INDELIBLE FRECKLES » Comics

‘Ang ‘Bout

d f mamea — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:01:14 +0000

I was reading 100 Bullets – Hang Up on the Hang Low recently when, a dozen or so pages in, I realised that the sense of familiarity I was experiencing was not just from the ‘old friends getting together and torturing each other’ noir vibe but that I’d actually read it all before. Twice, according to my reading diary.

I can understand The Goddess getting halfway into a book before realising she’d read it before – she devours hundreds of books a year (and not one of them will have a speech- or thought-balloon). My reading diary has me averaging 115 comics, scripts and books a year for the period 2006-2009.

What’s my excuse?

Resonance

d f mamea — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:23:44 +0000

That word has been bouncing ’round my head lately. Part of it has been Steve Hickey‘s posts about sticky ideas. Another part has been discussions I’ve had recently about film, television and theatre that have left enduring memories regardless of the passage of time. And there’s been a smidgen of shop talk about making the familiar fresh.

There are doubtless innumerable posts in the ether about what makes a piece of art resonate.

For me, it’s a singular interpretation, execution and vision that transports the viewer.

I have no idea where David Simon and Eric Overmyer are going with Treme but I am so there, man, because I’m hooked. Same goes for the recently concluded 100 Bullets from Messieurs Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso – each trade paperback left me floundering as a reader but I’d still make enough connections between the many, many plotlines and goddamn if it wasn’t a hot little page-turner. And then there’s The West Wing and The Walking Dead. And The Good Wife and Ex Machina. And Mad Men. … I could go on.

With the exception of Treme, all of the above are easily categorized genre pieces.

Each title resonates not just because they’re so different from everything else out there that they’re essential reading/watching – they’re the creators talking directly to us the audience at an individual level. They’re connecting.

That’s resonating.

Point & Click

d f mamea — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:00:55 +0000

Been saving these up, oh yes I have.

The last swords-and-sandals epic I saw was Gladiator. Since then, Troy, Alexander, Rome and 300 have come and gone with nary a flicker of interest on my part. But The Incomparable‘s review of Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi‘s Spartacus has sparked a guilty, pulpy, what-the-heck kind of interest:

…Spartacus won’t win any awards for the originality of its premise. Hunktacular warrior dude loves his superhot wife, but is reluctantly called away to battle for the good of his people. Hunktacular warrior dude is betrayed by sleaze-weasel Roman general and branded a deserter. Hunktacular warrior dude escapes and is reunited with his superhot wife just in time for them to be captured (notably, while in the altogether) by sleaze-weasel Roman general. Sleaze-weasel Roman general sells hunktacular warrior dude into the employ of agreeably amoral gladiator owner. Hunktacular warrior dude must wage a muscly, well-oiled, tiny-pantsed struggle up the ranks of the gladiator circuit to find his beloved wife and gain his whoa that guy just took a giant axe to the face!

The always excellent xkcd webcomic has this heads-up for those writers out there putting the final touches on their denouement:

And go here – now – for the rest of this brilliant bat-take on Memento:

About Last Year

d f mamea — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:45:33 +0000

(Yeah, okay: eight days since my last post is more than a few days – more than several days – more, even, thana week. Sorry.)

It’s been so long since we’ve rolled into 2010 I won’t bore you with -0

This is my blog – and in the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Hooah.

2009 was really a year for the goggle box –

Television

Better Off Ted – Season 1
Generation Kill
Go Girls – Season 1
Mad Men – Season 3
Nurse Jackie – Season 1
State of Play

– but cinema had some new – and old – pleasures –

Film

Avatar
Dan in Real Life
No Country for Old Men

Rambo (2007)
Stephanie Daley
The Lives of Others
Up

– and when not glooed to a flickering screen, there was always –

American Born Chinese – Gene Yang
Global Frequency – Warren Ellis and various artists
Iron Man: Extremis – Warren Ellis and Adi Granov
Lenore: Cooties – Roman Dirge
Parker: The Hunted – Darwyn Cooke, based on the book by Donald E Westlake

Scalped: Casino Boogie – Jason Aaron & R M Guera
The Walking Dead: The Heart’s Desire – Robert Kirkman & Charlie Adlard

