Check this out

I don’t know this guy, nor does he know me. But www.longboxgraveyard.com has terrific reviews of 70’s-era comic books.

Totally unsolicited recommendation. I’ve been looking at this stuff all morning.

 

New Comic Coming Soon!

I’m working to build a backlog, then I’m going to post it as a daily webcomic since everyone everywhere keeps telling me that daily updates are how you build a following. The comic is called “the sea is stormy at night”. Here is a video of me working on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nff6DNeHaF8&feature=plcp&context=C31b83a8UDOEgsToPDskK8DeEHNnBP_aHgO4bAPcuF

 

Early comics and early film (formal writing I’m doing for an online magazine)

Having recently drawn a graphic novella about a silent film director, I’ve become interested in the parallels between comics and early films. The similarities are real: sometimes, eerily so. Both are mediums that grew out of the enthusiastic efforts of creative amateurs working under the close watch of barely-regulated, morally dubious big businesses. Early comics and films are both in love with “big-ness” and express broad, appealing themes with very little shame or hesitation (power fantasies, various triumphs of plucky, decent little guys, pretty girls as decoration, etc.) Film connoisseurs and comic snobs will both wax eloquent on the various subtleties of their favorite medium, but neither form can really escape a legacy of cheesiness and populism. I think that this is an essential part of what makes them “work”, and is something to be explored, not avoided.

Comic books rely heavily on exaggeration for the sake of clarity. Even in the “best” (dramatic) comic books, there is a level of pathos that would be laughable in any of the other storytelling artforms. Consider the risible films that have been based great cartoonists’ works: judging by the movies they inspired, one would think that Frank Miller and Alan Moore share the dramatic sensibility of an airport thriller writer. But this isn’t just a result of scriptwriter meddling. Allow me to use a panel from Watchmen, presenting the dialogue without the accompanying image, to illustrate:

 

Laurie and Dan kneel together by their nemesis’ luxurious heated pool, surrounded by Greek-style pillars.

“Laurie? Wh-what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead.”

 

This kind of ridiculous melodrama simply cannot work outside of its original media. Within that media, it is magical (think back to the first time you read Watchmen, and remember how you felt during that scene). When people called the book unfilmable back in the 1980s, it wasn’t because it was just “too good”; it was because comics (as a medium) actually rewards many of the things that modern film punishes. The Sin City movie at best was a clever homage to a great series: despite being an almost panel-for-panel translation, it could never recreate the dramatic appeal of the original.

Silent films also used exaggeration as a matter of necessity. When characters were surprised or scared, they couldn’t communicate this by slightly shifting their eyes or jumping a little. They had to throw their arms in front of their faces and literally leap backwards. There was no Sofia Coppola of early film, and what nuances there were, were not the reason people attended these movies. They went for big, broad, fantastical stories that could serve as escapism for a very broad range of consumers. While academics have filled volumes with their analyses of what Winsor McCay or Fritz Lang really “meant”, it is difficult to escape the feeling that they were just good storytellers who subconsciously put “easter eggs” into their works. Both mediums can absorb their audience utterly, creating the illusion of a magical world where all the things that should exist, do (right around the corner, in fact). And both are also rather silly in a way that they cannot escape.

It is estimated that roughly 90 percent of early twentieth-century silent films have been degraded or destroyed due to the cheap film stock used at the time. Stories of parents throwing away their children’s comic books in the first half of the century are a cliche, and a true one. They were not printed to last. The physical “product” of a comic book was made for one individual consumer, unlike movies, where the products were reels of film, duplicated for each theater involved. But in both cases, their throwaway nature gave them a freedom that is difficult for “real” artforms to attain.

The quirks and failings of individual artists are not removed from these smaller, low-budget works. Georges Melies made whimsical little film-poems that are most valuable as glimpses of a very creative person’s mind. They do not have big, important things to tell us about life, and if they do they are incidental (and more than a little cheesy). They are primarily “about” the joy of creativity. I would submit that the same is true of Action Comics #1, Dream of the Rare-Bit Fiend, Mutts, and the Scott Pilgrim books. Many of the “new comics” are trying to escape from the exaggerated, whimsical and slightly corny nature of the medium, and I think they lose something important in the process. The illusion of reality is overrated, and attempts to recreate it don’t give enough credit to the emotional power of art.

