My Very Last Nerve

I saw an on TV advert yesterday for a new DOUBLE (!) CD from granny's fave, James Last. Despite an obvious trick of laying the new tracks over brief clips of concerts probably held a few years ago, that in itself is no big problem...Last has his audience, presumably the elderly, slightly retarted and purveyors of telephone hold music, but an audience nonetheless. No, what got me was the last two tracks: first, a brief medley of "old favourites"(i.e. stuff the average person has never heard of) and new "hits" such as "I Got A Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas and "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga. Really?? How the hell does that work? The BEP and Lady Gaga aren't the most extreeeeme!!! of artists, but they do possess some level of vitality. I can't believe anybody who ever heard either song went "Y'know, I really liked that track but y'know what would make it better? If you sucked all the energy out of it and reduced it to a nice chinwigging song instead of a stomping dancefloor hit". Do you think a Lady Gaga fan, no matter how rabid, will pick this up? Do you think any 80 year old duffer sat festering in a nursing home has any idea who the BEP are? Is anybody, no matter how neurotic, really desperate for a tuned out song just in case it incites a panic attack from them? Can anybody explain the above choices without stifling a snigger? Or is this really the start of Yourent's muzak hell?

Now For Something Somewhat Different...

Although I've been too busy to do regular comic art lately (though I thumbnailed out a few pages today, yay!!), I have kept my hand in with various other requested art jobs. These are usually personal gifts and so won't be of interest to most folks, but I featured one or two in Odds And Ends II and thought I'd just post a few others here to show what else I've been up to .

Again, this isn't a complete collection of these requests but my favourite pieces (except the crap ducks and building, which I only added to vary things a bit more) from the completed work I've scanned. I've actually decorated two cakes too, but they're harder to scan :)

Pucker Sunch

As soon as I saw the trailer for Sucker Punch, I thought "I'm seeing that"...I knew not to expect the greatest story but I was still surprised by the negative reaction, even though I hadn't read any actual review. This kind of put me off but still, I decided to take the plunge...

And was glad I did.

I'm not going to say this was a great movie or even a good one but what it WAS, was absorbing. Many films I've watched recently haven't been bad but have failed to engage my interest or empathy. It's possible the fault is mine but I doubt it: I always hope to be entertained at the cinema. Seeing a film in a darkened theatre can be utterly absorbing and quite therapeutic: more than once I've sat down to watch a film in a low or bad mood only to leave the theatre far less stressed as I've been transported somewhere else.

Let's start with Sucker Punch's flaws: I knew the story would be sleight but there's almost no plot, just excuses for the spectacle. There's no great performances and some of the dialogue is a bit ropey, the while many of the effects resemble a computer game more than real life.

However, the flip side to that is....

There's no faffing about as the film opens with a stylish flashback for the lead character before cracking on with the set up that she is about to be lobotomised and sets up fantasy scenarios within her mind to try and escape her fate. The mix of effects and music, often edgy covers of classic songs, creates a wonderful alternate reality. Yes, it's style over substance and it's not always convincing...but what Sucker Punch is about is pure unbridled visual imagination.

Knights storming a castle as a dragon chases a Second World War plane? Shiny sleek robots defending a bomb on a train set to destroy a futuristic cityscape? Steampunk zombie German soldiers fighting in the trenches? Giant sword wielding samurai? This has all of that and more, and it's unapologetic: it's not about plot, it's about visual spectacle, the joy of the imagination, COOL SHIT without the need for justification.

This is unadulterated pulp fun.

And then the end...most of the film washes over you (and if any of you are ever going to see it, it HAS to be at the cinema, watching at home will kill the immersive effectiveness of the film) but the end...well, I won't spoil it.

But out of nowhere, the film shows that all the time, it DID have a point and more than just as an allegorical context. Fir the first time in ages, I wanted to punch the air with the sense of invigoration that literally came from nowhere.