Oryx & Crake – Margaret Atwood
The Turnaround – George Pelecanos

… Aaaand – okay, books without pictures were a bit of a rarity last year (again) – but these scripts made an impression:

Action: Pilot – Chris Thompson
Burn Notice: Pilot – Matt Nix
NYPD Blue: Pilot – David Milch
Six Feet Under: Pilot – Alan Ball
The Philanthropist: Pilot – Tom Fontana

Miami Vice (2004) – Michael Mann
Precious – Geoffrey Fletcher

Red Rock West – John Dahl and Rick Dahl
The Incredibles – Brad Bird
The Hurt Locker – Mark Boal

The Road – Joe Penhall
Zombieland – Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick

I won’t be disclosing stats because they’re pitiful and I have no excuse. But if you break my run of comment spam (three figures and rising this past month) and ask nicely, I’ll consider it.

2009 was an okay year for watching and reading – a better year for writing – and 2010 awaits my ~~conquest~~ ~~domination~~ attention.

Overall rating: Satisfactory – but must try harder.

Point & Click

d f mamea — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:00:53 +0000

Okay this isn’t post-dated.

I’ve got fifteen minutes spare.

How quickly can I cut and paste and make sense?

How about ten best film endings? (Fedora-tip: Infinite Monkeys by way of The Incomparable.)

I’ve been a fan of Dylan Horrocks since Hicksville (a phase of forcing myself to try some homegrown comics fare). He’s got a blog. With serials and stories, too! Recommended for civilians and comic aficionados alike.

PhD student Gareth James is very generously sharing some of the fruits of his research into the history of HBO original programming, 1997-2007 at Gareth On…. (Fedora-tip: Lynden Barber.)

Time’s up already. Must be a slow linker.

Quis Custodiet – Abridged

d f mamea — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:05:01 +0000

Mr Hilton at The Editing Room has just put up an abridged script for Watchmen.

And this excerpt is for the benefit of The Goddess who wondered what the heck the story was with Bubastis the wondercat:

MATTHEW GOODE

Would you like me to explain why as I stroke my tigercatrabbit?

PATRICK WILSON

Er, actually, yeah, are you going to explain that thing at all?

MATTHEW GOODE

Who, Mr. Meowkins? He’s my pet.

PATRICK WILSON

Right. I figured that.

This link/post is dedicated to Mr Molloy.

Point & Click

d f mamea — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:00:47 +0000

A bit of a backlog of a collection, attributions for which I can’t remember, sorry – though a pretty good bet would be the sidebar, but.

Billy Mernit makes a good case for bad screenwriting.

There are such things as happy endings for screenwriters in Hollywood – just ask Robert Mark Kamen.

Salman Rushdie writes about adaptation.

Thanks, I suspect, to Nick Grant of Onfilm, I have discovered The A.V. Club‘s excellent The New Cult Canon series, in particular this article about the commentary between The Limey’s writer Lem Dobbs and director Steven Soderbergh.

Oh, is nothing sacred, Mr Rogers?

Another Kiwi screenwriting blog! Lyse Beck gives us Birds With Nuts. There’s a nice thread about Watchmen here.

And speaking of the Minutemen, after all my build-up, The Goddess and I went to see Watchmen a week or so ago. She enjoyed it; I hankered for some interpretation rather than faithful replication. Thanks to Mr Slevin I’ve read people who can say what I’m thinking much better than I could here, here and here. (And no one’s mentioned it’s been two whole decades since Tim Burton gave us Michael Keaton as Batman – didn’t that kickstart the mainstreaming of comic-book adaptations?)

Quis Custodiet – One Sleep to Go

d f mamea — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:00:31 +0000

Oh alright. Despite whatever I said before, I’m in a… high state of anticipation.

Lynden Barber‘s whip ’round of reviews, along with the L.A. Times‘ Patrick Goldstein‘s post, have lowered expectations somewhat. Roger Ebert has given it four stars and a review that saw past the “cerulean genitalia” and picked up on a whole lot of the original comic‘s subtext (and I don’t think he’s read it).

