Archive for June, 2008
Everyone’s been asking me, ‘Where’s Phonzie?’. From Jim Rugg to Steve. He’s been busy being in a band called Hugs N’ Kisses. I think they’ve been together for two years so far. They were at Comfest actually. I missed them in the lineup otherwise I would have checked them out too. I snagged this from donewaiting.com.
Another oddly compelling set was watching my friend Kyle and his band the Kyle Sowashes play. Both the drummer and the tamborine guy deserve some kind of an award. Like a vicodin. Someone has a clip of it up on youtube…
You can’t make it out but the drummer has one arm in a full cast. Sean was being a total spaz with the crutch and I love him for it.
I just saw the news that comic book artist Michael Turner passed away on Saturday at the age of 37, after a lengthy battle with cancer. It’s no secret that I was not a fan of Turner’s artwork, but the snark was always directed at his art and not at the artist himself, who by all accounts was a friendly, genuinely nice guy. It’s a shame for someone so young to lose their life to cancer. As a soon-to-be 37 year old myself, it’s a sobering thought too.
Guess away:
(click image to enlarge)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007, 9/17/2007, 9/24/2007, 10/1/2007, 10/8/2007, 10/15/2007, 10/22/2007, 10/29/2007, 11/5/2007, 11/12/2007, 11/19/2007, 11/26/2007, 12/3/2007, 12/10/2007, 12/17/2007, 12/24/2007, 12/31/2007, 1/7/2008, 1/14/2008, 1/21/2008, 1/28/2008, 2/4/2008, 2/11/2008, 2/18/2008, 2/25/2008, 3/3/2008, 3/10/2008, 3/17/2008, 3/24/2008, 3/31/2008, 4/7/2008, 4/14/2008, 4/21/2008, 4/28/2008, 5/8/2008, 5/12/2008, 5/19/2008, 5/27/2008, 6/2/2008, 6/9/2008, 6/16/2008, 6/23/2008)
Today is the first day of Comfest!
For the 4th year, Ferret Press and the writers and artists of the PANEL collective will have a booth at this fantastic outdoor festival. You can check out our comics, graphic novels, original art, and more.
What’s Comfest? It’s the country’s largest all-volunteer run community festival, featuring over 200 bands on 6 stages for 3 days! Social and political activism, music, food, beer, art, dance, and tons of great people watching.
Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE? Check out some of the sights from previous years:
Ferret Press at Comfest 2004.
Ferret Press at Comfest 2006.
See you down there!
Raises hand. The Wexner Center is having a Kubrick marathon all July. I might skip out on Barry Lindon and Eyes Wide Shut but I’m game for the rest of them.
Also saw in August, they’re playing Guy Madden’s My Winnepeg. Here’s the trailer..
I picked this week’s subject: Grendel. Matt gets to pick next week’s character…
Here are this week’s entries from our fellow PANEListas:
Dara Naraghi (after Matt Wagner):
Craig Bogart (colors by Steve Black):
Probably an easy one this week…
(click image to KBRRZZZZZsize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007, 9/17/2007, 9/24/2007, 10/1/2007, 10/8/2007, 10/15/2007, 10/22/2007, 10/29/2007, 11/5/2007, 11/12/2007, 11/19/2007, 11/26/2007, 12/3/2007, 12/10/2007, 12/17/2007, 12/24/2007, 12/31/2007, 1/7/2008, 1/14/2008, 1/21/2008, 1/28/2008, 2/4/2008, 2/11/2008, 2/18/2008, 2/25/2008, 3/3/2008, 3/10/2008, 3/17/2008, 3/24/2008, 3/31/2008, 4/7/2008, 4/14/2008, 4/21/2008, 4/28/2008, 5/8/2008, 5/12/2008, 5/19/2008, 5/27/2008, 6/2/2008, 6/9/2008, 6/16/2008)
Another interesting thing that happened while the niece and nephew were visiting today:
I went down to The Jungle Room (my basement comic book lair) to dig up some of my own books they hadn’t seen before. They followed me down and I was surprised to actually see these kids– a boy and girl, around the ages of 10-14– get excited to see the many boxes of comics lying around.
I periodically go through my collection and weed out books that I’ll never read again (that’s not a statement regarding the quality of the books themselves, just a feeling that I wouldn’t revisit them) and put together a box to give away. I happened to have one of those in the corner and told them they could help themselves to anything there that struck their fancy.
(for the record, the younger boy got really excited when he saw the #1 issue of the 1999 Moon Knight series.)
