The Blues Brothers Return in Comic Form
By Dan Brown John Belushi may be dead, but Jake Blues lives on. He’s the McGuffin in the graphic novel The Return of the Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake. You may remember him as the rotund half of the brotherhood that first appeared in the classic big-screen comedy The Blues Brothers. This 128-page sequel is aimed at the small sliver of the Venn diagram where comic fandom and Blues Brothers fandom overlap. In other words, yours truly is the target audience. The book goes off in new directions, which is a good thing, while maintaining enough of the flavour of the 1980 film to stay true to its essence. It features a new pair of brothers – a Chicago cop and a young black musician – in some familiar situations. As you may recall, the Blues Brothers were last seen performing their brand of soulful music in the Joliet Correctional Center. (This comic ignores, wisely, the awful 1998 sequel Blues Brothers 2000.) Joliet Jail is also where it begins, with Belushi’s character absconding from the prison, which is a mystery. Where did eh go? And why would the convicted felon take off just days before he was set to be released? The plot also involves a legendary briefcase containing the sheet music to unreleased blues classics. As far as the creative team goes, I hesitated before opening the book. I was put off by the fact three writers (including Dan Aykroyd’s daughter, Stella) are credited with coming up with the story and dialogue. Committee-written literature of any kind is usually a disaster – I was happily surprised, though. I need not have worried. The art is by Felipe Sobreiro, whose warm lines remind me of Robert Crumb, especially in flashback scenes. There are some updates to Blues Brothers lore. We discover that Elwood Blues has been ordained as a priest, and we learn the origin story of Curtis, the orphanage caretaker who raised Jake and Elwood, imbuing them with their love of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and others. Some elements of the story were inspired by Dan Aykroyd’s original, telephone-book size Blues Brothers script that director John Landis wasn’t able to shoehorn into the motion picture. And although the original duo are present, they aren’t the focus of this tale. One of the messages emerging from the graphic novel: Anyone can be a Blues Brother. If you recall, a lot of far-out stuff happened in the Blues Brothers movie. When an apartment building is hit with a bazooka, it collapses, but Elwood and Jake are unharmed, dusting themselves off and walking away from the massive pile of brick and debris. There is a scene with an impossible number of police cars crashing. A nun floats on air in another. Worshippers at a church service bounce and jump in the air, reaching the ceiling. What I’m saying is: The Blues Brothers was already a comic-book movie. So offering a sequel in graphic-novel form is not such a great leap as you would imagine. One other unrealistic plot point that could only happen in the movies: A church is forced to pay taxes! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 34 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
