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THE LIST
By RICH
KOSLOWSKI (3
Finger Prints; 2007)
An illustrated alterna-Santa tale, THE LIST purportedly takes “characters from our fondest, most innocent childhood memories and smacks them right in the face with a hard dose of “real world” reality.” Sounds good, but this book turns out to be yet another case of promising material given crummy treatment--although in author/illustrator Rich Koslowski’s defense, his point of view regarding Santa Claus hardly jibes with mine.
I’ll confess I was expecting something dark and subversive along the lines of Robert Devereaux’s towering SANTA STEPS OUT. THE LIST’S core concept, of Santa kidnapped by a corrupt corporation looking to get a hold of his naughty & nice list, is a grabber. The story, however, is maudlin, sugar-coated and totally in thrall to all that magic—of-Christmas BS shoved down our throats each year.
I did like that toward the end Santa wages war against the evil corporation with tanks, armed elves and exploding packages dropped by flying reindeer. Also on hand is the Abominable Snowman, who was imprisoned by the corporate scum and is none too happy about it, and Black Peter, an actual figure from Christmas lore who allegedly accompanied Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and flogged naughty children.
To get to those things, however, we have to wade through the agonizingly unsuspenseful intrigue of Santa’s confidants looking to free him from the corporation’s evil clutches. The paper-thin narrative for some reason jumps back and forth between the past and present, a device that, like so much else herein, falls flat. Nor was I too enamored with the climax, in which Santa gets the world’s children (the English speaking ones, at least) to sing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
Ironically enough, the author, in an afterward, claims his major inspiration was the Stephen King penned-Berni Wrightson illustrated CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF, which “so absolutely captured my 17-year-old imagination the Christmas of 1985.” I too was enthralled by that book, as it was gripping, well plotted, scary and unsentimental--all things THE LIST is definitely not.