I must note, however, that Mr Ebert gave each Hellboy film three and a half stars. After reading Guillermo del Toro‘s script prior to seeing the first one, I was rather… crestfallen at the finished product. The Goddess has never forgiven me for choosing Hellboy on one of our precious nights out. I’ve already asked Her to accompany me to Watchmen but the 163-minute running time is worrisome. Should I push my well-thumbed trade paperback on Her in preparation? Hurm.

The possibility of watching Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons‘ creation on the big screen is high ~~this weekend~~ ~~next week~~ this month.

(Comic)bookhunter

d f mamea — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:00:38 +0000

Decades’ of comic-reading made me pick up 500 Essential Graphic Novels the other day. Two hundred, I thought to myself, I bet I’ve read two hundred easy.

I barely managed ninety*.

And that was by including characters I knew I’d read but couldn’t exactly recall if I’d read the title listed in the book. I definitely remember reading Lucky Luke and A.B.C. Warriors but I can’t recall specifically chuckling over A Lucky Luke Adventure: Billy the Kid or acting-out mek-carnage from A.B.C. Warriors: The Black Hole.

Meantime, I plan to work my way through a list that includes -

Bryan Talbot‘s Alice in Sunderland<,/li>
Dave Sim‘s towering Cerebus,
Frank Stack‘s The New Adventures of Jesus: Second Coming,
Keiji Nakazawa‘s Barefoot Gen series,
Roberta Gregory‘s Life’s a Bitch: The Bitchy Bitch Chronicles,
Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch‘s The Ultimates,

- and, based on its premise and the cover art, Jason Shiga‘s Bookhunter:

The year is 1973. A priceless book has been stolen from the Oakland Public Library. A crack team of Bookhunters (aka. library police) have less than three days to recover the stolen item. It’s a race against the clock as our heroes use every tool in their arsenal of library equipment to find the book and the mastermind who stole it.

* Eighteen lousy percent. At least I did better with the IMDb top 250 list, making 67.6% (though I suspect if that list went to 500, my batting average would drop significantly). (Film Addict link courtesy of Dan Slevin.)

A Belated Review

d f mamea — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:30:28 +0000

And what have I got to say for my reading and viewing for 2008?

147 books, comics and scripts were picked up and read, all bar 19 right through, with the most memorable being:
- Pamela Douglas‘ Writing the TV Drama Series, Mark Haddon‘s A Spot of Bother and Ruth L Ozeki‘s My Year of Meat;
- Kyle Baker‘s Plastic Man on the Lam!, Laurence Hyde‘s Southern Cross, Jason‘s* The Living and the Dead, Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel‘s The Quitter, Joe Sacco‘s Palestine, Stan Sakai‘s Usagi Yojimbo, Marjane Satrapi‘s Persepolis, and Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra‘s Y: The Last Man;
- Phillipe Claudel‘s I’ve Loved You So Long, Frank Darabont‘s Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and William Norris‘ H.P. Lovecraft’s The Reanimator, Frank Nugent‘s The Searchers, M Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening, and Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond‘s Some Like it Hot.
113 features and television series were watched on a screen, with 20 stopped part-way through, the most memorable being:
- The Closer Season 3, Escape to River Cottage, Matthew Weiner‘s* Mad Men Season 1, Te Radar‘s Off the Radar, Shawn Ryan‘s The Shield Seasons 4-7, Sports Night (*), and David Simon‘s The Wire Seasons 3-5;
- The Dead Girl, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton, Moonstruck, A Scanner Darkly, Shoot ‘Em Up, The Squid and the Whale, and Waitress.

Yep, my book readin’s waaay down, but I’ve recently rediscovered it over the break with three (non-picture) books on the go. (But will I finish them?).

Hardcopy scripts were courtesy of the guild‘s Timpson Collection. Softcopies, as always, were courtesy of Don at Simply Scripts.

It was a very quiet year for film watching. How quiet? I’ve only seen two films apiece in Roger Ebert‘s 2008 picks and Lynden Barber‘s faves.

