Shiny Metal 'Cast

♫ New podcast day, new podcast day, ♫
♫ Life's a bit less crap because new podcast day! ♫

Another good'un, alongside myself and Steve's riveting discussions of crucial industry developments like the Postman Pat movie and a possible Shrek 5, we have two fabulous guests, John DiMaggio (who was Bender off Futurama, currently Jake in Adventure Time) and Laura-Beth chats to "tiny director/animator" Kirsten Lepore. Kirsten directed the fabulous short film Bottle as well as her more recent Move Mountain which was recently released online:

On top of his voice work, John recently produced a documentary on, fittingly, animation voiceover artists. It's called I Know That Voice and looks pretty damn decent, so keep your eyes peeled for it:
The podcast, as always, can be downloaded, streamed and subscribed to and is still cheap as free, so go get it:
This episode is dedicated to Harold Ramis, a fine chap who, along with the likes of James Gandolfini, Patrice o'Neal and Philip Seymour Hoffman, has joined the ranks of too-soon-departed men I never met but admired hugely.

RIP sir.

Retrovertigo

A series of Skwigly articles I've never brought up here were revived yesterday. They're basically unnecessary critiques of old shows from my youth that have long-since left the airwaves. It's not exactly the most hard-hitting coverage as far as Skwigly goes but they're fun to write. From this point on I want to try and do them more regularly, in the meantime here are the first four:

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show

The Powerpuff Girls

The Real Ghostbusters

Little Shop

A Very Special Episode

Sometimes I look at my blog posts or Twitter feed and wonder if I come off like a methodical, joyless ass motivated by self-promotion and cynicism. I rather hope I don't, because I'm actually a pretty easygoing, lovable scamp. As long as I'm getting enough sleep.
So today, apropos of pretty much nothing at all, I've decided to list ten random things off the top of my head I take tremendous joy in. I can't not be in a good mood as long as I have these in my life.

•This bit in "The Simpsons"


•"Ghostbusters 2" on the original GameBoyBecause it rules. You spend the whole game wandering around catching a shitload of ghosts; one button shoots them, the other traps them. It's literally the perfect GameBoy game.

•Sofia Vergara making chocolate milk on "Modern Family"

•The parts of "Over The Falls" by Primus where Les goes 'byowp byowp byowp byowp byowp byowp byowp byowp byowp...' with the upright bass.

From around 8 seconds in. And throughout. Darn good plucker, that Mr. Claypool.

•Roti Canai at the HK Diner on Park St.It's ricockulously delicious.

•My sister's roommate's adorable yet idiotic Boston Terrier/Gremlin thingJust look at her. She's the greatest creature in existence. She's also a fucking dunce and eats everything that'll stay down. For both those reasons I consider her a kindred spirit.

•That old episode of "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" with Cathy Dennis

For reasons not entirely dissimilar to the Sofia Vergara clip. Also because she's an adorable goddamn goofball and can write a catchy tune.

•The way you get the CD out of the packaging for Mike Patton's "Peeping Tom"
You pull the tab on the right and the CD slides out on the left. It's BRILLIANT. This album came out nearly six years ago and I'm still entertained by it. How can you not be?

•Any moment of any episode of that online show Maria Bamford did where she plays all the characters

•Any time they talk about Kubrick movies on "The Opie & Anthony Show"

I really don't think there's any explanation needed.

That's enough positivity for one day. Don't worry, I'll be whining about something I made up soon enough.
N'night!

