The irremediable Jack from fairy tales and a few cohorts make they way across the fable world of the good ol’ U.S. of A., seeking treasure and attempting to avoid the clutches of the fable crushing Mr. Revise. Little does Jack know that an even more deadly enemy is right around the corner. I liked it, but want Willingham to do more to develop the characters of American tales.
This probably should be read after American Gods but I’m glad I read it first as AG is a better tale. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the story of Fat Charlie Nancy’s word getting turned upside down when he discovers his late father was actually a god and he has a brother whose magical powers are only rivaled by his ability to disrupt Charlie’s life. And there is the added complication that now Mr. Nancy is no more, an old, and equally god-like, enemy comes calling.
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Drawing Board
The beginnings of this baby can be seen here and here. So after more agonizing and procrastinating than is really appropriate, I have finally finished this. And I’m relatively happy with it. The last 3 panels are, I think, the weakest: panel #7 is just an unreadable mess (it’s supposed to be tainted food and drugs—note the 3-legged turkey—but it’s really not all that different from panel #3); panel #8 should have our narrator clumsily fighting a war, not the actual troops; and panel #9 is also an unreadable mess (it’s difficult to fit crime, disaster, poverty, pollution, and corporate takeover all in one panel).
I reduced the text even further based partly on Mark’s suggestions. I’m always a little worried about making the text too sing-songy, but hopefully I cut and sang about the right amount to get the point across.
Ok, I know I’ve been saying to ya’ll that I’ll get this blog updated, post some comics, and basically do all the stuff that makes a blog a blog. Well, this isn’t the start of that promise, but it is the promise of a start. I’ve promised myself a month off when I return from ALA in Chicago to decompress and catch up on some stuff I’ve wanted to do i.e. this blog. I think I realized I need some down time during Queens College’s MLS graduation party. No, not my graduation, I set up the party (as part of being President of the Student Association (Pratt pays those people BTW)), but it was all for people who rarely or don’t acknowledge my existence. The realization came when I asked this stupid &@%^$ named Danelle (or maybe that’s a pseudonym, you don’t know) if she would sign a petition to help her now alma mater’s Student Association get more funds, and she blew up screaming “You know, I don’t have time for this!” Well, I should of mentioned to that fat %$&*@ that I didn’t have time to throw that party or write her a graduation card, but I did it anyway. Funny, her and her giggling cabal of nutters would probably get along quit well with me–very similar twisted sense of humor–if they stopped being so cliquish. I guess that’s why I’m writing this (no it’s not just because I want to sabotage my career by badmouthing fellow librarians, that’s only the subconscious part), but to remind any librarian peers who might read this–all potential one of you–that there is a reason no one respects our profession: we tend to be either loners or cliquish, socially inept, and show no desire to help ourselves out. Why do you think our budgets always get cut? Because we’re swimming in $$? Maybe part of it is because we can’t take two seconds to write our names down on a piece of paper. Maybe part of it is how we present and promote ourselves even to each other. Do you know that Mark Beta constantly laughs every time I mention some class or skill a librarian needs? And he just got a degree in Theatre Theory! What the *&%(@ is that? (No offense Mark, but we both know it’s true.) Is self preservation so hard that we can’t get our heads out of our butts, asks this bridge burning, antagonizing author? Oh, for the return of the Grey Lady calling us hipster librarians.
It’s a few days later, and I’ve revisited this idea. I’ve even taken a few of Mark’s suggestions into account and combined a few of the points. I agree that the ending is probably overkill, but I think not having something to tie it all up will make it seem too unfinished.
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We’re still on the tracing paper, and I still need to correct some parts. But I think I have the basic elements laid out. I tried to vary the images between close ups and longshots since I need to work more on backgrounds and depth. I also want the images to be visually interesting and funny to some degree—either by pointing out the absurdity (tainted meat) or just by having a silly picture (the kid with the dunce cap). The military image (panel 8 ) isn’t really either of those things, but I think it may be a fun image to draw because of its pattern. However, if I think of something better, I’ll trade it out. Likewise, panel 9 is meant to show several things falling apart (planes falling out of the sky, sanitation problems, poverty) and I’m not sure if I can really make it work in any kind of perspective. So that panel may change.
Working Text
Title: You, Too, Can Defeat the SCOURGE of SOCIALISM
P1: I know it seems overwhelming at times, but there are some simple things you can do to save our country from the threat of Socialism.
P2: If you travel, go off-road. And never go to National Parks or monuments. Public roads and public places were built by Socialism.