Maybe that was because 2008 was a year for a lot of box watching. While some people mourn the loss of Bionic Woman, and The Sopranos, I’ve got my own problems with the end of The Shield and The Wire. Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad they finished when they did: better to choose your terms of departure than overstay your welcome.

The universe shall provide.

Point & Click

d f mamea — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:54:41 +0000

I’ve done my shopping. I can do whatever I like now.

Danny Stack has ten essential ingredients to becoming a professional screenwriter (the first step? read.)

John August has some solid advice on what to do with your ~~ill-gotten gains~~ hard-earned ch-ching: money 101 for screenwriters.

Lynden Barber has a posted an excellent article on The non-cinematic art of David Lynch (with part one of seven here).

Another Kiwi scribe hits the ‘sphere: Sanjay Patel asks, in the context of local stories having global resonance, What makes a Kiwi film?

It would be just like Lucy Vee to be an agent of the universe and provide some online resources for writing a play.

Lee Lofland has a list of suggested pressies for the protagonist in your life (no Barretts or miniguns, but).

Jane Espenson has a post about writing comics, while –

– the Lair of the Kung Fu Monkey has a been taken over by comic scribes Mark Waid and Michael Alan Nelson. (“[A] comic story is made up of frozen moments” – I mean, who’d a thunk?)

And I’ve just read the final volume of Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra‘s Y the Last Man. Having swallowed tears aplenty, I have vowed to read the whole series through again (once the libraries reopen).

Ladies and germs – happy holiday reading, viewing and relaxing.

Lunch

d f mamea — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:38:47 +0000

Last week, The Goddess and I had lunch with Sean Molloy and Helen Rickerby. It was a great get-together: even though I’d met Sean only one time earlier, the atmosphere was very congenial. A fellow screenwriter and Guild board member, the conviviality was due largely to his being a fellow blogger and Guild forum loiterer. Oh, his taste in comics can’t be faulted; well, except for his Marvel bias. Anyway, we sat around a table and talked and talked and talked, and all of a sudden two hours had just gone.

I’ve tried to post about the very pleasant experience but, despite five false starts, have been unable to satisfactorily tie it in to the business of this blog. I knew what I wanted to say but was unable to execute it in such a way as to be a). appropriate, b). informative, c). entertaining, and d). easy on the reading eye.

Yes, meeting fellow scribes is b). informative and c). entertaining, and the lunchtable conversation was a). blog-appropriate – but you, Gentle Reader, don’t want a transcript of the conversation that accompanied our repast.

You want something to take away from this post, some nugget of ~~wisdom~~ observation, some kind of distinct perspective on an everyday occurrence (having lunch, not meeting fellow scribes).

… Nope. Still don’t have it.

But I got a lot farther with this post than the others.

- No, wait, I have it: if after [PICK A NUMBER] attempts, you lose heart and focus, remember: Every time God closes one door, He opens another.

Here endeth the lesson.

The Shield – In Memorandum

d f mamea — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:14:55 +0000

Six years I’ve waded faithfully – or is it blindly? – through The Shield‘s rising turpitude, its serpentine storylining brushing unseen against my immersed body, the show’s writing satisfying the need to resolve each ep’s crime-of-the-week while each season’s ~~caper~~ ~~escapade~~ escalating crisis builds towards a season ending that’s as welcome – and inevitable – as dementia. Lately I’ve been flashing on Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman‘s comics runs in the eighties and nineties – each and every ep, I’m led down back-of-my-hand familiar back- and dead-end-alleys, and each time I reach the end, whatever I find is a). not what I expect and b). the most obvious or logical thing in the world.

My TradeMe connections brought me right up to Season 6. The final season (Season 7) is half-way through its run in the States as I type this. And thanks to my leetle frien’, I’m just a few days behind them.

It’s all building towards a James Ellroy ending. And just like in Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet, the following thoughts are uppermost in my mind with this final season:

no good turn goes unpunished;
the rule of unintended consequences applies supreme;
things, no matter the best of intentions, will not – can not – end well.

So often in film and television these days, I recognise the portents and the foreshadowing, and can comfort myself that, even if/when things go bad, I was braced for it. But now, despite six seasons of faithful viewing, and with only seven eps to go, my sleeps in between are fitful with drowning dreams…. I can’t contemplate the show ending. It has to, I know that. I accept it. It’s the how that scares the bejesus out of me.