Panelling

Every time I visit my old home I try and get at least one attic rummage in to clear things out and, on occasion, unearth toys with ornamental value. So far I've found all my ghostbusters except Winston, which is pissing me off. Especially as I've found THREE Janines. Seriously. THREE. Why would I have even had ONE Janine?What I did unearth this most recent trip was an old "Ren & Stimpy" comic, apparently the last one ever, which makes sense as it was put out around the time the show itself would've been canceled. I'd forgotten about this completely but I wanted to show it some love here because it holds up surprisingly well. As passionate a "Ren & Stimpy" fan as I was, I never got that excited over the comics. Most of the artwork was by Mike Kazaleh who, despite being a perfectly passable artist, was very distinct stylistically and didn't really replicate the atmosphere of the show. The stories by and large were much lighter in tone, with far less by way of the violence and psychotic meanderings that gave the show its edge. You would get some lovely artwork from time to time, like this:Generally I wasn't a regular buyer and at present only have the first sixteen issues collected over four graphic novels. Rediscovering the final issue I'm kind of curious to look into what came between.The art is by Jeff Jarka and it's really fantastic - a lot of severe, extreme poses and an overall tone that echoes the faster pace of the unfairly maligned Games-era episodes when they were in their stride.I guess the reason I never really committed to subscribing at the time is the rather sad admission that, in all honesty, I'm just not into comics. Unless there's something really special about the draughtsmanship (eg. Doug TenNapel, Eric Drooker) or the story ("Maus" = no brainer) or if it's just really weird, creepy or funny. Otherwise I struggle to muster up much by way of excitement.
It's sort of bizarre, given my passion for art, animation and sequential storytelling, as well as the fact that I've produced several of my own graphic novels and comic anthologies (available at these LOW, LOW PRICES, kids!), with two more being worked on at present.The only series I ever followed with any fervour was "Clive Barker's Hellraiser", mainly motivated by my love for Barker himself and the first few "Hellraiser" movies, helped along by the comic's lack of mainstream popularity that made them fairly easy to grab up in bulk on eBay. Recently, and for reasons I'm unsure of, this series was revived after a twenty year hiatus. I've bought the first two issues and enjoyed them, but mainly I'm curious as to what Barker's long game is with the characters. If it's to gauge consumer interest, the outlook is good as both seemed to sell out the moment I got my copies.I'm personally hoping it will serve as a prelude to "The Scarlet Gospels", a forthcoming Barker book almost as mythical as the universes he creates in so much as he's been writing it FOR-FUCKING-EVER. I seriously cannot think of another book I've been more excited about seeing published. Supposedly it will serve as a magnum opus, concluding the story of his progenies Harry D'Amour and "Hellraiser"'s Pinhead in a presumably far more respectful manner than the relentless parade of stilted, straight-to-DVD sequels. But my "Hellraiser" geekery is a post for another time.
I was recently at a small press expo in Bristol where a few friends of mine were exhibiting. Wandering around it seems that there really is an impressive degree of talent in the independent scene as far as artistic ability goes, if not necessarily as much in terms of storytelling. Some standout stuff such as "100% Squishy" and "Babel" really grabbed me on a visual level, as well as this anthology put together by a bunch of artists at Aardman:I'm working on a feature on it for Skwigly, and so far the people involved I've discussed it with have some pretty interesting things to say about the process, so I'll let you all know once it's up. It's essentially a collection of short stories and standalone artwork that encapsulates the spirit of Great Britain, in an alternately patriotic and derogatory sense, but where it really shines are the visuals.
Meanwhile my two graphic novels "Throat" and "Erica" are continuing to take shape, and I'll leave you with the first full-colour layout from the latter. I've had to blur out certain bits to keep it family friendly.Reckon it'll be targeted toward something of a niche market. Ah well...

Guess what band I'm gonna talk about in this post?

I realised something this week, that pop-culture in 2009 has become eerily tailored to my tastes. There's nothing new that really grabs me, but some old franchises are being revived. The Rocky, Rambo, Indiana Jones and Transformers fans of the world were, in the last couple years, treated to new outings for their beloved childhood protagonists. Not having much nostalgic investment in those properties, I felt a little bit left out. Well, actually I didn't really give a crap either way, but let's say I did for the purposes of setting up this entry.
2009 so far promises three triumphant revivals from my own childhood - one being, of course, the completely unexpected return of Faith No More. In June there's the GhostBusters video game, an equally unexpected revival bringing back the original cast, including Bill Murray (who was to GhostBusters as Mike Patton was to Faith No More in their shared insistence on never being part of any reunion).The third franchise being resurrected is another pleasant surprise - Red Dwarf. I would've put money on that ol' chestnut staying dead'n'buried, but in April they're dusting it off and giving it a handful of new episodes that might hopefully resolve the cliffhanger it ended on a decade ago.
Faith No More, GhostBusters and Red Dwarf? Those made up, like, 70% of my pre-adolescence! What's next - is David Lynch gonna whip out a sequel to 'Fire Walk With Me'? Are they gonna do a 'Bill & Ted 3'? Is Raul Julia gonna have the good manners to come back from the dead so we can have a proper new 'Addams Family' movie? Will Clive Barker finally release the fucking 'Scarlet Gospels'?
When I previously used the phrase 'triumphant revivals', I did so whilst knocking on wood. After all, they haven't happened yet, so I don't really know how triumphant they'll be. Y'see, friends, I'm cautious - I've been burned before...
Faith No More's final LP 'Album Of The Year' is notable for being merely great, as opposed to their three albums prior that were incandescently brilliant.
Okay, bad example.
But that same year (1997) there was an attempt to bring GhostBusters back with...ugh...'Extreme GhostBusters', an ill-advised, 'hip' update with youthful character replacements that ticked every ethnic box. It wasn't horrendously awful, and as an animation fan there's some fun in the visuals, but it's painful messages (tolerance, equality and a number of other social issues that, by that time, should've been a given) undermined themselves in their lack of subtlety.
Also in 1997 (kind of a weird coincidence in retrospect) the brilliant 'Red Dwarf VI' was finally given a follow-up - the dreadful 'Red Dwarf VII'. Two years later came 'Red Dwarf VIII', which wasn't as bad but was still no great shakes.
These were all forgivable enough, however it was a completely seperate revival that took my beloved childhood memories and literally screwed them in the arse...

To be continued...