Life Of Pi

I was really excited when I originally heard Jean-Pierre Jeunet was making this and clearly that did not happen, but Ang Lee looks like he did a great job with this. Loved the book by Yann Martel.

Wake The Fuck Up

Random

My girlfriend works at the public library and she stumbled across these beauties in a book about comics. I LOVE the fact that they are misspelled. We once had a bunch of comics that a mentally challenged kid had cut up and glued back together to make his own comics. He'd even gone as far as to put some of his own dialog and titles in. They were so cool and more Grant Morrison than Grant Morrison ever thought about being. Pop Magic indeed!

Introducing: Flame! Mr. America! Jane Grey! And last but not least, Reese!

Dr. Duran(d) Duran(d)

Right Place Right Time

Arlo Guthrie stuck in a moment.

Banksy On Advertising

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you are not sexy enough and that all of the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights, and copyright law mean advertisers can say whatever they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take,rearrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have rearranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs." -Banksy

White Canvas Project In LA

Pedro Almodovar

I believe that Pedro Almodovar is one of if not the best living filmmakers on the planet. His movies have complex narratives that challenge way beyond the norms of Hollywood movies. They often have a very sexual theme that is steeped in some type of dysfunction or extreme fetish, so immediately he is operating on a different level than the milquetoast American counterparts. Not only do his movies make you think, Almodovar is usually two steps ahead. I can't fully explain how satisfying that is. The last film I saw, "The Skin I live In" has a moment where everything comes into focus and I literally said "Oh shit!". This ndirector gets my highest recommendation.

Jonathon Hickman

If I didn't know better, I'd think Jonathon Hickman was British, but he's not. He was born in the States, but he writes comics like a Brit. That doesn't mean his characters are all running around speaking with Cockney accents and chasing down fish and chips. You see, comic writers, really good comic writers from the last 25 or so years have had a high propensity for British citizenship. Don't ask me why those guys seem to dominate the literary scene in comics, they just do. That's all besides the point though. Hickman has quietly become a force of nature in comics and is a ray of shining light that promises that the medium is not yet dead.

To be honest, his best work appears in the form of the monthly Fantastic Four and FF (Future Foundation). It is incredibly complex in scope and the depth of detail is staggering. It's nice to see a top talent on a flagship title, but these are not the books that peak my interest. What does whet my appetite is his Image Comics creator owned work. They usually seem less developed than his Marvel work, but they have soul and touch on much more sophisticated topics than super heroes (nothing at all wrong with that topic though). Most impressive to me, is the fact that Hickman came up under the Image banner and parlayed that into much more lucrative work for Marvel, but he didn't abandon Image like some other creators have when success came knocking (cough-Bendis! cough-Fraction!) He has a bunch of projects in the pipeline and they have found a home at the creator friendly Image. Image has been knocking it out of the park lately with new projects from Brian K Vaughn, Scott Snyder, Ed Brubaker and host of others. I applaud the man for doing what is right for the comic community. Independent comics are good for the market. Diversity of publishers is good for the market. Following your creative instincts in lieu of chasing a buck is good for the market.

If you wanted to pick a creator to mold your comic career after, I would chose this guy. He belongs to a small group of writers that excite me when I merely see they are doing a new project. I know I can count on him to deliver at certain level. If it doesn't register with me it certainly was not because his heart wasn't in a project. Do yourself a favor and check this cat out. I recommend Nightly News, Red Mass For Mars and Pax Romana.You might even swear the guy was British after you read him.

Somebody I Used To Know

Obsessed with this Gotye song.

Oy! Oh! Let's Go!

Sneak Peek

I probably shouldn't unveil something that is far from finished, but a bit of progress has been made on, what for me anyway is sort of an old project. I came up with the initial idea for this story probably ten or so years ago and it has been incubating. I have about half of it finished as far as a script, but that hasn't been recent progress. I need to polish up the second chapter and attempt to finish it off. I know where the story goes, but connecting the dots is sometimes a chore. Here's to a productive year. The artist is Randy Valiente, whom I have collaborated with on a previous, but as yet unreleased book. The title for this one is a work in progress, but that will all get settled in due time.

Jean Giraud, aka Moebius: 1938-2012

When I was a teen I discovered the evocative and cerebral work of Jean Giraud, whom I initially only knew as Moebius. For a pretentious kid who aspired to the arts, he had me at Moebius. Sometime later I stumbled onto work where he used his real name. His work in the seventies and eighties that appeared in Heavy Metal was staggering. You didn't need an art degree to see that his art stood out from that of his peers. There was genius in his lines and his subject matter was mainlined into the collective unconscious. For a time, his work was readily available in the States, but at some point it dried up. It became hard to find until recent times, which is good because anyone who wants to really and truly know the medium of comics should be familiar with his work. I would speculate few modern comic artists worth their salt would be unfamiliar with his work. He is one of the few visionaries that completely transcends the medium. If this sounds of hyperbole, know that I simply can't find enough superlatives for staggering genius.

Don't believe me? Here is a quote from film auteur Federico Fellini:
"I consider him more important than Dore," said Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini:
He’s a unique talent endowed with an extraordinary visionary imagination that’s constantly renewed and never vulgar. Moebius disturbs and consoles. He has the ability to transport us into unknown worlds where we encounter unsettling characters. My admiration for him is total. I consider him a great artist, as great as Picasso and Matisse."

R.I.P., Jean Giraud

Home Stretch

There hasn't been much progress on the book lately, but it is almost there. Once Anthony Max finishes another project, which is looking super cool, he'll be back to finish the last remaining pages of our project. Then it will be down to the lettering contributed by the talented Megan Kettner. I am more than ready for it to be completed, but supposedly good things come to those who wait.

John Berkey

    Last night I read through the newest Illustration Magazine and read the feature article on John Berkey, an American-born artist (1932-2008) famous for his sci-fi paperback covers of the seventies as well as some movie poster art. The guy was prolific, but until I read the article I thought I was unfamiliar with his work. It turns out, the man burned a huge impression on my young psyche in the late seventies. I couldn't forget the movie poster for the 70's remake of King Kong if I tried. I stared at it every day at lunch because it was on my lunchbox. Kong is standing atop the trade centers and smashing planes. It doesn't get much cooler than that when you are 5 or 6 years old. The other piece of art that is indelibly etched in my brain pan is Orca, and many comic fans of a certain age will back me up on this, but it was hard to miss the poster art because for a long while it was on the back of seemingly every comic published. Worlds are colliding at this point. Orca terrified me at the age of five, which is crazy if you've seen it since then because it is pretty hoaky. I guess Richard Harris couldn't find a paying Shakespeare production at that point. Suffice to say, both of those films made a huge impact on me. Here is to memory lane and apparently, the work of John Berkey.

Words AND Pictures!

The question I get asked the most about this project is surprisingly, to me anyway, is where do the words go? People are very worried about the words. I've heard tale that acquaintances of the artists are worried I'm going to mess their art up, as if I'm literally going to write on their actual art. Ha! It's 2012 ya bunch of cavepeoples, they do that stuff digitally now! Thankfully, Luddite that I am, I have someone else more skilled working on the lettering and they are doing a bang up job. The lettered pages are now in the 90-something area and Tony Max has only 9 more pages of art to finish up. And then, (second most popular question) we will let some publishers start looking at this thing and try to find it a good home.  I am so ready for that to happen. I love this book, but it has been a long time in the making and I'm ready to focus on other projects. Here's to it finally seeing the light of day in 2012.