories originally published between 1971 and 1993. 

Her work in the comic book medium was no less impressive. Among my favorites is her peculiar, metaphysical reinterpretation of Joe Simon's short-lived, late-sixties comic book BROTHER POWER THE GEEK (one of the most unusual comic books to ever bear the DC logo). Simon's original series followed the misadventures of a mannequin who is brought to life by an errant bolt of lightning and transformed into a super-powered hippie. Published in 1993, Rachel's version of THE GEEK is a nonlinear, surreal psychodrama that traces the Geek's somnambulant, tragedy-filled journey from 1960s America to the dawn of the 1990s at which point he awakens to the decades of torture he has experienced at the hands of a madman named Dr. Abuse (an obvious play on Norbert Jacques' villainous Dr. Mabuse, the subject of three Fritz Lang films). Pollack's intense script benefits from the always stunning artwork of Michael and Laura Allred. Fortunately, THE GEEK one-shot is included in DC PRIDE: A CELEBRATION OF RACHEL POLLACK, which is well worth the $9.99 price tag. It was released last week, so you should pick up a copy asap.