Gone surfing

Back in a couple of weeks.

The Joker/Gwynplaine

This chap is Conrad Veidt, whose appearance as Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughed (1928) - based on the novel by Victor Hugo - served as the model for Batman's arch-enemy, The Joker.

Batman first appeared in Detective Comics, in 1939, as did The Joker and Catwoman. Veidt must have made quite an impression on Kane's assistant, Bill Finger, to inspire the creation of the Joker character, a decade later.

He's creepy alright.

Battle of the... what the f***?

Hard to describe Jon Chandler's comics 'based' (if indeed that is the right word) on Battle of the Planets and Ulysses 31: weird will have to do.

Actually, 'creepy and enigmatic, but strangely compelling' is a much better description, now that I think of it. Few enough comics achieve that.

More Jon Chandlers, please.

[via Blackshapes]

History of Comics/History Comics

Research never sleeps, nor do I much. I have been reading copious tracts on comics history and urban theory, with the vain hope of discovering points of correspondence. So far, not so many, but perseverence and diligence (and chastity, for some reason) are my watchwords!

In fact there is loads of stuff about the history of comics online, but not so much about comics which take history as their subject matter. George O'Connor adapted Harmen Meyndertsz Van den Bogaert's 17th century journal as Journey Into Mohawk Country but I can't think of any others. (Suggestions please!)

Three cheers then for clever Canadian, Kate Beaton, who battles low self-esteem with excellent comic strips about famous historical personages. Sure, they may not be 100 per cent historically accurate - I'm pretty sure Washington didn't exactly cross the shit out of the Delaware - but they are very funny.

Everything that happens...

On the plus side Brian Eno and David Byrne have a new album out.

I Make: Pissed off

Well, I meant to post a panel from my entry to the Irish Comic Creator Challenge, but forgot to put it on my memory stick this morning.

After the trauma of putting on my rain-gear - still damp from the weekend, it was like wrestling a wet python - that was the least of my worries. To be honest, I'm just glad I made it through the torrential rain.

Terrific news just in from the meteorological service:

Today
Scattered outbreaks of rain and drizzle in Ulster and Leinster at first. Persistent rain in Munster and Connacht spreading countrywide this morning, heavy in places, with some thundery downpours and a risk of localised flooding. Low cloud and fog on hills and near the coast. Highest temperatures 15 to 19 degrees in mostly fresh variable winds.

Tonight
Further outbreaks of rain tonight, some heavy. Some hill and coastal fog. Lowest temperatures 11 to 14 degrees, with winds becoming northwesterly and easing.

Tomorrow
Bright or sunny spells and scattered showers tomorrow, some heavy, with longer spells of rain in parts of the east and north at first. Highest temperatures 16 to 20 degrees in moderate to fresh northwest winds.

3 Day Outlook
Apart from isolated showers, Tuesday night will be cool and mostly dry with light winds. Wednesday will be bright with some sunny breaks. Good dry spells will occur, but showers will develop and where they occur will be heavy locally, and the south of the country will have longer spells of rain. Winds will be light mainly southwest. Thursday will be a mostly dry [if damp] with variable cloud and sunny spells. Winds will be light and variable. Then apart from well scattered showers, Friday will also be mostly dry [apart from the downpours, don't forget the downpours] and winds will be light.

[PS: Who cares how fresh and variable the winds are, when they're saturated to the point of dissolving? Seriously.]

What a treat. At least the monsoon season will soon be over and we can all look forward to winter.

Review: Mac Raboy's Flash Gordon Vol. 1

A rocket- fuelled adventure into the history of comics.

Most of my reviews go well over 100 words, but I'm really going to keep to it this time. Starting now.

No wait... now.

Mac Raboy took over from his hero Alex Raymond drawing Flash Gordon for King Features Syndicate, from 1948 until his death in 1967. This volume collects Raboy's Sunday comics strips from 1948-1953.

The artwork is great on some of the strips, with great panel design and illustration. Raboy is justifiably renowned for his bold lighting effects, which give a lot of punch to the strips.

But two things particularly struck me about these Flash Gordon strips. The first was the short-form storytelling.

