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Monday, August 29, 2005
A post for Jack
Better blogs than this one have probably already informed you that yesterday was the 88th anniversary of Jack Kirby’s birth. That’s a day that means a lot to me and millions of others who have been affected by the man’s work.
For me Kirby remains an eternal inspiration. I discovered all of his work through reprints and back issues published before I was born and yet his stuff speaks to me more than most of the creators working when I was just discovering comics as a boy. It’s because Kirby’s working is the finest meeting between imagination and skill ever done in comics.
To see someone make a living out of creating such fantasy and garnering so much due praise because of it is something I really think is special. I fear that if one Jacob Kutzberg was born a few years earlier or a few later more pragmatic forces in life would have him put away his ideas and he’d end up working endlessly in some office some where. Instead Kirby fought up from the streets and through the disrespectful business dealings companies like DC and especially Marvel gave him and kept producing these wonderful creations that could only come out of this brilliant mind. Opening a Jack Kirby comic and seeing a god-like creature that eats planets, a planet that is alive itself, one of the most blissfully twisted visions of the future, the most incredible dystopia committed to the comics page and so many more particles of wonder instills such a fun energy into so many readers because Kirby instilled all those comics themselves with that irresistible energy of invention and storytelling.
Kirby delivered it all with such confidence and bluster it always seems to work. I remember hearing some of those who inked Kirby that all of his pencils were so confidentially and perfectly structured that it was a joy to embellish his work. Every single line was right where it needed to be and all the power of his characters’ actions and emotions were right up front (to see this for yourself heck out the penciled pages in the back of the Marvel Visionaries: Jack Kirby book where you can see pages from the Fantastic Four issues that introduced Galactus. Those issues, by the way, are the greatest superhero comic books ever made).
Whether working with a writer like Stan Lee or Joe Simon or writing for himself, Kirby’s work had this bluster to it that spares the reader no time to catch his or her breath in introducing all this weird stuff. When I first starting reading Kirby’s working through the Essential Fantastic Four series I would often stop at around eight pages into the comic, count how much story has gone by in such small space and just be taken aback at how much entertainment and creativity there was in just the beginning of some of these books. Before then I never knew you could get away with presenting a comic like that. I’m sure Kirby and Lee thought it was no big deal, just the way things should be.
When Kirby wrote his own stories there was this real sincerity to everything so that it can bring the audience in to enjoy the work. Lee provided some necessary ironic detachment to the Marvel work the two were doing but Kirby’s writing was devoid of that. He never took it so seriously that it became grim and impenetrable but there is that feeling that he was really into concepts like Devil Dinosaur or the Anti-Life Equation. It is fun to read those books with some knowing raillery (I often do, especially when confronted with this cover I have to have a bit of a laugh) and Kirby did intend all these books to be fun and jovial, so I don’t feel like I’m taking the piss out of anyone. At the same time I’m more than a little impressed and yet again inspired by how someone can come up with all these big ideas and deliver it with such pure optimism installed in them, all without having any of his comic book writing descend into naïveté. There was something sweet about that.
As long as I can read I will read Jack Kirby’s work. I couldn’t live without it. To see such power in the human imagination is one of those things that make life worth living and makes me want to continue on as a creative person. That’s why Kirby and his work is an inspiration to me and why I’m glad his work is accessible and hopefully will continue to be accessible through reprints for a long time to come.
Check out the Jack Kirby Museum.
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Thursday, August 25, 2005
A Question of Sin
I've noticed a trend amongst those non-comics reading "civilians" of which you or may not have also have experienced with.
When I tell people I'm a writer and most of my writing have been for a magazine about comics the first thing they reference when they hear comics is Sin City. Last week there were three different times that three different people mentioned that to me, recognizing that's something I probably know about since I know comics. I tell them I thought the movie was okay and all the people I've talked to seemed to really enjoy the movie and its unique visuals. It's pretty popular among the people I go to school with and I've even seen it being shown at two popular revival theaters already (New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles and Red Vic in San Francisco).
Maybe it's because last week the film came out on DVD but I do wonder if this will be the new big public face (or one of the new big public faces) that comics have amongst the general populace?
Other things I've heard when I tell people I work with comics:
"Do they still make Preacher comics?" I told him no but all the books are still in print.
