I am presently musing on the surprisingly wide-ranging and diverse subject of graphic novels, or
bandes dessinées as the Montreal bookstores refer to them. It has previously been a casual interest of mine, although recently I’ve grown to become fascinated by them and developed a pressing urge to do one of my own.
My initial interest came as an offshoot of my childhood devotion to the band
Faith No More over a decade ago, when I traced the source of one of their album's covers to
'Flood!', a then-obscure graphic novel by
Eric Drooker, a New York-based artist, poet and political activist. It was interesting to see the book’s story told without words, as well as seeing the author’s style develop and strengthen as it goes. At the start there’s a cartoonish goofiness to the characters, which evolves into a more disciplined rigidity that takes nothing away from the artwork’s stripped-down charm.
Since then I’ve stumbled across a handful of others that really serve the medium well. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to embrace comic-book culture.
'Batman' and
'Spawn' nearly won me over in my early adolescence, but ultimately I’m just missing that part of a geek’s brain that finds appeal in superhero stories.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m making no pretence of being above it - I’m one of the biggest geeks I know. While most of my friends’ interior decoration comes from
IKEA, mine comes from
Forbidden Planet. One time I even went to all the way to Birmingham just to meet
Pinhead. Y’know, like an infant gets taken to meet Santa Claus at a shopping mall. Here’s the proof:
So that digression will doubtless have left no ambiguity - I’m a total fucking dork, and I've finally embraced it. Back to the graphic novels...
Being limited to non-
Marvel/
DC franchises my tastes are a little less obvious. I guess I generally enjoy the Indy section, veering toward stories with dark humour rather than the indulgent and/or emotional stuff.
An exception being
Art Spiegelman's ‘Maus’ which, like all good literature, is over-hyped until you read it and find it lives up to every expectation you could have of it.
Marjane Satrapi's ‘Persepolis’ is similar in that the strength of the story is its virtue more than the artwork, and it’s ultimately an easier read, being peppered with welcome moments of levity.
Jo Hepworth put me on to
Roman Dirge’s ‘Lenore’ when I first showed her the concept art for ‘House Guest’, chiefly for its similar aesthetic. The development of its universe and the characters within remind me a great deal of my own, infinitely more obscure webcomic ‘Mitchells In England’. You can tell that the stories mean a lot to Dirge even in their apparent ridiculousness (in the good sense of the word).
Doug TenNapel is probably my favourite in terms of artwork. He created
‘Earthworm Jim’, which was a fantastic games franchise (although, ironically, not an especially good cartoon series) and, among other things, writes and illustrates graphic novels that have such visual depth as to rival
Bill Watterson. I’d recommend them all, but
‘Creature Tech’ is a great starting point.
Over the years, my cartoon sister and self maintained pretty much the same attitude toward one another.
The aforementioned 'Mitchells In England' had few consistencies - it was a strip that took people I knew and cast them in a series of fictional adventures. As it spanned ten years there were characters based on friends that would alternate in their association with my cartoon self, much as they did in real life. When my friend Ed moved away he eventually stopped being a character in the strip; When my parents got divorced their cartoon versions just disappeared - and so on. The only characters present in every* series (the whole strip was divided into twelve self-contained stories, and with each one I'd consciously develop the style and modify the premise) were myself and my sister, Erica, who was essentially the villain.
Erica threatens the world in series 10.
The in-joke with that scenario was that, bizarrely, the two of us got on in real life far better than any other siblings I've met. Even in the tempestuous furies of adolescence any mudslinging between us was swiftly resolved. Maybe that's just the way
I remember it.
But when Erica left for college the arc of her character also changed, and after a period where she was barely a presence in the strip I reintroduced her with a heightened desire for spreading evil and despair. In the strip she forms an all-girl alliance called 'The Emasculators', eventually selling them out so that she can destroy the world and rule what remains. In the penultimate series her character has become so iniquitous that she has physically morphed into an androgynous demon-silhouette.
The decidedly-more 'evil' Erica from series 11.
To return her back to normal, I (well, the Ben in the comic) team up with a lime-green-suited Jesus Christ and follow her into a fugue of non-existence that she has created. At this point I was in college too, I guess I was trying to be deep. In the last series of 'Mitchells In England' the now-human-again Erica has become an actress whose face is repeatedly seen on billboards as a recurring sight gag.
The evil-silhouette Erica is probably my favourite character to draw. Mainly because she has no features, just eyes and proportions that vary on mood. This is the character I'd like to do something else with, perhaps by writing the story of how she originally grew so demented and
Machiavellian, which was never explained in the strip. 'Mitchells In England' is definitely something I drew a line under, and I don't fancy doing another comic strip again any time soon, but I think a one-off spin-off (a 'spin-one-off', perhaps? Actually that sounds kinda dirty...) graphic novel might be a good excuse to revisit the character again.
*Actually there was one series in 1996 that I misguidedly set in space, which didn't feature any of the other recurring characters save for the one based on me.
As I really need to spend my time on work (or searching for work) that pays, I can only spend time on this project in fits and starts. It'll definitely get done, I'm sure of that, but it may not be for a while.
