Mick Foley's Christmas Chaos

By Mick Foley; Illustrations by Jerry Lawler

Regan Books

ISBN 0-06-039414-5

You know, I really wanted to like this book. I love Mick and I know the King is a good artist. But the book just doesn't click with me.

The plot of the book is fairly straightforward. Unlike his elves and reindeer, Santa, to borrow a phrase from Vince McMahon, doesn't "get it." So, he calls Stamford and some of the WWF's best (and Al Snow) come to the rescue. Thanks to their help (and a letter from a special child), Santa gets his groove back and the holidays are saved.

The first question is: Is this a kid's book or a book for wrestling fans? If it's the latter, then the book probably shouldn't look like a traditional picture book straight out of the children's section of a bookstore. If it's the former, then some of the more-edgy material shouldn't be in the book.

I'm no member of Steven Richard's RTC, but a kid's Christmas book probably shouldn't have cursing and naked elves (not that any real F-bombs or full frontal are in the book). Nor should Val Venis be propositioning Mrs. Claus with the Big Valboski or Lawler swiping goodies from the elves' workshop.

Lawler's illustrations are good, especially his ability to capture the likenesses of his fellow workers and his reindeer are cute. But, something seems off with his Santa. Maybe he isn't pudgy enough, but something doesn't feel quite right.

Kudos to Mick for giving a shout out to comics creator and wrestling mark extraordinaire Jill Thompson in the acknowledgment section. Jill is the creator of the wonderfully cool Scary Godmother series (perfect for Halloween gift giving) and her web page can be found at http://lurid.com/jill/index.html.

The book deserves an A for Effort, but for Execution, it probably gets something a little closer to the middle. If it were a match (and I still gave out ratings), it'd be a solid ** 1/2 effort. Not a Match of the Year, but not a match found on Nitro either.

Note: A portion of the book's sales goes to the Shriners Hospitals for Children. So, if you're wavering on whether or not to get the book for Christmas for yourself or someone else, let this be one more factor in your purchasing decision.

Look for a review of the WWF's cookbook sometime in the next week.