… Mr Ryan – I’m in. All the way.

Quis Custodiet

d f mamea — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:05:32 +0000

Saw the trailer for the Watchmen film the other day.

It got me pretty excited. I suspect the faithfulness of the visuals to the source material is a big factor, though the voice-overs sounded a bit undercooked.

Although Terry Gilliam, and then Paul Greengrass, had been attached to direct this monstrous adaptation in the last couple of decades, it’s taken Zack Snyder to bring it this far. I haven’t seen Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead; not really my cuppa. I kinda/sorta/maybe was going to see 300 when it first came out but was quite disappointed by the graphic novel I borrowed from my friendly local in preparation for my viewing. Maybe, one very rainy day/week/month, I ~~will~~ might try either/both.

Anyhoo – wait a minute: I’ve got scripts of Watchmen – a 2003 Hayter draft and an undated Tse draft.

INT. CAVE – NIGHT – A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER

Some… measured anticipation has replaced the excitement.

I had, in my post-trailer, pre-blog-post-drafting excitement, already typed -

I can’t freaking wait

- but I was a bit hasty. It’s a big ask to condense a complex twelve-issue limited series into a two-hour adventure. (C’mon: it’s got superheroes – whether we like it or not, if it’s going to be a superhero movie, it has to be a kind of adventure.) And now, thanks to Mr Slevin, I can’t get this out of my head:

It’s eight-nine months away. Let’s see how I feel then, eh?

Jason Rules

d f mamea — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:00:27 +0000

Single name creatives usually make me suspicious. Except Prince, of course, because he’s freakin’ Prince, so shut the hell up. It’s the others I worry about. Like McG. Or Pitof. I’d include Fabio but I’m still working through whether it’s jealousy about his hair and/or pecs or just plain suspicion.

And then there’s Jason. The name itself might conjure Halloween-type movie images, rightly or wrongly, but he’s a Paris-based cartoonist who insists on doing graphic novels with no description and less dialogue than a thirty second television commercial.

There’s only one way I can describe his work, full of absurdity, surrealism and hilarity and yet still telling a story – from the blurb for Meow, Baby!:

STARRING: One mummy, one god, one angel, one devil, one plasic surgeon, one Dracula, one Van Helsing, two ambulatory skeletons, one ice cream girl, two policemen, one space alien, one rocket ship, one Egyptian explorer, one werewolf, one family of cavemen, one Frankenstein monster, one pizza delivery guy, one Godzilla, one family of zombies, one Terminator, one set of potential in-laws, one mob of angry villagers, one naked girl in a shower, one Rubik’s cube, one hitchhiker, one opthalmologist, one Darth Vader, one Frenchman, one time clockone pterodactyl, one Jules, one Vincent, one teacher, and one Elvis.

And pick up Living and the Dead – where “horror, humour and romance commingle” – while you’re at it.

Blinkers

d f mamea — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:30:20 +0000

If I knew five-plus years ago how hard it would be to be a professional screenwriter, I might have tried a little harder to understand the Star Trek-like technobabble that was part of the editing classes at film school. At the very least I would have been employed much more contiguously in these post-film school years.

I doubt that I’d be as happy and content as I am now, though. When I look back, I can exclaim – just like those Hallmark cards or chain-email-angels insist – I’ve come a long way, baby!

My trick to surviving, I think, is my ability to be wilfully short-sighted. Take the short film, for example. I thought I had a pretty straight-forward project: five talking heads, no gun-fights, no car-chases, a half-dozen locations, and a nine to ten-minute running time. The devil is in the details.

