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(Source: maudit, via cerebus92)
Here’s the third page from my story for the Voices Against Bullying anthology. I wasn’t going to show any more of this just yet, but this page is so much better than the previous two that I couldn’t hold off. There’s a weird kind of alchemy at work when you draw comics on a regular basis. Something eventually clicks and your pages get dramatically better. I wish I could bottle it. I think in this case there are three things at work: First, I’m mostly over a case of bursitis that has been plaguing the elbow of my drawing arm. Second, I’ve regained enough freedom of movement to go back to drawing with a brush. Third, I think I hit the critical mass point where improvement comes in bunches. I remember the last time that happened to me. The results were dramatic. Anyway, enjoy. (via Christianne’s Art and Comics: Voices Against Bullying, Page 3)
![“I do feel like the same director [who made Shivers and The Fly], though more mature and more confident in my filmmaking. But I’ve done certain things and I don’t feel the need to do them again. I don’t mean that in terms of genre. I don’t think: I must never do another horror film because I’m a more established artist. I wouldn’t hesitate to do another horror film if it was interesting enough. But a lot of the things proposed to me are so influenced by my earlier work that it would feel like a remake. In fact, remakes of most of my movies have been suggested. That’s not gonna happen. But I haven’t turned my back on genre filmmaking, it’s just that I don’t want to bore myself.”
David CronenbergBorn March 15, 1943](http://24.media.tumblr.com/8c43c78bcde0d57782eed6cc8393e7f5/tumblr_mjnq0tw4yQ1qf7r5lo1_r5_500.jpg)
“I do feel like the same director [who made Shivers and The Fly], though more mature and more confident in my filmmaking. But I’ve done certain things and I don’t feel the need to do them again. I don’t mean that in terms of genre. I don’t think: I must never do another horror film because I’m a more established artist. I wouldn’t hesitate to do another horror film if it was interesting enough. But a lot of the things proposed to me are so influenced by my earlier work that it would feel like a remake. In fact, remakes of most of my movies have been suggested. That’s not gonna happen. But I haven’t turned my back on genre filmmaking, it’s just that I don’t want to bore myself.”
David Cronenberg
Born March 15, 1943
(Source: strangewood, via oldfilmsflicker)
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Just wondering what goes into your decision to purchase a comic at a comics store? For this question, I am only talking about buying a comic off the rack at the comics shop, please.
How important is:
The cover?
The artwork?
The writer’s name?
The publisher?
The genre?
The lead character (s)?
Whether or not the story is an ‘event’ comic?
Hmm…This isn’t something that’s easy for me to answer, so I’ll take it piece by piece:
Cover: My knee jerk reaction is that covers don’t sway me because I’ve been burned by fabulous covers around crappy comics often enough. But that would be wrong. I started buying Mark Waid’s Daredevil on the basis of the covers and frankly didn’t care whether what was inside was good. Those covers were that good. In fact, Marvel elbowed itself back onto my pull list after almost a decade on the basis of its graphic design, which is so, so much better than DC these days that it’s not even worth comparing.
The Artwork: This is hugely important to me. I know that comics have become something of a writer’s medium these days, but there are plenty of writers who’ve been let down by bad art. Some artists are auto-buys for me, no matter who the writer is. A good example: Batwoman, which has indifferent writing but is one of the best books of the stands on the strength of its visuals. I would buy empty cereal cartons if they had Moebius drawings on them.
The Writer: Writers seem to me to be more variable than artists, so even though there are a very small number of writers who are auto-buys for me, I’m more inclined to wait on a recommendation.
Publisher: I almost put down “I don’t care,” but that’s not true. I’m deeply suspicious of the business practices of the big two. I’m much more inclined to buy a creator-owned book than one that’s owned by a corporation.
Genre: Don’t care. Gimme a western. Gimme a romance. Gimme a horror story. Gimme a crime story. It’s all good.
Lead Character: depends on the creator. I’m predisposed to like certain characters like anyone, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy a Swamp Thing book drawn by, say, Greg Land or Jim Balent.
Event comics: This is a fast way to get me NOT to buy a comic. I HATE big crossover stories and think most one-off events are marketing gimmicks rather than sound storytelling. Screw events.
Krell Laboratories: Wake the Dead -
Looking at The Awakening (2012) on my movie blog today. With Rebecca Hall, not Charlton Heston, which is all to the good. Plus poetry quotations!
I also like this film’s heroine. Florence Cathcart is what would have been called a “new woman” in 1921, one who wears pants and smokes cigarettes and doesn’t care if it’s “proper” for a lady. She’s educated, too, and the best in her chosen field. The film has a sub-theme dedicated to what happens when such a woman bumps up against institutional patriarchy, though it ultimately doesn’t figure in the denouement. And I like the actors. I can watch Rebecca Hall in anything. It’s fun watching Dominic West play against type as a haunted school teacher.
This is what it queued up to start the day:
Rid of Me—PJ Harvey
Androgynous—The Replacements
Red House—Jimi Hendrix
Nothing But a Heartache—The Flirtations
Ants In My Pants—James Brown
This Tornado Loves You—Neko Case
Let it Rain—Dream Syndicate
Don’t Stop the Dance—Bryan Ferry
You’re a Big Girl Now—Bob Dylan
You’re No Rock and Roll Fun—Sleater Kinney
Exit Through the Air Vent—Man or Astroman
Surprised there’s no Johnny Cash. My iTunes loves Johnny Cash, usually.