Although one of Flash's adventures to outlandish alien planets could be as long as a modern comic book - albeit spread out over a couple of months - these newspaper strips, with their mini-adventures and cliffhanger endings, feel like a completely different genre to modern comics.

The narrative skips a lot of action, giving the impression of fast-forwarding through the story. Lots of momentum, to be sure, but not much coherence, which must have worked just fine for weekly readers.

The second big feature was the dominance of captions and the absence of speech balloons, any emanatae or sound effects. Dialogue is in reported speech and frequently summarised in the captions.

I wonder why Raboy chose not to use speech balloons, which had been long established. From a graphical perspective it allows for nice, clean compositions, but it creates quite a static, airless effect.

Modern comics have few or short captions, direct speech between characters and lots of 'sound', which creates a lively, direct feeling to the narrative and puts the reader in the scene.

Raboy's Flash Gordon is exactly the opposite and while it is fascinating from a historical perspective, it really feels its age. This first volume, collects the earliest strips, so it might be interesting to see how the strip changed over the years.

Okay, was that one hundred words? No?

Lovely Picture: Sam Hiti 2

I recently posted a lovely picture of a Samurai/ Archer putting on battle dress, but erroneously attributed it to Paul Pope, on whose blog I had seen it. Whew!

Anway, that lovely picture (and this one), is by the talented Sam Hiti, a Xeric Foundation Award-winner and creator of the brilliant fist-a-cuffs. His comic, Tiempo Finales, won the award in 2002 and has since been optioned as a movie.

One hundredth post!

Woo hoo! OK Erok has reached the one hundred-post mark! Seems a long time since I began blogging, back in March; twenty weeks!

I feel I ought to do something to celebrate... but what? A competition? A giveaway? A new, special song? Please post your ideas in the comments box.

Urban ruins

Part of my current research concerns the similarity between reading comics and reading urban spaces. In fact my basic theory is that the social production of comics in urban spaces - which synthesise a wide variety of images and signs of different sorts into their fabric - is what gives comics their unique quality as texts. Anyway...

I am a fan of cities, but especially of ruined cities or districts of them. (I don't know why, but I always have been.)

Some time back, I wrote about a wonderful documentary which imagined how fast our cities would deteriorate if humans were not around to maintain them - very fast; in about 100-150 years they would be ruins - and raised the question of whether cities sustain humans or vice versa.

Two Japanese photographers have done some pretty extensive explorations of latter day ruins: the first is one of my very favourite websites, bar none; the second, is new to me, but features some wonderful images. There is also an excellent US website.

These images are striking for many reasons. They are allegorise impermanence and transience and they are beautiful despite (because of) their ruination. They show the veneer of the human presence on Earth.

These qualities can be summed up by the term Wabi Sabi, a hard-to-translate term in Japanese aesthetics, to describe the beauty inherent in the process of ruination, decay and erosion. It also implies the sense of mystery and awe - the sublime - that I get from looking at these images of modern ruins.

It's a powerful principle, an observation about nature and humankind's place in it; one of the reasons that old rocks and trees (and ruins) are beautiful is that they are weathered, cracked, worn by the elements. Wabi Sabi belies our belief that we can make things perfect and 'finished'. Time puts its own finish on everything.

I Make: Reading!

With the whole research proposal deadline looming, I don't have much opportunity for drawing comics or making stupid songs. Once I finish it, I will celebrate with a stupid song about comics (and maybe vice versa).

Lovely picture: Ashley Wood

Australian artist and illustrator Ashley Wood (probably best known here for illustrating Tank Girl: The Gifting) loves war and robots. He's a fine draughtsman, but it is in his painting that he really shows off his talent; and this painting (above) illustrates it, with three qualities in particular (four, if you count robots!):

1. The composition gives a sense of tension and anticipation (the robot to the left, gun raised in readiness, the shadowed foreground and the crooked street sign in what looks like a modern city street all evoke feelings of disharmony and uncertainty).
   
2. Wood's trademark muted palette, all browns of varying degrees of warmth, plays on conventions of war-reportage, economically and realistically evoking hot, dusty futuristic warfare.
   