P3: Only drink rainwater, and don’t use a toilet. Municipal tap water and sewers are for Socialists.
P4: If your house is robbed or catches on fire, take care of it yourself. Fire Departments and Police Departments are for Socialists.
P6: If you lose your job, don’t accept unemployment insurance. And don’t let your aging parents cash their Social Security checks. Government assistance is Socialism.
P6: If you have kids, home school them. Public schools are for Socialists.
P7: Only take non-FDA-approved drugs and eat non-FDA-screened food. Safety regulation is invasive Socialistm.
P8: And forget supporting the troops. They get free food, housing, training, and health care. Do you really want this country defended by Socialists?
P9: If you take these simple steps, we’ll soon be free of a safe, well-ordered society that takes care of its people. Down with Socialism!
Or something like that…
Jerri Blank is 46. A “boozer, user and a loser” reformed runaway and addict who returns to high school as a freshman, and tries to fit in with students 1/3 her age (and for all the problems, does a better job then I did). Sadly, or happily for us the viewers, she hasn’t quite given up on her background or acquired any sense of ethics. Filled with biazze characters, devoid of laughtrack, and zanny as can be, It’s too bad it only ran a couple of season.
The other day my Mom almost cut off the tip of my right index finger with a scissor. I’m not sure why.
So here’s another idea in the works. I have the basics figured out, but I’m still deciding on the best way to present the information.
It started (at work) on the back of scrap paper:
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And I’ve begin mapping things out on tracing paper. These images may change somewhat; and one or more may switch places to get the right punch.
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Working Text
Title: You, Too, Can Defeat the SCOURGE of SOCIALISM
P1: I know it seems overwhelming at times, but there are some simple things you can do to save our country from the threat of Socialism.
P2: When I drive to work, I always go off-road. Public roads and highways are for Socialists.
P3: I only drink groundwater (rainwater?) that I collect. Municipal tap water is for Socialists.
P4: When my house caught on fire, I put it out myself. Fire Departments are for Socialists.
P5: I home school all my kids. Public schools are for Socialists.
P6: I was robbed, but I didn’t call the cops. Police and the penal system are for Socialists.
P7: I only take non-FDA-approved drugs and eat non-FDA-screened food. Safety regulation is for Socialists.
P8: When I lost my job, I survived on my savings. Unemployment insurance is for Socialists.
P9: I don’t let my aging parents cash their Social Security checks. Taking care of the elderly is for Socialists.
P10: When we travel, we only go to (?theme parks?). National Parks and Monuments are for Socialists.
The text could use some tweaking, and I’m still working on the order. I’m trying to decide on how to end on a punch. Maybe something like: “A civilized, safe, and well-ordered society is the last thing America needs.” In any case, I want to keep it to nine panels, so a couple of the lesser ideas (or ones I can’t figure out an image for) will likely get dropped.
Constructive suggestions welcome.
Paul (one of the other multitudes of Pauls who shop at Heroes and Villains) at Ideology of Madness calls this movie a bad horror movie. He’s not all that wrong, but here’s what my experience was like:
I’m guessing you did not see the Wednesday night showing at AMC 24 in Hampton during which two groups of people kept making funny ass comments, like, “Don’t look in there, bitch,” and, “Who has an anvil?” which made the movie a lot more enjoyable.
And of course, going into the movie knowing that Raimi is a pretty cheesy director helps, or at least helped me realize that I should not take the movie seriously. Some of his camera movements? Why? Why, why, why? I read in some book about los Bros. Coen in which Raimi says something like it’s the director’s job to make it clear what is most important in the scene. This made me think of some of his squiggly move in for close-ups moves from one or several of the Spider-Man movies. I’m not that studied in film criticism, theory, or technique, but I’d imagine the actors should be helping make the audience understand something important is happening, or the music, or costuming, but the fucking squiggling camera…No. You know what I mean?
I enjoyed it as a fun movie, in which I was scared for few moments here and there, as goat-headed demons can be frightening, but that’s about all. The old Gypsy was gross and creepy, but didn’t we love the old lady in Evil Dead II for the same reasons?
Three couples walked out before the end, but I think it was the jokers that turned them off more than the cheese and bad CG. The theatre manager mentioned at least one pair complained about the talking and shouting, but I took it like the Grindhouse experience or Rocky Horror: It’s all about audience response.
PS: Lohman starred in White Oleander opposite Michelle Catwoman, in which the former plays some trouble jail-bait who moves from foster home to foster home because of her psychotic mother played by the latter. Take a look if it doesn’t sound too chick-flick for you.