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BIG NEWS: Brandon Montclare and I JUST launched a Kickstarter!!! For our new creator-owned SERIES Rocket Girl. Check it out!!!!!
THIS TIME WITH A LINK, GO ME: http://kck.st/108y2Tr
I don’t envy Amy and Brandon for going online the day after Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett’s Lady Sabre Kickstarter (which is sucking all the oxygen out of the room). But Halloween Eve was awesome, and this looks awesome, too.
Now if I only had some money right now….
The text of our first official Kickstarter Campaign Update!
Wow, you guys weren’t fooling around!We’ve been told we broke some records Monday, and frankly, Eric, Rick, and I are stunned at the support and response the campaign has received. It’s humbling, and it’s far more than we expected. We cannot thank each of you enough. We will do everything in our power to reward your faith with our best efforts in the days, weeks, and months to come.Our initial goal of 27.5K wasn’t just met, it was decimated. To such an extent, in fact, that you actually blew past our first Stretch Goal, which we’d planned for 35K. You can see a description of it on the Kickstarter Page, below the Stretch Goal heading. Long story short, every order of the book will now come with a two-sheet Lady Sabre paper doll set, created by papercrafter Linda Candello, using Rick’s designs. These will be printed up in full-color, on 100lb matte or its nearest equivalent, and depict Her Ladyship and some of the choices from her fabulous wardrobe. Additionally, the PDF files for the paper dolls will be included in the digital package. This means that if you backed us at the $20 level or higher, you’re getting the paper dolls in one form or another or, more likely, both.Stretch Goal two is a bit further afield, as it’s more ambitious - the Pocket Guide to the Sphere by Edwin Windsheer. This is a crafted piece of ephemera, something we hope will look and feel and read as if it fell through time and space into your hands from the Sphere. Roughly designed to be the size and feel of a small casebound Moleskine, printed in black-and-white, and containing various sketches and writings by the foremost chronicler of the Sphere’s Fourth Age (IV.E). This will run 32-pages, and contain all original content, never before published on either the website or in print. Depending on the response, we may expand the book to 64-pages, which would make more sense, but, also, cost more. We shall see!Stretch Goal three… yeah, well, we’re already getting ahead of ourselves.Finally, we’ve added a new backer tier, what we’re calling “Rare & Royal.” This is a limited (100 of 100) run of the book, bound in imitation leather with foil-stamped case and spine, ribbon bookmark, and matching foil-stamped slipcase. This is kinda our dream edition, to be honest, and we weren’t sure we could even afford to offer it. You’ve proven us wrong, so after some discussion, we’ve committed to its run. This, as we explain in the reward description, is the book as we envision it on Her Ladyship’s shelf. Each copy is numbered and signed by Rick and myself, and comes with the Lady Sabre dog tag designed by Optimystical Studios.Once more, our sincerest gratitude for all your support, from your pledges in backing us to your retweets, tumbles, and facebookings. Please continue to spread the word!Hold fast!
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Krell Laboratories: Pattern Recognition -
Looking at Room 237 on my movie blog today.
There’s a word for the psychological effect that causes people to see Jesus in a piece of toast. It’s called “pareidolia”, and it’s the reason that you can look at the grille of a car and see a human face staring back at you. The human brain likes to see patterns, particularly patterns that it recognizes. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Seeing a purposive universe is a key to the development of science, even if that purposive nature to the universe is an illusion created by the way our brains are wired. Unfortunately, that same pattern recognition feature can become a bug when you can’t turn it off. I was thinking about this while I was watching Room 237 (2012, directed by Rodney Ascher), in which five people descant on the “meaning” of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining while trawling through the minutia of the film. Now, I shouldn’t throw rocks. I occasionally see things in films that other people don’t. Hell, that’s what the movie-o-sphere on the internet is for. But I generally don’t take the kinds of cognitive leaps that leads the commenters in Room 237 to their conclusions.
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“Mrs. Cecilia Ward” by John Singer Sargent
Every time I go to the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, I wind up standing in front of this painting with my mouth hanging open. The Nelson has a TON of amazing art, but for some reason, this one always grabs my attention. Seeing it online is almost a comedown, because you just can’t capture the brush strokes with pixels.
It is nasty out today in Philadelphia. Rain, wind, puddles, general unpleasantness. Looking at some of the paintings from this show of John Singer Sargent watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum, however, makes it all seem a little less bleak. They’re lovely. If I were going to be in New York this weekend, I would go to there.
Sargent detractors who think he was a gifted technician but lacked imagination and formal rigor may profit from re-examining their prejudices in light of his watercolors, his freshest and most authentic work. The show won’t alter the basic conventional wisdom, but it does offer a good opportunity to consider knotty questions like: Was Sargent a modern artist?
He was modern in the sense that he revealed the processes of painting, unlike conservative academicians who preferred to hide their tricks behind veils of illusion. Because of its transparency watercolor has a certain intelligibility; you can see the artist thinking, deciding and constructing the work.
Corfu: Lights and Shadows, 1909 by John Singer Sargent