I was surprised to see the girl assemble a pretty healthy pile of books; given that her age and gender didn’t exactly make her the target market for comic publishers, I had expected her to be indifferent to the offer, but instead she found a bunch of stuff that caught her eye. After they finished digging through the box, I looked through what they had each picked out (checking to make sure I wasn’t giving a Garth Ennis book to one of my brother’s kids) and saw what she in particular had been attracted to: without having any frame of reference for publishers, artists, characters and their assorted backstories… she had picked out a big stack of nothing but CrossGen books.
Damn. I still believe what’s killing our favorite entertainment medium is an unwillingness to make a serious effort to broaden readership on the part of the larger publishers. I’m sure there were a number of factors that led to the demise of CrossGen, but maybe if these books had been out in a public setting where people like my niece could have found them– rather than hidden away in comic stores where no casual readers could stumble across them– the story might have been a little different.
I took advantage of a visiting niece and nephew to take them to see The Incredible Hulk today, since it’s a movie I wasn’t going to have much luck talking the missus into going to see. Given the train wreck that was the previous entry in the series I walked into the theatre with lowered expectations and was very pleasantly surprised to find it is one of my favorites among the crop of comicbook-themed movies. I don’t intend to write a review of everything I liked about it, but one element of the resolution pleased me so much I wanted to point it out here.
Small spoilers ahead if you’re not sure who wins the Hulk/Abomination fight at the climax of the show.
All the way back to Tim Burton’s Batman, movie makers have had to cater the adaptations of our favorite characters to a movie audience with different expectations of how the characters and stories should unfold. Movie audiences in particular seem more than a little bloodthirsty; it seems to be mandated that a villain in any action movie has to die in order for the viewers to get their cathartic/voyeuristic release. The worst adherence to this rule I’ve seen in a comic movie was Michael Keaton’s Batman blowing up a factory full of the Joker’s henchmen; most often, though, the rule takes the form of the “unlikely accident” at the end which eliminates the villain without sullying the hero’s semi-purity. I find these inevitable endings silly, annoying, and contrived, whether it’s the Joker falling from a bell tower, Doc Ock drowning, or whatever the hell happened to Eddie Brock/Venom. (My least favorite example is the preposterous exchange from Batman Begins: “You can’t kill me!” “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t have to save you, either!” Having your cake and eating it, too, is what that’s called.)
(I don’t count Doom in the first FF movie an exception, since he was treated as being dead; Sandman doesn’t count because audiences got their thrill from Venom’s death; I fortunately can’t remember much about Daredevil; and Magneto was too entwined with the X-Men concept to suffer the same fate. I haven‘t seen Iron Man yet, but the kids are coming over next weekend, too…)
So there I was sitting in the theatre watching the climax of the Hulk/Abomination battle, and my jaw actually hit the floor when I saw how it played out: the protagonist makes a deliberate decision not to kill the villain, wraps him up in chains, and hands him over to the authorities! How often do you see that in any friggin’ American movie, much less the superhero movies where that sort of thing is supposed to be the norm? I was amazed the audience didn’t boo at that point, having been robbed of their execution. Me, I almost applauded.
So on top of everything else I liked about the flick, I want to give extra special thanks to the makers for getting that significant– but frequently disregarded– detail correct.
Ever since I first saw this video on Nikki’s blog, I can’t get it out of my head. The song and the visuals. Initially I thought it was Broadcast, till I found out it’s actually Bat for Lashes.
Been playing with different personal work.
I call them Facials and they are a daily painting exercise.
All Measuring 4″x6″ acrylic on Fabriano watercolor paper.
a different expression everyday.
You can see more over at my daily painting blog
http://stevenrussellblack.blogspot.com/
…and Mmmh is available on ebay starting at $1.00. Bid now, bid often.
Here’s Cracked.com’s list of 8 Geek Conventions God Never Intended.
Let’s just say it starts with the Klingon Feast, then gets more bizarre from there.
This is a little piece that Warren Ellis re-posted today, that kind of resonated with me.
I still get asked with appalling regularity “where my ideas come from.”
Here’s the deal. I flood my poor ageing head with information. Any information. Lots of it. And I let it all slosh around in the back of my brain, in the part normal people use for remembering bills, thinking about sex and making appointments to wash the dishes.
Eventually, you get a critical mass of information. Datum 1 plugs into Datum 2 which connects to Datum 3 and Data 4 and 5 stick to it and you’ve got a chain reaction. A bunch of stuff knits together and lights up and you’ve got what’s called “an idea”.
And for that brief moment where it’s all flaring and welding together, you are Holy. You can’t be touched. Something impossible and brilliant has happened and suddenly you understand what it would be like if Einstein’s brain was placed into the body of a young tyrannosaur, stuffed full of amphetamines and suffused with Sex Radiation.