"Oh man, I love going to comedy shows." I told her I write about comic books, which she said was also cool.
I've also heard a lot of love for Jhonen Vaquez work and other Slave Labor artists, including one of my favorites Evan Dorkin. I take it that since I'm in the Bay Area and SLG is in San Jose my results might be subjective.
Is this just happening to me or are you other people who work in comics or just comics enthusiasts also noticed this?
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Recommended reading
On the eve of a new semester at a new school I worry that the content here might take a beating. Don't worry folks, I'm pointing you in the direction of a place where the content is flowing it is damn fine reading.
Batfatty, the newest member of that ragtag bunch the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs, has some of the weirdest and funniest comic book and comic book related insanity.
Do you like the odd little corners of comic bookery Mike and Dorian explore with their scanners? Do you like the mad love for Adam West Tom Peyer has? How about if someone takes all that and adds about 156% more crazy and exotic (a lot of the stuff are from foreign lands)? I have no idea where he finds stuff such as Superman pimping Asian watermelon seeds, Dan Clowes' Captain Marvel or whatever the Hell this is but I love that he did find them.
Batfatty: good and good for you.
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Monday, August 22, 2005
Now my dreams are blogging
If cartoonists like David B. and David Heatley can come up with comics through their dreams, why can't I come up with blogging through my dreams? It's not exactly comic related but it is geeky pop culture related.
This goes back to something that, through no planning on my part, has become a theme for my blog. Yet again I am sitting in the director's chair adapting someone else's material. This isn't a comic book movie, though. No, in my dream I have been picked by Lucasfilms to helm the remake of the first Star Wars. This time, it is not a space opera but a western.
We are shooting in parts of California that still have that desert feel to them. The set is something that looks like it is out of High Noon or a Sergio Leone film. A lot of things have been changed so the same basic story fits into the 1800's ("A long time ago in a galaxy not so far, far away"). C-3PO and R2-D2 are not droids, but just an effeminate man and a guy who incoherently mumbles respectively. Luke is still a hick kid from the desert area, but now his friend Ben Kenobi is the town priest with a secret. The Mos Eisley Cantina is now one of those dangerous saloons that always show up in westerns. Han Solo is a "Man With No Name" type whose only friend seems to be the strong man he hangs out with the speech impediment (actually an injured larynx), Charlie Bacca.
This being a post-Deadwood western, The Empire are those trying to incorporate the state this all takes place in (I don't know what state that was. My dreams sadly don't do historical research). Vader is a Swearengen-like leader, but not as complex because this isn't HBO, it's Star Wars (the name remains on this remake for some reason).
As you can probably guess trying to turn the sci-fi movie into a western was becoming very awkward. Directing the picture was becoming stressful but all the studio people kept pushing me on, pressing me forward and buttering me up. I was still unsure whether this project, which sounded interesting at first, was going to work.
Then I woke up while I was in the middle of a phone call with one of the studio people. I swear I didn't go to sleep that night hoping for a blogable dream.
***
Since there's something of a Simpsons discussion in the comments section of my last post, I have to ask this: how are the rest of you people finding the new packaging for the 6th season box set?
I'm all for change if the change is good but I'm just finding more flimsy paper stuff, cheap plastic, a shoddy looking sleeve and a box that's hard to open. It's a shame because I like the smaller, thicker booklet and the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" theme to it. There's a number to call for those who are "anal-retentive nerds who like their DVD boxes to line up perfectly on the shelf" so you can get "a very derivative, old-style, just-like-before box with almost nothing new or creative to annoy or terrify you" (these are the enclosed notice's words, not mine).
I don't like to think of myself as someone "who fears change," is an "anal-retentive nerd" or even someone "who dislikes storing their digital media inside a hollowed-out human head" because I know I'm not any of those things (does this come off as sounding like am one of those things? I hope not). I was just disappointed in what one of my favorite Simpsons seasons got as packaging. I probably won't call the number because it will be too much hassle; I just thought I'd get some other people's input through the internet.
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Friday, August 19, 2005
This where I found the word
It was probably around before MAD #26 and this Jack Davis drawing of J. Fred Muggs parodying David Garroway but this where the word came to my attention. I've got a soft-spot for all those MAD words like "potrzebie" and "vreeble". It's a given that the part of my heritage that's Eastern-European Jewish word react to such things.