 

Piracy: updated

I have amended my official position. Pirating is totally morally acceptable if it is from any of the following companies:

• 60 Plus Association
• Actors’ Equity Association
• ABC
• Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP)
• American Bankers Association (ABA)
• American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
• American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
• American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
• Americans for Tax Reform
• Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
• Association of American Publishers (AAP)
• Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
• Association of Talent Agents (ATA)
• BMI
• BMG Chrysalis
• Building and Construction Trades Department
• Capitol Records Nashville
• CBS
• Cengage Learning
• Christian Music Trade Association
• Church Music Publishers’ Association
• Coalition Against Online Video Piracy (CAOVP)
• Comcast/NBCUniversal
• Concerned Women for America (CWA)
• Congressional Fire Services Institute
• Copyhype
• Copyright Alliance
• Coty, Inc.
• Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)
• Council of State Governments
• Country Music Association
• Country Music Television
• Creative America
• Deluxe Digital Studios
• Directors Guild of America (DGA)
• Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.
• Elsevier
• EMI Christian Music Group
• EMI Music Publishing
• ESPN
• Estée Lauder Companies
• Foundation for Job Creation
• Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)
• Gospel Music Association
• Graphic Artists Guild
• Hachette Book Group
• HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Inc.
• Hyperion Books
• Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA)
• Information Technology and Innovation Foundation(ITIF) ^[4]
• International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE)
• International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers(IBEW)
• International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
• International Trademark Association (INTA)
• International Union of Police Associations
• L’Oreal
• Lost Highway Records
• Macmillan
• Major County Sheriffs
• Major League Baseball
• Majority City Chiefs
• Marvel Entertainment, LLC
• MasterCard Worldwide
• MCA Records
• McGraw-Hill Education
• Mercury Nashville
• Minor League Baseball (MiLB)
• Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC)
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ^[5]
• Moving Picture Technicians
• MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
• National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
• National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators
• National Association of State Chief Information Officers
• National Cable & Telecommunications Association(NCTA)
• National Center for Victims of Crime
• National Criminal Justice Association
• National District Attorneys Association
• National Domestic Preparedness Coalition
• National Football League
• National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee
• National League of Cities
• National Narcotics Officers’ Associations’ Coalition
• National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)
• National Songwriters Association
• National Troopers Coalition
• News Corporation
• Nike, Inc.
• Pearson Education
• Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
• Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
• Pfizer, Inc.
• Provident Music Group
• Random House
• Raulet Property Partners
• Republic Nashville
• Revlon
• Scholastic, Inc.
• Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
• Showdog Universal Music
• Sony/ATV Music Publishing
• Sony Music Entertainment
• Sony Music Nashville
• State International Development Organization(SIDO)
• The National Association of Theatre Owners(NATO)
• Perseus Books Group
• United States Conference of Mayors
• Tiffany & Co.
• Time Warner
• True Religion Brand Jeans
• UMG Publishing Group Nashville
• United States Chamber of Commerce
• United States Olympic Committee
• United States Tennis Association
• Universal Music
• Universal Music Publishing Group
• Viacom
• Visa Inc.
• W.W. Norton & Company
• Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, L.P.
• Warner Music Group
• Warner Music Nashville
• Wolters Kluwer Health
• Word Entertainment
• World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc
• Zuffa, LLC
• Zumba Fitness, LLC

(List of companies that support SOPA, taken from Wikipedia.)

 

I added a little menu at the top of the screen so you can check different things out. This blog will also be where I post paintings, opinions, other comics, etc., but I do want to have a page just for Melies comics too.

 

Donate! Also books!

Putting this series together is a labor of love, but if you enjoy it, please consider donating! Any amount is greatly appreciated.

I’m also selling the first four chapters in a pretty little zine/book that is re-edited and includes sketches, photographs and the original covers for the series. Make a donation of $8 or more and I’ll send it out to you (this includes the cost of shipping and handling)! I also sell the individual issues for $2.00 each (the $1.00 covers shipping and handling). Just send me an email with your donation and tell me what you’d like!

Of course, you can just give me money too! 😉

 

The thing about drawing something set in the early twentieth century…

…is that every new character I introduce has a bigger moustache than the last.

Charles Pathe (producer) and Ferdinand Zecca (director) basically butchered Melies’ later films. I got a little alternate history thing going with this. Two more pages and a cover and I’m done with this issue.

 

OMFG THIS IS BETTER THAN JESUS

The Youtube commenter who inspired that title really summed this video up well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXVQXZb2nck

 

Preview of Issue #4

I used Kleenex to make a “fuzzy frame” effect for one of the movies

Crow quill this time!

Special guest appearance by God!

 

Spam comment contest!

I’ve changed the settings so anyone can make a comment for now. I expect to get some real spammers now that I’ve done this. Try to leave a comment that I can’t distinguish from real spam! The spammiest comment (that doesn’t actually turn out to be spam) gets an original drawing by me!

(Copy-and-pasted spam that already exists on the internet will be disqualified. Be creative!)

EDIT 12-11-11 Spam contest has ended. Winner announced soon.