Good morning everyone,
What happened when the California Raisins guy made a shrunken man (SM) spy-themed graphic novel called “Jack Hightower”?
This review will answer that most pressing and timely of questions! Oregon native William Gale “Will” Vinton was an American filmmaker and animator. In 1975, he won an Academy Award for the short “Closed Mondays” and, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia, he was the first person born in Oregon to win an Academy Award. Vinton was most famous for his work in animated commercials and he trademarked the term “claymation” as a specific form of stop-motion animation. As the term suggests, claymation involves the use of malleable backgrounds and characters made of plasticine clay applied over wire skeletons. Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, Will Vinton’s studio animated advertising icons such as the aforementioned California Raisins (one of them is shown on the left), Domino Pizza’s The Noid, and the M&M mascots. To the best of my knowledge, Vinton only worked on the Jack Hightower comic and never wrote any other comics. Therefore, this comic appears to be a unique diversion compared to Vinton’s long filmmaking career overwhelmingly dedicated to animation. Accordingly, Vinton’s biography in the Oregon Encyclopedia does not reference this illustrated story. Unfortunately, in 2003 Vinton lost control of his own studio. Will Vinton Studios became Laika, LLC in July 2005 and went on to make stop-motion feature films like The Boxtrolls, Coraline, and ParaNorman. Vinton died in 2018 and a 2021 documentary film entitled “Claydream” explored his career.
The inside cover lists both Will Vinton and Andrew Wiese as the authors behind Jack Hightower, but does not explain how they split the writing duties. According to Sarah Baisley in an January 10, 2007 article for Animation World Network, Andrew Wiese was Vinton’s writing partner. Similar to Will Vinton, there is no evidence that Andrew Wiese worked on any other comics.
In contrast to Vinton and Wiese, artist Fabio Laguna has drawn several comics to include Frosty the Snowman for Golden Books, Scooby-Doo’s Greatest Adventures (New Edition) for DC, and Ultraverse: Future Shock for Marvel Unlimited. Additionally, Rain Beredo did the coloring, and Nate Piekos did the lettering. Dark Horse published Jack Hightower in January 2007.
Regarding the plot, the titular hero Jack Hightower was a secret agent working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and this comic centered on Hightower’s longstanding rivalry with an arch-nemesis called Dr. Litigious Savant. A loose canon, Hightower ignored orders to wait for backup and charged into Dr. Savant’s lair to confront the villain. As a result of his brash decision, Hightower was inadvertently reduced to ten inches of height! Before his transformation, Hightower was a handsome and tall ladies man therefore his reduction dealt a blow to his ego. Although, he appeared to adapt well enough as demonstrated in the following panels:
Dark Horse marketed this as an action and adventure graphic novel suitable for ages 12 years and older.
Accordingly, while there were certainly nods to titillation in the form of the 10-inch man falling into an airline stewardess’s cleavage and the aftermath of hanky-panky between the tiny agent and a full-sized buxom blonde, there was no actual nudity or sex on the comic pages.
At the end of the story there was a confrontation involving global stakes between our action-oriented protagonist and his feline-loving antagonist. The hero even had to make an important sacrifice for the sake of his love interest. Basically, this was a tale of a good woman who managed to turn a philandering cad into an honest man.
This trade paperback told a complete story with a satisfactory ending. The biggest drawback was the formulaic narrative, lack of surprises, and shallow characters. The California Raisins guy made iconic commercials (plus 1985’s surprisingly horrific kids movie “The Adventures of Mark Twain”), but his comic was a bit boring.
Overall, I recommend Jack Hightower to SM fans who like over-the-top espionage series and movies such as those modeled on NBC’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Those are stories of pure fantasy vice anything resembling the reality of intelligence gathering and paramilitary operations. This comic was predictable to a fault, but still a fun, if breezy, read.
That is it for now folks. If all goes as planned an editorial about the term “macrophile” will appear in ten minutes. Until then, keep growing!
This review was written by SolomonG and is protected under Fair Use copyright law.
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There She Grows 