I can't say it's great but if you watch with your critical faculties in reverse and your fun gills open, hopefully you'll be left with the genuine thrill I had at the end of the film, and THAT was the real Sucker Punch....

Jive Talkin'

I've been meaning to post about this ever since the event a few weeks again, but as usual, my time's constantly been eaten up. Nevertheless, better late than pregnant...

Some of you may have been affronted with a copy of my self-published book, Comics On Film And Television (I have about thirty updates to do plus an index and appendix before I hopefully push out a second edition later this year). While the book was at the printers at Fallen Angel Media, I received an e-mail asking if I'd like to develop the book into a talk for two small press expos.

My immediate reaction was "Waaaahhhhhh!!!" Talk in public? To people? People I don't KNOW? Me?? I felt nothing but panic and fear at the whole thought of it...yet...yet there was still a sensible part of me that realised that this was a cool opportunity, something different that not everybody gets to do.

I was undecided but eventually trusted friends and colleagues convinced me that I should do it and so I thought "Faggit, what the hell" and accepted the challenge.

I had nothing to gain other than the experience really: I only had two copies of the book left and they weren't priced to sell anyway, they were done as a way of exorcising a project (that was alot more involved than I expected) out of my system and not letting months of work go to waste.

I struggled with an angle until Tone suggested a Comics Adaptations Through The Ages Approach, which quickly started fizzing things together. I focused on American adaptations as time and brevity wouldn't enable me to cover EVERYthing in the allocated hour. I pulled out my book and started collating a timeline of comic adaptations, double checking details online to verify my already verified (but possibly still erroneous) research.

Pretty soon I had a year by year time frame (with the occasional hop back and forth through time) and started creating montage "stills" of the source comic and the screen versions, along with a ton of downloaded clips of various adaptations (seriously, you have to see some of Legends of the Superheroes to be truly horrified by such sights as Ghetto Man and Hawkman's papier mache wings, helmet and chest emblem, which peels off during an argument with Solomon Grundy attempting a disguise as a petrol pump attendant).

I figured that nearer the time, I'd start to panic and even though I was distracted by compiling the visual aids up until the day before the talk, I still felt pretty calm.

So, the day rolls around and Tone had travelled down via Brum and I met my pal Martin in Amersham: originally I had two more friends attending but they had to drop out at the last minute. Being girls with no real affinity for comics, I was disappointed they couldn't make it but felt that I could unwind a bit and not repress my Inner Geek. The trains and tubes were running amok but I carefully planned our route, which was time consuming but thankfully smooth and pleasant.

We finally rocked up at Goldsmith College and I asked for Mallory, who was to help me with the talk. I was told I couldn't miss her but I wasn't unsure, but sure enough, a tall tattooed Amazon with red hair tied in bunches was pretty easy to find amid a (remarkably comfortably well laid out) small press dealer hall.

I confessed that I had no idea if the talk would run long or shorten and that I had no experience talking in public. Mallory said not to worry as she had plenty of experience and would intro the talk but said to stay calm and keep the speech fairly slow: this simple trick helped me incredibly.

While Mallory guided us up to the talk room and tried to sort out the technical problems with the visual support (the projector seemed to miss images and we had to switch to a laptop that was crystal sharp but was Mac-based and caused some delays), I set out my drink on my table at the front of the room and leafed through my 30-odd pages of notes. I was expecting to use this as a reference point but ultimately never actually referred to it (though I glanced at it once).

As I'd created the visual files to accompany the adaptations, they ran in the correct order and I just talked about each project as they came on screen, with Mallory scrolling through at my prompt.

Finally, time turned against us: the delays in setting up and the sheer number of topics meant that I had to steamroll through the late 90s into the 200s, finally having to be cut short around 2004 (I had planned up till 2008).

Amazingly, I never did develop that final flush of fear and seemed to cope okay. Afterwards, Martin or Tone asked me how I felt it went and I couldn't really answer. I gave the talk but it wasn't for me to say: it was a good turn out, only one person left when we overran, there were a few laughs and some audience interaction so I THINK it went well, but it's not my place to say.