That is what has happened to me tonight. I am beaming Sex Rays across the world and my brain is all lit up with Holy Fire. If I felt like it, I could shag a million nuns and destroy their faith in Christ.
From my chair.
See, this is the good bit about writing. It’s what keeps you going. It’s the wild rush of “shit, did I think of that?” with all kinds of weird chemicals shunting around your brain and ideas and images and moments and storyforms all opening up snapsnapsnap in your mind, a mass of new and unrealised possibilities.
It’s ten past two in the morning, and I’m completely wired, caught up in the new thing, shivering and laughing and glowing in the dark. Just as well it’s the middle of the night. No-one would be safe from me right now. I could read their minds and take over their heartbeats with a glare.
Faster than the speed of anyone.
That’s how it works.
Since quitting my crappy retail job, I’ve been playing assistant for the missus to help with the running of her law practice. I handle all the grunt work that doesn’t actually need an attorney– input billing, crank out form letters, lots of filing, mapquest directions to home visits, look up attorney contact info, set up client files, and any other odd jobs that happen to come my way– all while juggling the two little monsters at home and trying to squeeze in time at a drawing desk.
This afternoon I got a call from her; apparently she forgot to include some documentation with a report that needed to be filed and asked that I fax it to the Licking County Prosecutor’s office. I tracked down the necessary papers and hunted around for something to use for a cover sheet; all that was readily available by the printer were the Ditko Spider-Man pages I printed up to scan for my previous post. I flipped one over, wrote “Attn: Sally” on the back, and sent the fax through, waiting by our new printer/scanner/copier/fax machine because it was the first time I had ever used it for this function so I wanted to ensure it worked correctly.
Yeah, you know where this is going. Might as well skip to the next post…
Let me make clear that every other fax machine I have ever used required that I place the document face DOWN on the machine. Not so for our device, the Bizarro 2700 Facsimile Transmitter. It took those pages face up– and I sent to the Licking County Prosecutor’s office, on behalf of my attorney wife, a couple beautiful pages of Spider-Man battling Doc Ock. I’m told the attorneys waiting on the other end got quite a chuckle out of the pages as they came out of their machine, and feigned understanding when the missus explained that I was a cartoonist myself.
Good thing the boss likes me.
Hail Ditko!
My intention starting these posts was to bring out comics that I fondly remember from the spinner racks many moons ago which seem to get overlooked in discussion in the present-day; books from back before Marvel went corporate on us, yet after the oft-reprinted and very familiar silver age material. I’ve been enjoying the Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man issues so much while I plow through my set of Marvel DVD-Roms, though, that I thought I’d throw a little love his way.
Like I said, “oft-reprinted”; I’m reading through the discs in chronological order, all together, so I get to have some context for what was on the shelves on a given month in 1964 (I’m about to hit the Hulk’s return to monthly publication in Tales To Astonish). This means that the biggest chunk of what I’m starting with are books that I’ve read a zillion times in reprint; it won’t be until the late 1960’s-early 70’s that I hit a gold mine of stories I’ve never seen before throughout all seven discs (well, 6 actually, having read every Amazing Spider-Man at one point or another). While most of what I’m reading through is familiar at the moment, I‘ve been struck by a particular facet of the coolness of Steve Ditko.
Like Kirby, there’s little I can add to what has been said about Sturdy Steve, so I won‘t talk much before I get to the pretty pictures. Stan Lee did a brilliant job of making the character of Peter Parker and his complex supporting cast real to the previous generation of readers, and it’s good that he did– because there was only one noteworthy new villain created in the sixty-odd issues after Ditko’s string of bizarre antagonists filled Spidey’s rogues gallery. But what’s grabbed me most about Ditko’s art this time around is this:
Those fight scenes at the end of each issue (great build up for each of these by Stan and Steve, by the way– I actually still get excited approaching the climax of every comic) are almost always set in the most bizarre surroundings imaginable. Ditko incorporates the setting into the action to such a degree that the background almost becomes a character in the scene in and of itself! I decided to do a Ditko post so I could throw out some of my favorites:
Spidey and Doc Ock crash through a skylight– into a sculptor’s studio!
An abandoned Spanish fort in the Florida Everglades (lots of cool panels in this issue, but I especially like the shot of the Lizard coming through the opening in the ceiling)!
The Vulture flies though the interior of the Daily Bugle building!
Battling Mysterio on a sci-fi movie set! Imagine the boredom of this scene set in the present day– crashing into a giant blue screen.
Follow Spidey through a boat while he battles Doc Ock again!
Of course, we all know Steve Ditko is brilliant, but as I started reading the series issue-by-issue this particular element of his work really leaped out at me. I’m looking forward to the Hulk series he drew in Tales To Astonish– a rarely reprinted run I’ve never read before!