From the never-to-be-repeated Simpsons episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson":
Alfred E. Neuman: Get me Kaputnik and Fonebone. I want to see their drawings for "New Kids on the Blecch!" And where's my fershluggen pastrami sandwiches?
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Thursday, August 18, 2005
The director’s eye returns
First off, to all the Vootie people: I thank you. It surprises me that people would read that whole damn meme about my silly life but I’m glad they did. The other people who participated in the meme were interesting, I suggest you seek them out (Graeme’s post is a good place to start).
Now is a time where I tell you of another comic book to movie scene I’d like to see. I did a post describing five scenes I wish to see and here’s one more. Maybe there will be even more in the future, I don’t know.
Preacher
As with most of the scenes I describe, music is important. There are few things I like better in movies than when a great scene is pared with a great pop song. Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas alone is full of them) are some of the masters at this. After seeing The Devil’s Rejects I think you can say Rob Zombie is on his way at being one, too. If I ever become a director maybe I’ll have my shot. Until then we have the blog posts.
The song to open the film is Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky.” It’s a song with a really mean swagger of a groove to it. The guitar sounds are some of the dirtiest guitar sounds you’ll ever hear. That one riff with the delay effect on it sounds really scary and evil. Then the lyrics come in and you find that it’s a happy song about liking Jesus.
During the opening of the song we see a bar in Texas hopping with the local regulars. That scene is cut between various shots of a man walking down a dark and empty Texas road at night. We see his white suit, the collar around his neck and the bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, but we never see his face. He walks slowly but confidently as Greenbaum sings about going to the place that’s the best and that sinister swing is in full force.
When Greenbaum and the female back-up signer tells us about the spirit in the sky we see the Adelphi in Heaven confronted with one of the Seraphi bringing them his headless brother’s corpse. Then there are a few more shots of this man of God walking down the street and the bar he’ll end up in.
Before the second verse we see a blonde woman looking through a cracked window to see three men in a car, one with is mouth blown off. She looks frightened and confused at what she’s done. She runs into a truck driven by a man with sunglasses. She points a gun at his face and he flashes her a distinctly Irish smile. The woman, Tulip, is played by Hope Davis and the Irish fellow is played by Tim Roth.
During the second verse Greenbaum sings “Prepare yourself you know it’s must/Gotta have a friend in Jesus.” It’s right when “Jesus” is uttered that we see Jesse Custer’s eyes. They are filled with weariness, anger but also something resembling hope. Custer is played by Vince Vaughn. As the second verse ends Custer opens the door to this bar the patrons visit just as regularly as church. He is going to get a few things off his chest.
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Meme me
Thank you Shane. After a hectic day of getting used to city life I felt I was too tired to think of anything useful to say. Then The Beetle One tags me for some little meme and *bam!* there’s a post. Let’s look back…and to the future!
1. Ten years ago:
Why, I wasn’t even born yet! No, I was born and I was 12 (that actually even surprised me). I was trying to get a handle on this girlfriend thing with a lovely woman named Courtney. I was also beginning my love of music by discovering one punk rock band and then the band that influenced them and then the band that influenced them and so on. Pretty soon I was the only middle school student in Moorpark, CA that knew who the Minutemen and Husker Du was. A title I held with honor.
2. Five years ago:
I was enjoying what I now know is the greatest year of my life. The small alternative high school I was in was filled with smart and witty people. We all got along and all made each other better people. The teachers were all about discussing works instead of giving us papers (it really was the start of this blog).
I had some really great friends then, only one of which I see now and then barely ever.
3. One year ago:
Worrying about transferring to colleges and getting some real work as a writer. Thankfully I’ve reached at least some success in both areas.
4. Yesterday:
Took my first MUNI rail car down to Haight and went to Amoeba, as well as making a mental note to myself to check out the Red Vic when they play Barbarella.
5. Today:
Woke up at 1:40 a.m. because of fake fire alarms, didn’t get to sleep until 6:00 or so. Then I had a terrible time trying to figure out what bus to get on simply to get to the post office (I’m thinking of bringing my car up here). Felt fucking shot in the head because of city life. Thank God for multiple naps.
6. Tomorrow:
New comics day in a new comics store.
