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Coney Island’s Luna Park Subject of DC Comic


by Arthur Borko on Nov 24th, 2009
Cover detail courtesy of DCComics.com

Cover detail courtesy of DCComics.com

Coney Island collides with the world of comic books in Kevin Baker’s Luna Park from Vertigo/DC Comics. The story follows Alik Strelnikov, a Russian mafia “enforcer” and explores parts of the community’s criminal underworld, while also delving into the immigrant experience. The plot periodically flashes back to Alik’s ancestors in Russia and examine how their choices shaped his existence, while Alik navigates his complicated life in the modern day Coney Island with his fortune-telling/prostitute girlfriend Marina. To complicate matters, Alik is having a hard time coming to terms with his military past. Together, Alik and Marina embark on the American Dream, trying to improve their lot in life and escape their situation in Coney Island. In a WSJ Blog the comics’ author Kevin Baker compares Alik to “Jake Gittes in Chinatown or Roy Hobbs in The Natural or even Jay Gatsby.” But to the digital generation [i.e. me], he sounds a lot more like Grand Theft Auto IV’s Niko Bellic or even Nicolas Cage’s Yury Orlov from Lord of War. Either way, this should be a colorful depiction of the historic neighborhood, and certainly not another Brighton Beach Memoirs.

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  • I took a vocational test and it determined that I lacked the necessary mental agility to be a court reporter. I was crushed.
  • clare
    Lisanne, WTG. It's not smart, just lazy.
    Kinda like "if u cn rd ths msg u cn gt a gd jb", remember that ad on the subway? LOL
    TY Arthur.
  • Clare, I'm catching on to your acronyms. Maybe my brain is working again.
  • Woops, forgot to come back and answer!

    If The Stand doesn't have it, maybe he'll custom order it for you. If not you can buy it off Amazon.com.

    It went on sale on Nov 11th.
  • clare
    TY
  • Maybe "The Stand" on Neck Road between East 14th and 15th has a copy.
  • Wow, that's a great question!
  • clare
    Where do I get a copy?
  • Bill W
    “The "boardwalk" neighborhood is intended to offer a Coney Island kind of experience, Muskat says, as he walks through it. "We have the ice cream shop, we have the doughnut shop, we've got a beautiful, life-size carousel with all these horses and tigers and rabbits." Those animals were hand-carved for the ship, he adds.”
    Royal Caribbean Vice President Ken Muskat, describing the new $1.5 billion dollar supper cruise ship Oasis of the Seas on NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st...
    I guess it is easier to recreate a paper mache neighborhood that floats than the real thing. I wonder what would happen if it actually could dock in Coney Island? Would it explode like matter-antimatter?
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