However, I've just had an invite to repeat the talk at the Bristol Comic show in May so it can't have been a total disaster. Public transport willing, looks like I'll get to do an encore in a few short weeks...

OK, Justice Once

Really, I should be posting about my recent talk but I've been renaming and filing loads of classic Jose Luis Garcia Lopez DC style guide art from the late 70s/early 80s...for me, his art defined the look of what superheroes should be as i grew up, with his adorned on all kinds of merchandise and advertising. He can still draw most people off the table...

Then today i saw this new Kevin Maguire cover and thought "Oh-ho yes!!"...

And then I saw the Smallville Blue Beetle and Booster Gold and thought "Hmmmmm...."

A Few Quickies

Just a quick post...I'm HOPING to get round to posting about my recent talk based on/inspired by my book at the weekend but in the mean time, thought I'd just post a few quick pics...

From the bottom:

A pub sketch of an animated-style Batman, not particularly based on any screen version. I've been looking at a few animation model sheets lately (particularly liking the Young Justice and Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths designs) and I think I'm going to attempt to design a decent stab at animated versions of the Avengers as DC seems to be able to piddle all over Marvel's cartoons from a very great height...

Next up, Cyclops in a Tron style, done for Chris Askham's new art blog. I kind of rushed the backgrounds so I've removed it from this piece, taken odd the glow but added the visor glow. It looks less Tron, but I prefer this...

Finally, a piece I'm working on for a charity project in aid of the Japanese Tsunami relief effort. I wanted to do something a bit hopeful so searched for pics of survivors and this pic cropped up alot and seemed powerful enough. I originally planned to add a Japanse rising sun but I don't know if that would detract from the image. I'm not my own biggest fan but I'm quite happy with this so far but feel I may cock it up by fiddling with it too much...

Who's that? Just me, chekin' in !

Gonna have to be a brief one: I've finally completed all my notes for my talk on comic films and TV shows next Saturday (http://www.thefallenangel.co.uk/spexpo/london.htm) but I'm gathering together visual reference, which is enjoyable but time consuming. I have most of the stuff I need though so my only real concern is my voice now: I'm on a course of antibiotics so hopefully I'll be able to say more than three sentences before hacking up.

While compiling this visual ref, saw this Hulk pic and you know when something amusing just tickles you? I had to put in the voice bubble.

Anyway, I completed a Cinebook graphic novel called Blake and Mortimer, a 50+ year old Tintin style book that took a bout 300 years to read (slight exageration but take my word for it, it's a tad wordy) but was a joy to look at. I fancied trying the clean line style and for no reason I can remember, I settled on doing all the Doctor Whos. Dunno why, but there we are. Drawing didn't take long but it's taken a few weeks to get round to the colors, which I did this morning.

Using the clean style was quite nice actually and I had no real probs with the faces but the main composition threw me a bit, especially as I hadn't really left myself room to actually draw much of anything.

Eventually, I dropped all the non-Doctor stuff as unnecessary distractions, enlarged and repositioned the Matt Smith doc, may have slightly done the same with Tennant and drew the planets on a separate sheet, then scanned 'em in and comped it all together. Went for a simple gradienty starfield thing as I still have no idea how to pull off the effect I have in my mind's eye without doing it the traditional freehand way.

Anyway, once the talk is done, I plan on tweaking the book and sending it off to be proof read (Rol, this may be news to you but I've not been able to get to the post office with your completed letter and copy of Odds and Ends II yet!) ((Oh, yeah, Odds and Ends II is out, a couple of glitches with gradient printing that were fine in my proof copy but nothing to get too narked about)) and printing off a handful of new copies: they're too costly to print up a load hoping they might sell somewhere, which is why the first edition is unpriced). After that, hope to get the old juices going with Chris Askham's new Facebook art blog (I'd like to do something this week but there's no way I'll get anything done this week) then at last embark on my own one shot before returning to Lonely Boy.

Hmm, I'm knackered already!!