7. Five snacks I enjoy:
Popcorn. Peanuts. Those Cheese Crunchers at Trader Joe’s. The Hawaiian chips at the same store. Children.
8. Five bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs:
The Beatles, The Ramones, Velvet Underground, AC/DC and one more that I forgot.
9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000:
Get a house all to myself is the first one I can think of. Have it totally paid off and then just live there in some nice suburb like Pasadena. I probably wouldn’t go outside much.
10. Five locations I'd like to run away to:
NYC. Pasadena (I don’t know, I just like it there!). Carrick Macross, Ireland (where my Mom is from). Glasgow, Scotland (where my Dad is from). San Diego (I born there).
11. Five Bad Habits:
Can worrying about yourself too much just be one big bad habit that causes all the problems in my life be my one answer? I’m trying hard to get myself to relax, hopefully I’ll get somewhere.
12. Five things I like doing:
Comics, listening to hip-hop, watching movies in revival theaters, playing guitar and meditating (that’s how I try to relax).
13. Five TV shows I like:
The Simpsons, The Daily Show with John Stewart, Deadwood, The Shield and shitty vapid shows on VH1, E! or Bravo.
14. Famous People I'd like to meet, living or dead.
Scarlett Johansson, just to see if I have a shot with her (I think I already know the answer).
15. Biggest joys at the moment:
Just to see if anyone is still reading this far, write “Vootie” in the comments section please. Thank you.
16. Favorite toys:
My brain.
17. Five people to tag:
Do it, don’t do it. It’s totally up to you.
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Monday, August 15, 2005
Godland #1
Sometimes a creator or creators do something with a book that’s so brash and so ostentatious you just have to admire them for it. Joe Casey and Tom Scioli have come up with a comic book that seems straight out of Marvel’s Bullpen circa 1967 (although it does seem to take place in modern times). Casey has admitted that he and Scioli work from that Stan Lee invention of the “Marvel style” and on the surface the book wouldn’t look odd next to an issue of a Roy Thomas/John Buscema Avengers. It may take getting used to compared to everything else you probably read today but what the two are trying to do with Godland might prove to be a really interesting take on superheroes and their past.
Scioli’s art will bombard any readers eyes with its devotion to Kirby’s style of thick lines, bodies seemingly shaped out of bricks of clay and panels that are filled with that certain brand of sci-fi mayhem. There’s been many an artist who have employed the weaponry Kirby perfected on books such as Fantastic Four and Thor. Yet those artists, people like Walt Simonson, Steve Rude and Mike Mignola, always built off of what Kirby did with their own style and creativity. Scioli seems fine to just take that patented Kirby look with no other hint of any other influences or changes and use that for storytelling. That is Scioli’s personal style, or at least that’s what it seems to be so far. Jim Roeg points out in a great post how this book is hyperreal, hyper-Kirby, and that’s what made the book so interesting to me. The greatest Kirby books have that “bursting at the seams” feeling, where characters’ situations are so action packed they feel like they might very well fall out of the page and into real life, bringing all the characters’ pathos along with them. In Godland it’s the Kirby-ness itself that feels overwhelming, intoxicating the reader by taking this wonder of Kirby’s work into action. I can see how it could turn off readers who would rather see creators originate upon past works instead of revisit them. I don’t think Godland simply revisits Kirby and Lee/Kirby books of bygone eras as much as it is increases the hypnotic mania in those books by filtering it through a fan’s devotion and skill.
That’s not to say there’s isn’t some type of building on what Kirby has done, or at least some conversing as Roeg would put it (I keep referring to his review because it made me appreciate the book in a whole new way after already reading it. You should read it right now instead of going over my drivel. Go click that link and then come back). Casey adds just that much self-awareness into the thought balloons of protagonist Adam Archer that there seems to be another dimension to this book (and with a cosmic tale like this one “another dimension” could be taken literally). He fights with this monster in one of those great knock-down drag-out battles that those superhero comics of a different day did so well and yet his thought balloons are filled with doubts about his current situation.
“Why am I verbally taunting this thing? Am I such a poseur that I can’t help myself?”
“Christ...Why do I keep talking smack like that?”
“Dam it…This has gone on too long.”