3. finally, eerie light effects, give the painting depth and add to the realism of the scene. The main subjects, are in the middle-ground in mid-tones, the empty foreground is bisected by shadows and squeezed off to the right by shadows from the building on the left and in the background pale, dusty ruins loom out of a paler void.

Nice one!

Six of the best! Marvel Comics Film Adaptations

Adapting comics for the TV and cinema is standard procedure. Stan Lee's Marvel Comics has been at it for twenty-plus years. It has found varying degrees of success, but here are six of the best:

1. Iron Man (2008) - Robert Downey Jr. stars as laconic, millionaire playboy, Tony Stark, in a surprisingly potent modern parable, directed by Jon Favreau. Extra points for Black Sabbath in the closing credits.
   
2. Spiderman 2 (2004) - Sam Raimi brings his A game to B+ material to produce a highly enjoyable sequel.
   
3. Spiderman (2002) - Sam Raimi brings pop exuberance to the web-slinger and Toby Maguire is Peter Parker.
   
4. X-Men (2000) - Bryan Singer gives a classy, sophisticated take on the quintessential Marvel heroes, with plenty of character and intrigue to back up the action.
   
5. Blade (1998) - Wesley Snipes camps it up in the then-popular black leather trenchcoat, fights Stephen Dorff.
   
6. Howard the Duck (1986) and Dr. Strange (1978) - Two of the strangest Marvel adaptations are tied for the final spot. Though David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD ran a close third. No, not really. Urgh!

If you can tolerate the sound of overweight, overexcited fanboys at the San Diego Comic Con, then the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is worth checking out. However, I fear the coming of the prospective Silver Surfer film. [via Tony]

Lovely Picture: Sam Hiti

Comics illustrator Paul Pope posted this wonderful diagrammatic illustration, by Sam Hiti, of a Japanese archer/ samurai donning his armour.

I Make: Hi Ho Research! Away!

Four months ago, more or less, I ran out of steam on my doctoral research proposal. Thankfully, I am back on track with it and have just submitted draft one of my proposal to my friendly, neighbourhood Dean of Research.

I'm still working on a title, but my thesis is that we share a comm0n visual understanding of the metropolis and the comic, as narrative sequences of discrete temporal events.

Quite far from my initial research idea, but writing this blog and talking with my lady-friend, has helped me work out my real areas of interest.

More soon.

Review: Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1

A powerful extra- terrestrial being, exiled on Earth, struggles to gain acceptance from human society.

The Silver Surfer could easily be subtitled 'be careful what you wish for, you might just get it' and Norrin Radd (the alien who becomes the Silver Surfer) is a truly tragic character, brought low by his own hubris.

Radd lives on Zenn-La, a Huxley-esque, alien world, dominated by leisure. Radd dreams of adventure and with the arrival of Galactus - a cosmic being who dines on planets - Radd gets his chance.

Galactus spares Zenn-La in exchange for Radd's services as herald, and transforms Radd into the space-worthy Silver Surfer so that he can search the galaxy for uninhabited planets to satisfy his hunger.

When the Surfer runs low on planets and refuses to offer up Earth as a tasty treat, Galactus imprisons him on Earth, unable to return to Zenn-La or Shalla-Bal.

The script in this volume can be a bit hammy - Stan Lee drops lots of 'thous' and 'thees' and his ubiquitous aliteration - but John Buscema's earthy, muscular artwork more than makes up for it. If only the colour pages of most of todays comics looked half as good as Buscema's black and white ones, which are dynamic and lyrical.

One cannot help but wonder at the incredible talent that Marvel had at its disposal in its early days. Buscema would have been a star in his own right, if he hadn't been in the company of the even greater talents of Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby.

The Silver Surfer is a decidedly downbeat hero. The reality of roughing it with the primitive Earthlings - who generally shun, shoot and loathe him by turns - is a far cry from Radd's dreams of adventure and he is constantly assailed by people wishing to use his awesome cosmic power for their own gain.

In fact, many episodes leave the Surfer alone and bereft, dreaming of the life and love he left behind, far away across the galaxy.