This seems like filler and sells only on the merits of the goodness that was 52 itself by throwing a giant “52 Aftermath” logo on the cover. The main characters, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman did not feel well-written and I did not care about anyone in this story. It felt disjointed at times and I think even a bit directionless, so even when I enjoyed moments, that enjoyment quickly vanished, as should this story.
I don’t know what the later implications were, especially of Dr. Whatshername becoming ruler of Egg Foo’s island. Or is it Egg Fu? Does anything that happened in this story matter later on? Some of the Checkmate stuff was cool, such as Snapper Carr now being someone who watches the Wat…I mean JLA, but I haven’t faithfully followed Checkmate or Wonder Woman, which is there I’d imagine some of the results of this mini-series are shown.
Normally I enjoy Giffen’s writing, but not here. I enjoy VanSciver’s art, though I already cannot recall if there was a fill-in artist on some later issues. That’s how memorable the overall package is.
It seems like since the four horsemen are supposed to be adapting to Earth, not Apokalips, they might look different than their previous forms. It’s been a few years since 52 ended, almost two years to the week, I think, and I’m pretty sure the horsemen looked the same: some still creepy, other aspects are just stupid.
I’ve already added this book to my Sequential Swap list for trade…
Collects issues 1-6 of the DC Comics mini-series by writer Kieth Giffen and penciler Ethan Van Sciver. Hmmm. $2.99 per issue, times six issues equals $19.99?
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Drawing Board
I suspect that no one will appreciate this comic (especially people born before 1965 or after 1975), but I had been giggling about it for a couple of days, so I had to slap it together. This is a mix of pen & ink and Photoshop. It came out pretty much as I envisioned, although I would have liked to have figured out a better layout for the text.
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DRAWING BOARD
Most of the preparation for this comic can be found in the following posts:
As to the concept of how media affects us, I do believe that media have a profound effect on how we behave. However, it’s not a simple 1-to-1, monkey-see, monkey do effect. Your genes, history, and environment are all strong contenders. That said, repeated exposure to certain types of media (and this is key) without counter-balancing stimulus can lead you down a murkey path to anti-social behavior. Or conversely, to (what is considered by some) “socially desired behavior,” such as buying shit you don’t need.
Okay, so after sleeping on it, I’ve decided not to add any more text. A title might be nice, but even that may be superfluous. This baby is already text-heavy.
I cranked out a guy smoking a cigarette, and I’ll add that to the piece.
I haven’t given Mark or Paul much time to comment (nor our millions of other readers), but I’ll assume that there won’t be too many changes that they suggest (and that I’d be willing to implement). I’ll leave open the idea that the final product may change slightly, but we’ll go with this for now.
Okay, so we’re near the end. But there are still some critical decisions to be made.
NEARLY DONE
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First off, I thought of another item for the left side: smoking/drugs in movies. That sorta gets my “movies are bad” motif in there, and it’s an easier image to draw (at least in terms of drawing something iconic). So I’ll get to that soon.
But for now, the text is the thing. I’m reasonably happy with the text on the left. But on the right…
It’s late, so I’ll sleep on it. But I intend to finish this puppy tomorrow, so that I can claim two comics for May.
Next up is getting the sketches from the sketchbook to bristol paper. Ideally, I would be able to fit everything on one sheet of bristol, but I drew all my sketches too big, so I’ll be putting them on several pieces of paper and then consolidating the picture in PhotoShop. I hate to do that, because that means there is no “original art” in the traditional sense (i.e., a single one-page comic). But when I’m less sure where I’m going, having some latitude which how to arrange the pieces is a good thing. (Or at least it’s a reasonable trade-off)
Anyway…Using a lightbox, I traced the sketches onto better paper. This step is a mixed bag. On the plus side, you can eliminate all the mistakes and stray lines. On the minus side, the image loses a lot of it’s “aliveness” (for lack of a better word). In addition, tracing inevitably means you are going to miss a few details accidently.
Then comes the inking. Again, in this step, you lose a lot of the original look of the image, but you gain some cool qualities as well. It’s a strange trade-off.
But for a few lines here and there, these are all inked with a brush.
INKED (a few)
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Following on yesterday’s post, the next step is to turn the very rough thumbnail sketch into actual sketches. Since I hadn’t drawn any of the pundits before, I grabbed some images on the Web.