Inside or out? We had just one interior. Everything else was either on the street or in the car. As the shoot approached, I realised how vulnerable we were to weather. I worried a lot. And slept little beforehand. (But it worked out.)
Location variables. So you think you’ve picked a reasonably quiet street, right? It was quiet when you recce’ed it earlier, it’s away from busy roads – and it’s a cul de sac, for pete’s sake. All those things doesn’t stop someone within microphone range from blasting away with their weedeater. Or a truck pulling up across the road from you and unloading a mini-dozer and heap of wood. (The dialogue’s gonna be re-recorded, and the truck/dozer-driver was a sweetie and we worked around each other.)
It’s just some people talking in a car. Did I mention that the car’s travelling at the time – like, the car is moving – it’s on the road – while the actors are delivering lines and the camera is rolling. When the budget doesn’t stretch to a low-loader (a really low trailer towed by a truck) ablaze with lights and possies for a camera and attendent crew, you make do. (And I’m really happy with what we got – no make-do‘s about it.)

I obviously like to kvetch.

In the end, in the heat of of any stressful moment, I’m always struck by two thoughts:

I’m reminded of Ed Wood where Johnny Depp is on the phone following the release of his first film:
ED WOOD
(into phone)
Really? Worst film you ever saw.
Well, my next one will be better.
Hello. Hello.

And I flash on a Sandman preview where a dreamer has nightmares about falling – analogous with the situation they’re in at the time – and learns by story’s end that:
Sometimes you wake up.
Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

Chop-Chop

d f mamea — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:40:09 +0000

As post-production winds down on To’ona’i, Lucy Vee‘s excellent series on genre (the thriller article is a must for such geeks) has been a nice kinda welcome as I catch up on blogs before I settle down to the next project.

Which is… hrm.

Last night, whilst tearing my nose-hairs out over an imminent deadline, I rashly responded to Mr Woods‘ post on the ~~Jules, Ben and Dave Forum~~ guild forum.

Apparently, I’ve got plans.

Chop-chop.

… Once I’ve devoured Aaron Sorkin‘s Sports Night: The Complete Series (thanks TradeMe!).

100

d f mamea — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:07:06 +0000

Gosh.

Hundredth post.

I may not have written as much as I wanted to since 1 January 2007 but I’ve -

run a total of 558kms (97kms of that sans mongrel);

picked up 170 books, comics and scripts, and read 137 right through;

and sat down to watch 128 films, DVDs and TV series, and watched 105 right to the (sometimes bitter) end.

‘S not bad. And because it’s that time of the year, I give you a list of notable and recommended reading and viewing experiences (in strict alphabetical order):

comics: Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos’ Alias, Charles Burns’ Black Hole, Brian K Vaughan and Tony Harris’ Ex-Machina, Chester Brown’s I Never Liked You, Jimbo’s Pulp Sticktion strip in DMC‘s New Ground anthology, and Alex Robinson’s Tricked;

scripts: 28 Weeks Later, The Bourne Ultimatum, Casino Royale, Gone Baby Gone, and Perfect Creature;

books: Carl Hiaasen’s Basket Case, Mike Figgis‘ Digital Filmmaking, Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Rising, Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and Patricia Grace’s Tu;

features: The Children of Men, The Departed, Everything is Illuminated, Serenity, and Stranger than Fiction

television: Burn Notice, Green Wing, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Insiders Guide to Happiness, The Shield, and The Wire.

As for the running, I do it only so that I fit my clothes.

Happy new year.

Point & Click

d f mamea — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:18:51 +0000

So many things to post about. So few braincells to spare. Meantime, I give you these wonderful links to enjoy:

Alan Moore is interviewed about his career and latest work, Lost Girls.
Jeremy Slater has same cry-out-loud posts (here and here) about Heroes creator Tim Kring. Mm… maybe not for Heroes fans.
Phill Barron is writing a feature screenplay in one week. The man is insane. Virtual rubber-neckers can follow his progress so far: Day One and Day Two.
It’s that wonderful time of year when the Vidiots hold their annual Dead Pool competition. They may only be in it to see which newbie show karks it first, but for me it’s a good indicator of what to look forward to in the near future. Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money seemed to pass muster; here’s hoping The Bionic Woman and the long-silent Josh Friedman‘s The Sarah Connor Chronicles do the same.
Stephen Fry – yes, that Stephen Fry – has a blog. Nuff said, mm?

Comics Splurge

d f mamea — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:53:50 +0000

James Henry‘s ruminations on Saturday morning entertainment got me thinking. (ABC Warriors and Nemesis the Warlock would be so coool. And Strontium Dog. And M.A.C.H. One.) (Okay, maybe not M.A.C.H. One.)

