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TITANS OF FINANCE: TRUE TALES OF MONEY & BUSINESS

A financial comic book? Believe it or not!

By Tony Whitt September 24, 2001

This is a comic book?! Yup, learn all about the TITANS OF FINANCE!
© 2001 Alternative Comics

Some may consider it in poor taste to review a comic that so completely trounces Wall Street, especially in the current trying times. But R. Walker and Josh Neufeld's TITANS OF FINANCE is one of those books that shouldn't be ignored, as it's doing something fairly rare in comics: it's taking on real world happenings with a clear eye and a commitment to telling the truth. It's more journalism than comic book writing, and that alone makes it vastly appealing.

Of special interest to comics readers will be the lead story on Ron Perelman, the man who many feel single-handedly drove Marvel Comics Group into bankruptcy. It's also a chilling look back at the time when comics collecting truly was a lucrative business, and how Perelman's poor business practices helped to devastate it. The rest of the book concerns your garden variety business mogulsas if there were such a thingbut by the time Perelman's story is over, Walker and Neufeld will have you hooked.

These two are brutal, but not undeservedly so. Their portrait of Monroe Trout and his treatment of his brother seems particularly deserved. Trout went into business with his brother and then fired him, got sued by him, countersued, and then got him thrown in jail. Nice family. Their examination of Crossworlds Software's Katrina Garnett rise to fortune, while fairly unflattering, is equally as critical of the society that required a woman to appear in a low-cut dress for ads for her own company as it is of the woman who appeared in them. They also present stories on Michael Vranos, Victor Neiderhoffer, Al Dunlap, and Jay Goldingerand if you don't know who these people are, it's even more in your best interest to go buy the book.

TITANS has only two problems: the uneven quality of the artwork and the shortness of the stories. Quite often Walker takes the rule of "economy of language" just a bit too farAl Dunlap's story, for instance, runs a mere two pages. The Perelman story, at seven pages, is the most satisfying chunk of reading, but even it seems to end far too soon. In Walker's defense, some of his subjects really do burn out awfully quickly, so perhaps there simply isn't more that can be said. Neufeld's artwork is a bit more problematic, an uneasy mix of realistic detail and surreal imagery. At its best, it soarsquite literally in the Perelman story, in which the "Ron Man" dons a costume with this same name on it and attempts to fly high. At its worst, it's a bit too photorealistic and simple.

Despite these flaws, this book deserves all the attention it can get. More comics should be doing things like this.