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2001 (1968/1976)

by Arthur C. Clarke / Jack Kirby

Didn't expect a comic, did you?

Ordinarily, you'd be right. I'm not much for comics -- there are too many real books to read. But this one was made from a book, so it counts. And it has to count also because it makes such a comical (ouch) attempt to render the "Dimension Trip":

"There's no stopping the wild slide -- a thousand BIZARRE sights and patterns rush madly across his line of vision ... TURBULENT island universes wheel and spiral within sight until they flicker out and VANISH ... Mammoth LANDSCAPES flash into being! In barren vastness they ROLL before the eye with cosmic majesty ... Each sight becomes more OUTRAGEOUS than the other -- space and time have lost their meaning -- world blends with world -- they JOIN, they PART -- they CRACK in shards of overwhelming size and shape ... It is a SAVAGE and continuous disorientation which smashes ALL memory and identification with the individual self -- Dave Bowman CANNOT remember who he is -- or how he came to be ... he has become completely traumatized..."

Good LORD, it's a good thing the movie wasn't that BAD. It's also a GOOD THING comics aren't allowed into the Bulwer-Lytton contest, because few REAL books could compete with PROSE like that. (Yep, that's why it's PURPLE.)

It is also good that they don't let adjective-slinging television newscaster scripts into the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Just thinking here.