Thought I'd show some photographic evidence that all this zombie duck cartoon nonsense actually had some legitimate application when it came to getting me an MA.
'I Castelli Animati', an Italian animation festival, has picked up 'House Guest' and will screen it as part of their International Showcase on November 27th! So, if you've been looking for an excuse to visit that delightful city, why, this should be the clincher.
Believe it or not, those have proved very dependable in terms of laying out the comic. It comes to about 64 pages though, which in my opinion is a little skimpy. I think to graduate it from just a 'comic' to a 'graphic novel' it'd need to be 100 pages, minimum.
This festival has in the past shown films by my MA coursemates Miho Matsuda (including her super-creepy graduate film 'Dancers of the Stolen Heart') and Maria Gracia Bisso.
Well, it didn't get snapped up by Depict, but my naked-baby-adventure-romp 'Ground Running' has fared better elsewhere. God bless those Greeks, particularly the ones at the Thermaikos 2Min Film Festival.
So, if you've always wanted to go to Greece but never had the right excuse, what better than to see a film of mine that runs at about 90 seconds?
A couple months ago I wrote about the possibility of developing a character from my old webcomic ‘Mitchells In England’ for a graphic novel (or possibly several). This has been incrementally taking shape, but only as far as the writing is concerned. I think it’ll be a funny and interesting story when it comes together, but I’ve been going back and forth as to what kind of visual style I should use.
How do you like them apples, Spiegelman?
Today I got my first rejection from a film festival. It’s basically the same type of template letter you get with applying for jobs or schools or whatnot. I’ve known from the off that ‘House Guest’ wasn’t for everyone, and that inevitably I wouldn’t get through to most of the festivals I submitted it to, but it is a little disheartening for the very first reply to be a fob-off.
On a cheerier note, last week I decided to thank Adam Carolla personally for his unknowing contribution to the completion of ‘House Guest’ by calling into his show. If you have any interest in hearing me kiss arse, you can listen to the archived segment here (skip to about 9’30” in).
I doubt this one'll be too popular with the ladies, but it's helped me get in touch with my feminine side. Plus, giving birth is generally a bit trickier when you keep your legs closed.
Here we see the baby's dramatic entrance.
Cut to a side-view and the poor little whippersnapper is snagged on the still-attached umbilical cord.
This is a similar shot to the first appearance of the baby, although with an acceleration to the speed of the approach to the camera. In the first animation the baby slows down as it gets closer, so with each in-between less distance is covered. In the animation below (combined with last entry's 'skid' shot) the baby speeds up as it falls so each in-between this time covers more distance.
Aaaaw...
So cuuuuute...
For when the baby is skidding along the ground. Although no real harm comes to it, I want there to be a couple Kricfalusian moments where you wince a little bit.
On that note, the doctor's glasses are a little homage to John K.
I want the facial acting for the woman in labour at the start to be fairly true-to-life. Slightly panicked...and sweaty.
The baby graduates! So foolish and full of hope. Poor bastard.
I am presently musing on the surprisingly wide-ranging and diverse subject of graphic novels, or bandes dessinées as the Montreal bookstores refer to them. It has previously been a casual interest of mine, although recently I’ve grown to become fascinated by them and developed a pressing urge to do one of my own.
My initial interest came as an offshoot of my childhood devotion to the band Faith No More over a decade ago, when I traced the source of one of their album's covers to 'Flood!', a then-obscure graphic novel by Eric Drooker, a New York-based artist, poet and political activist. It was interesting to see the book’s story told without words, as well as seeing the author’s style develop and strengthen as it goes. At the start there’s a cartoonish goofiness to the characters, which evolves into a more disciplined rigidity that takes nothing away from the artwork’s stripped-down charm.
So that digression will doubtless have left no ambiguity - I’m a total fucking dork, and I've finally embraced it. Back to the graphic novels...
An exception being Art Spiegelman's ‘Maus’ which, like all good literature, is over-hyped until you read it and find it lives up to every expectation you could have of it. Marjane Satrapi's ‘Persepolis’ is similar in that the strength of the story is its virtue more than the artwork, and it’s ultimately an easier read, being peppered with welcome moments of levity.
Jo Hepworth put me on to Roman Dirge’s ‘Lenore’ when I first showed her the concept art for ‘House Guest’, chiefly for its similar aesthetic. The development of its universe and the characters within remind me a great deal of my own, infinitely more obscure webcomic ‘Mitchells In England’. You can tell that the stories mean a lot to Dirge even in their apparent ridiculousness (in the good sense of the word).
Doug TenNapel is probably my favourite in terms of artwork. He created ‘Earthworm Jim’, which was a fantastic games franchise (although, ironically, not an especially good cartoon series) and, among other things, writes and illustrates graphic novels that have such visual depth as to rival Bill Watterson. I’d recommend them all, but ‘Creature Tech’ is a great starting point.
Over the years, my cartoon sister and self maintained pretty much the same attitude toward one another.
Erica threatens the world in series 10.
The decidedly-more 'evil' Erica from series 11.
