Mysterius
*Starred Review* Alternative-weekly reporter Ella Tamblyn has become the new Delfi, personal assistant to the Great Mysterius, a conjurer who’s the real deal. He’s many, many decades old. His astral body, or whatever, actually goes to hell, whose denizens sometimes return the favor, thanks to pesky Satanists. Ella was covering a high-society séance led by Mysterius. The host became semicatatonic when a skeptic broke the circle of held hands. Since she saw what Mysterius saw in hell, he knows she’s his new girl Friday and, with a little sorcerous legerdemain, secures the arrangement. Right away they have two cases to resolve: the séance host’s and that of a witch-cursed, whoremongering billionaire. By the end of the book, they, at least, are sitting pretty, and the trip has been one, indeed. Full of incident, wisecracks, tongue-in-cheek sentimental climaxes, and scary-silly ectoplasmic critters, Parker’s script may be better than those of the last yea-many fantasy FX flickers put together. Fowler draws as if he were channeling Al Capp and Jack Davis, making the women zaftig; giving any man who doesn’t have to be fit, including Mysterius, a big red nose and the gut to go with it; and souping up the action with a loopy hyperkineticism worthy of Sam Kieth (The Maxx) and Peter Bagge (The Bradleys). --Ray Olson