Things get weirder in Bettie-land.
Creative Staff:
Story: David Avallone
Art: Colton Worley
Colors: Colton Worley
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Between cultists, creeps, spies, mind-control rays, flying saucers and the LAPD, Bettie has had just about enough of everyone’s crap. Watch out, Hollywood. Now you’ve made her mad. David Avallone and Colton Worley continue to help Bettie work through her issues, in The Secret Diary of BETTIE PAGE, Chapter Three.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Tales from Hollywood, and Hollyweird, are par for the course and there’s always a certain kind of fun to it all. David Avallone has tapped into that nicely with the Bettie Page series and that continues on in the third installment here, though things are now spiraling further out of control and the reader is feeling like Bettie in wondering just what the heck is going on. What helps is that it continues to be a delight visually, not that the story is bad, and just watching Bettie running through all of these situations and in these outfits, as well as others from the period, makes for a lot more fun than I think I expected. Particularly with the addition of Druker as she’s a real highlight of this installment.
With the way things went on the mind control side the last time around the arrival of the police just makes it all the more crazy. And that’s not even counting the space ship that Bettie and Druker see from the roof, which only adds to the disbelief of the hardcore cops that come to deal with them. This just has Bettie being dragged all around with nobody believing her as to what happened, though that ends up falling to the wayside when a shot of the ship appears on TV and Elroy is out there going on about how their space brothers have arrived to help guide mankind to the next level. Suffice to say, it’s easy to see why Bettie’s simply able to get out of there easily as there are bigger issues. The positive side is that she does this with Druker and we get the strengthening of a really fun friendship here that’s now underway.
What this does is to get the two going around town to try and figure out more of what’s going on. It’s comical in a way with Bettie still in her space commie costume and trying to get better clothes but running into problems there, notably the place in Pasadena blowing up. The things are there as to who all is really behind a lot of this, especially at Global Pictures, but it’s just a treat to see her and Druker trying to piece things together while being whisked from place to place and touching on several characters. When we do get the supposed reveal of what’s truly going on, with a story about who Rick may really be, it’s just a whiplash kind of twist in a way that leaves you feeling like Bettie – not trusting anyone at all. And that’ll make for a fun installment the next time around
In Summary:
Bettie Page is still the kind of series where it’s walking a fine line and Avallone is handling it pretty well. It’s camp but not quite, it’s surreal but not quite, and it’s serious but not quite. Each piece of it builds together to a really fun and weird book that just delights me in watching how Bettie handles it with her wit and sometimes her resignation as to certain events. The artwork is a lot of the appeal as well as Worley really handles the cast as a whole very well and I love the costume design where it looks like some good thought and design ideas went into it in order to make it work. Bettie’s usually the standout but for me this issue was all about Druker and just made me want her story all the more. Good fun stuff.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: September 27th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
