brian maruca

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. Today, we're looking at Street Angel, the modern indie classic by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca. The tone of Street Angel is a delicate balance of real action, human suffering, and utter absurdity. I'd like to see it directed by Gregg Araki, who made a name for himself making weirdo movies about street kids in the 90's, and proved he can still get pretty weird not long ago with Kaboom.

Since it first hit the stands in 2004, I've gone through three or four copies of Street Angel. It's on my short-list of favorite comics -- one of those books I've lent and given away over and over, gambling that I could find another copy, a process that's taken longer and longer as it fell further and further out of print. Luckily for me -- and the whole new generation of readers who didn't catch it the first time around -- Street Angel is back, in a hella sweet hardcover edition from AdHouse Books (who hooked me up with a review copy, which I will do my best to hang on to for at least a few months this time around).

If there are two things we love, it's gotta be blaxploitation movies and trashy '70s Marvel comics. Blaxploitation films managed to capture the zeitgeist and turn a thirst for social justice (and hatred for injustice) into compelling entertainment...