SKETCHES
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Coulter, Beck, Liddy, Malkin
Savage, O’Reilly, Hannity, (and I had the hardest time with) Limbaugh
video games, porno
teletubbies, sex ed, rock ‘n roll
These are all done in pencil in my sketchbook. I’m relatively happy with the sketches, although I couldn’t quite get Limbaugh, so I made him more caricature than I would have liked. Also, I was trying to think of an easy symbol for “Hollywood movies,” but I got nothing.
Since I seem to be having a hard time finishing what is really a fairly simple comic (or at least the idea is fairly simple), I thought I might walk through the process in public.
The idea is to show the contrast between (or hypocrisy of) how some media affects us (it turns us bad), while other media has no effect on us (it’s just free speech/it’s just entertainment).
The SKETCH
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This was drawn on the back of some work document. On the left is such horrible influences as Teletubbies, video games, and rock ‘n roll. While on the right is the melodious and gentle sounds of right-wing gasbags who spew hate-inciting “free speech” and (let’s face it) veiled death threats. Which side gets the greater grief?
Our friends at “Take Action: Save Brooklyn Public Library” just sent us the following message:
“There will be a hearing on the impact of the Executive Budget reductions on New York City libraries that begins tomorrow, May 28th, at 12:45pm. There is a public session, which begins at 3:30pm, wherein members of the community may address the council directly (for two minutes) with their concerns. (http://council.nyc.gov/html/calendar/directions.shtml)
***We invite you to come out and voice your support for libraries. We want to fill the Council Chamber with library supporters and ensure that our customers have the opportunity to publicly voice how much BPL means to them.***”
So if you’re in the NYC area and not doing anything tomorrow afternoon, why not fill up City Hall with librarians and library supporters. Let’s send a clear message to Mayor Bloomberg and the Council that libraries are part of what makes a community strong, vibrant, and well-informed.
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Drawing Board
I have this crazy idea of doing a mini comic of “How Things Work” that spoofs and/or critiques any number of social phenomena. However, given that I’ve managed to do 2 comics on the idea in the last 8 years, don’t hold your breath. This is the other one.
As to this comic in particular, I’ve always been a little troubled about the whole fate vs. free will issue, and throwing in God and prayer only muddies the waters further. Let’s face it, the internal logic of most belief systems is fuzzy at best. I have no doubt that prayer can offer meditative and palliative help for some individuals, but that’s not exactly the same as bringing the magic.
With this comic I wanted to try a new inking technique. You squirt the ink directly on the page and then spread it around with your brush rather than dip your brush in an ink well. The tecnique had mixed results for me, especially as the ink had a tendency to spray rather than drip nicely. I suspect with a better squirter and a comic with more black spaces I might have more luck. This particular comic doesn’t really require much black—I sorta made up the black backgrounds in order to try out the technique (although I kind of like the effect).
In response to Sean T. Collins’ review of Batman: Knightfall Part I: Broken Bat. Please read before continuing for fuller context.
I thought this first volume was great as well. The build up was terrific, as best I can remember, which does seem pretty vivid now that I’ve read your review, as I’ve not read this since 1994 or so.
I thought the remainder of Knightfall was lacking, didn’t read much of Knightquest and Knightsearch, but Knightsend, Prodigal, and Troika were great and it seemed Batman and Detective Comics were on this great high for years (Dixon, Moench, Rucka, Brubaker) until around War Games. It seems that around the time of Identity Crisis, things got dark.
Yes, in the nineties Batman had his back broken, but it didn’t have the uncomfortable feel that I got from War Games and many other stories from the Big Two over the past five or six years. It’s like there’s no more heart (maybe those dumb monkey moments) in storytelling and it’s all about topping the previous writer’s over the top ultraviolence. I don’t care anymore, with few exceptions, like Bendis and then Bru’s Daredevil. That works for me.
I’m wondering if post-modern has taken over the mainstream of the Big Two and is as far as superhero stories can develop, stories constantly regurgitated, each time a little more nasty and that much less satisfying.
It’s like beginning with Alien, heading into Aliens, then the first Predator, and Alien 3 to end up with AVP: Requiem and being throat-raped a lot more violently and being aware while it’s happening by the Alien/Predator hybrid instead of the unconsciousness-inducing facehugger, which by name alone doesn’t sound so bad.
This is something I think David Wolk, in Reading Comics discusses some (Only about half way through myself). Where is the fun? Marvel’s G.I.Joe series is one of my favorite and is so fun, but Casey’s America’s Elite… Not fun. A few characters, some favorites died in Hama’s original stories, but when Casey or others kill Joes or Cobras…it’s not fun. Why is this?
Is comics violence becoming hyper real, and therefore taking away from the fantasy element in regard to the violence?
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