Those are the things Archer goes over while his in a fight for his life in front of our very eyes. The fact that any type of tinkering with the superhero form is still done strictly of the style of an old Marvel comic is what worked a lot for me. It expresses a lot of ideas about that time in superhero comic book history, the major one being fondness, although that’s hardly the only one. I share that fondness, perhaps you do as well, and I hope that Casey and Scioli are able to balance this exploration of superhero comics while still telling mind-blowing celestial tales.
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Saturday, August 13, 2005
My candidate
For my first post in San Francisco I thought I'd expand the discussion from beyond comics.
Americans, take a look at your country. A good, long hard look. No one doubts serious problems abound. These are problems that seem undeafeatable, as if there is no hope for this great land.
I say, sirs and ladies, there is hope. There is hope.
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Ask now what the Fantastic Four can do for you...
How about I point you to Michael Chabon's 1995 proposal for a Fantastic Four film? I think that sounds good (found from the Marvel Masterworks board).
My favorite part of Chabon's outline is that the film is a period piece of the early-60's. With all these Marvel films you would think that somebody would figure out to celebrate the era that Marvel flourished in, that being the Kennedy 60's. In Comic Book Confidential Stan Lee said that the perceived positivity of Kennedy and his "Camelot" were a big inspiration when he, Kirby and others were putting together the Marvel universe. The fact that the books that make up so many Essential volumes are now period pieces are a big part of the charm for me (who can resist Spidey making reference to J. Edgar Hoover and Rock Hudson, especially reading those books today?). To try to bring that out in a film adaptation could really work and make the film a lot of fun.
Let's face it, the Fantastic Four are very much of that era. They would really benefit from a movie that was set in "[a] Technicolor, bossa nova, Douglas Sirk world." I know Peyton Reed was once attached to direct the FF movie and I was hoping he would bring some of that Down With Love magic to the franchise. Unfortunately it didn't work out and instead we got boring action scenes and extreme sports. The Tim Story movie was uninteresting.
Chabon also chooses not to spend a lot of time with the origin story, another right turn I don't see a lot of superhero movies taking. Wouldn't it be great if we just got colorful costumes and exciting powers within the first ten minutes of a film? I think that would be better than spending a half-hour to an hour getting information out of the way, especially in the Fantastic Four's case where the origin story is "pretty goofy." I don't think it's a big mystery that Spider-Man 2 and X-2 are both considered better than their respective predecessors, the pace and feel are both improved because there's no need to dwell on how the characters got their powers (read: there never was).
As I've made clear I'd really like to see a movie based on an old comic property that crackled with the same personality and life of those bygone back issues. At the very least it would be a fun experiment.
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Friday, August 05, 2005
Fun with mislabeling
My workload of writing about comics for places that aren't this blog has shrunk but next week I'm packing up as I move to San Francisco. Upon my arrival I will surely gather my fellow Sucka Free comic bloggers and gives us a convulatued name that can become an equally convaluted acronym (hopefully I can put the word "hella" in there). Blogging will be light to non-existent then, but I do hope to supply you with a review of Godland before that week is done. It's a neat book that's worth writing about, so there's that.
Until then, I give you this:
That's the only Pope I want in charge of my church.
From the Reverend Xenakaboom.
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Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Giles, I don't have Giles yet
It's not exactly a return to form but I do have a link for you. Tim and Eric of Tom Goes to the Mayor fame has posted their Comic-Con memories as well as the teaser they played at the Adult Swim panel (which I was there for the first half-hour of). You will hear the 3rd Rock From the Sun chant, see Dave Foley's awesome cameo for the next season of Tom and bask in the glory that is Cap'n Blue. Well worth your time (found via the magic elves at aspecialthing.com).
Hopefully I'll post something meaty before the week is out. I'm so busy writing about comics I don't have time to...er...write about comics. What kind of life am I leading?
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Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Mark Evanier has declared the soup can the symbol that a blogger is too busy with real world stuff to do much blogging. With that I point you towards Mr. Warhol drowning in the stuff, which is not unlike how I feel today. I hope I can get back to regular blogging soon because I've read a lot of books recently, all of which I'd love to review here. Unfortunatley my stress lelvel is at 1,209.54 out of 10 right now and when things go bad this is the part of my life that is the first to suffer. Very sad but hopefully things will change.
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