Late last year, I finally discovered where they hid the comics at the local library. Giddy with the find, I was adventurous with my choices: X-Men/Phoenix – Endsong, X-Men/Black Panther – Wild Kingdom, Invincible: Perfect Strangers, Batman and the Monster Men, and Hicksville.

Once at home, I tore through them. It was – to those of you who know their comics – a mixed bag.

Even back in The Day, X-Men never really turned my dial. Its exclamation-mark-laden dialogue, descriptions-for-dummies, and the artists’ renditions of breasts that defied gravity and biological reality were quickly tiresome. Almost two decades on,… the dialogue’s more realistic, the minimal description borders on curt – but the breasts, ohhh the breasts. Large juicy breasts encased in spandex, mysteriously free of nipples but full of teen wish-fulfilment. Nope, still not my thing.¹

Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker‘s Invincible is a variation on a Superman-like alien protecting the Earth – and proof there’s still life (and fun to be had) in tights and superpowers yet².

Batman and the Monster Men was a disappointing pulpy homage by writer/artist Matt Wagner. Wagner’s critically acclaimed creations, Grendel, which never made much sense to me, and Mage, of which I’ve had but one unforgettable taste, may be his most well-known but it was his brilliant jumpstart of Sandman Mystery Theatre that inspired me most.

And Dylan Horrocks‘ Hicksville. This title really made me reevaluate my attitude to New Zealand comics. An instant favourite – one I’ll have to buy and add to my collection. Fired by the positive experience, I tried Maui: Legends of the Outcast; my comics cultural cringe has blinded me to homegrown comics for too long. I’m collecting Horrocks’ Atlas now, and am following DMC‘s New Ground with interest.

As The Goddess never tires of saying: thank gosh for libraries.

Just between you and me? I thank The Goddess.

¹ – I was always more a DC man than a Marvel boy. But I quite enjoyed Ultimate Spider-Man: Silver Sable – due largely to Brian Michael Bendis‘ writing (Bendis being half the creative duo behind the magnificent Powers series, another recent and belated ‘discovery’). Confirmation that when I follow a writer I’ve enjoyed from one title to another, I’m unlikely to be disappointed.

² – Update: Mark Waid‘s Superman: Birthright was an unexpected gem for 2007. (Why, I might even try Superman Returns now….)

Something Old, Something New

d f mamea — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:58:13 +0000

Jed Mercurio, creator of the excellent, visceral, Bodies, wrote this about adapting novels for the screen. What I found most interesting was -

Cynics argue that drama adaptations for television demonstrate a lack of enthusiasm for original material or, worse, a lack of quality in original scripts. I disagree with both propositions. Commissioners crave original drama, and many (if not most) writers prefer to create their own material, and most (if not all) of them feel more attached to their original script than an adaptation. But marketing original drama isn’t easy. … The audience doesn’t know the story or the characters. That’s hard to explain in a trailer or a billboard poster.

As an audience member, I must confess to a double standard: I want more of the same – but different.

I work hard at trying something completely new though. How else could I have found and sworn by Bodies or The Wire – or even Green Wing or The Insiders Guides to Love and Happiness?

What I admire most about these series is the sheer depth, and complexity of story and character that’s packed into each forty-five minute episode. It didn’t matter if it was a procedural or soap. The writing, directing and acting is so good that the underlying structure is barely noticed.

Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are my poster boys for giving more of the same… but different. They showed that even the tired superhero, horror and fantasy genres of comicdom – and their audiences – could be treated just as seriously as any other form of ‘real’ literature – with maturity and intelligence.

I returned to comic-reading in the last few years – one could hazard that it was a precursor to my true return to reading. And upon my return I’ve found the pleasures of Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson‘s blistering Transmetropolitan, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon‘s heart- and gut-wrenching Preacher, and David Lapham‘s mindblowing Stray Bullets. These – and more – are just proof-positive that, just as the good doctor purred,

It is important to always try new things.

(Heads-up courtesy Lee Thomson.)