Drawing and book stuff

Got word back about Hero-Z, and it's good news. It's great news actually, with two very big Brother Lee Love style thumbs up! Yay me! I take back all my panicked doubt and vow not to do that again. Until the next time:)
Still waiting for news about my slightly earlier secret project so you'll have to wait abit longer to see anything from that - unless you asked me and I sent you a sneak peak!
In the meantime I've started a new project, it's fairly brief and I'll probably post a few images over the next few days, so keep an eye out of you're interested.
A few posts ago I mentioned I was about to start reading 'Bust' by Bruen and Starr, well, it was fun, nothing amazing, brisk enjoyable read. Not quite 'hard' crime though, and as it's published by a company called Hard Case Crime it's fair to expect that. It was harder and less farcical than Carl Hiaasen though, and followed the same principle of low life character's greed and stupidity creating trouble.
After that I moved on to a book called 'Crimson Orgy' by Austin Williams which was also a lot of fun. Set during the making of an early (just after 'Blood Feast' in fact), and lost, exploitation horror movie called, you guessed it, 'Crimson Orgy'. The making of the movie proves to be difficult, but more than the sense of strange and impending doom, I enjoyed what seemed to be a genuine feeling of a small band of wannabes, not bothereds and troubled folk united and torn apart in their quest to make a film on the cheap. The prose is simple and direct without being clunky and the characters are nicely defined. I discovered this book, a fair few others through the wonderful Groovy Age of Horror blog, if you haven't visited it then give it a look.
After finishing 'Crimson Orgy' it seemed like the perfect time to pick a book of the shelf that had been sat patiently waiting for for quite a while. I'm only about a quarter of the way through 'Flicker' (it is over 600 pages though) but I'm enjoying it immensely. It's about fabled, and fictional, director Max Castle who started out working on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and progressed to classic gothic horror of his own and then got eaten up by Hollywood producing B movies after suffering disgrace at the hands of those who didn't understand his work. His reputation initially seems to be nonexistent and his films lost, some never even released, but after a few quirks of fate one his films is discovered leading to a reappraisal. That's where I'm up to at the moment, and the back cover promises a lot more oddness.
Very nice dense, but easy to follow, prose and some serious research, and obvious love, raise Flicker much higher than the cheap tagline 'Sunset Boulevard meets the Da Vinci Code'. The mere mention of the Da Vinci Code's enough to put me off, but it does seem that it's mentioned only in an atempt to entice the millions who bothered with the poorly written item - although content wise there is a parallel of a secret religious order and a conspiracy, but still, cheap marketing is cheap marketing. Rosak has been involved writing about counterculture before, and this history obviously comes in handy for the time and setting of Flicker.
Can't remember when I first heard about Flicker, I know it was before I saw the intitially similar John Carpenter short 'Cigarette Burn' (not his best work, but well worth seeing), but what did make me want to read it was Murray Ewing's review here. Murray also writes about Cigarette Burns here, and adds to the 'fictional film with a dark past' genre with his review of Ramsey Campbell's 'The Grin of the Dark' here. I'm sure I've got a copy of Campbell's other entry into this genre, 'Ancient Images', kicking around somewhere too. 2000ad had a stab at the genre recently with 'Chiaroscuro' by Si Spurrier and 'Smudge' (a pen name for Cam Smith judging by the artwork), and although it was fun and reasonably enjoyable, it seemed a little uninspired to me. Also worth a mention is The Faceless: A Terry Sharpe Story by Robert Tinnell and Adrian Salmon. It doesn't really fall into the genre, but it does involve fictional films of a very Hammer-esque nature, and is damn good with some wonderful artwork - and that's all the excuse I need to mention it:)
Enough of this ramble, for those who haven't heard already, Garen (yes, related to Murray) Ewing's superb strip 'Rainbow Orchid' has been picked up by large UK kid's publisher Egmont, as they also publish Tintin over here I can't think of a more perfect fit for Garen's perfect book. Garen has pursued his own vision to produce a story of outstanding quality, which is laudable enough, that he'll now be able to reach an even bigger audience is richly deserved , there's more info on this excellent news here.

Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire

The first Mr Gum book was a rare old treat, and so is the 2nd book, quite frankly it's genius on toast. Stop reading this right now, go buy the book, read it, come back.....
Brilliant isn't it. It sort of reminds me of Vivian Stanshall with it's lyrical nonsense, don't you agree? I bet you loved the opening "It all started late one afternoon in the peaceful town of Lamonic Bibber. Summer was at an end and the day stretched out long and lazy like a huge glossy panther made of time." Oh and the fab description of Mr Gum, who after drawing some extra scowls on his head with a felt tip "scruffed up his big red beard to make it as wild and frightening as possible. It wasn't quite terrifying enough so he stuck a couple of beetles in it and a photo of a shark." Or maybe.... hang on, we'd better stop talking about it, don't want to spoil if for those too foolish to have already bought it.
Here's the Mr Gum website to get you into the mood.

28 Weeks Later

28 Days Later seriously shook me up, it's combination of Wyndham and Romero was pitched just right and although it owed a lot to those two giants it struck out on it's own in fine style.
28 Weeks Later doesn't manage to follow suit. It's a great film, and I daresay if I hadn't seen 28 Days Later I'd have been blown away, with some striking and shocking imagery and some interesting ideas. The problem is that the ideas aren't fully explored, much more could have been made of Robert Carlysle's storyline, an actor who could've really explored the moral implications of his actions ends up being used as a boogey man. I also found his storyline had a touch too much convenience to it.
There was a fair amount of chat in 28 Days Later heavily punctuated with violence. Violence seemed to be the order of the day for the sequel, I've not got a problem with that, but without the chat the military aspect of the story wasn't fully explored.
None of this is what really let's 28 Weeks Later down though, the sad fact is that even though it wasn't just a retread of the original it didn't do anything terribly new either. If 28 Days Later is comparable to Night of the Living Dead the 28 Weeks Later falls short of Dawn of the Dead.

Superman Returns. Not really a review.

Oh gosh. Superman Returns, Brilliant. Ok, it's not quite as good as Superman The Movie, but it is utterly fantastic and oh so close.
Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet so I'm not going to say much about it. There's some beautiful moments, as expected from Bryan Singer, some brilliantly tense moments and some jaw dropping moments. Brandon Routh really does honour Superman, Clark and Christopher Reeve, Spacey is a crueler but recognisable Lex with everyone else doing a bang up job in their roles (I did find myself wishing Kate Bosworth would channel Margot Kidder but that probably wouldn't quite work for the film so what the heck), Parker Posey and James Marsden bringing a lot to roles that could've gotten lost.
If it has one flaw it's that it works so hard to successfully achieve the balancing act of introducing Superman to a new audience and respectfully following the Donner film (and there are so many wonderful riffs on that film, minor and major)) that it's not quite able to cut free. Funnily enough Singer's excellent X-Men film had a similar flaw, so much work was spent setting it all up that it was the 2nd film that took all the glory. Which is why as much as I absolutely loved Superman Returns I think the next one (please be another!) will be phenomenal.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Not what it was meant to be

I had planned on posting some artwork, Danny recently reminded me about a children's book proposal I knocked up a couple of years ago (that long? Oh dear) and I decided to dig it out.
Thinking it's about time I started proving that I do occassionally write and draw I though I'd scan the dug out kid's book, sadly although I'm getting the hang of scanning b&w artwork my colour scanning sucks. Give me a couple of days and I'll sort it out.
In the meantime I figure I'll catch up on comic reviews. Unlike the book reviews these aren't in any order, mainly because I've read so many in the last few months (it's my last big spending spree before all the money gets spent on nappies and the like) and can't remember when I read them.
First up is a couple of books published by the always reliable Fantagraphic.




Mad Night by Richard Sala

Buried in archives of this blog lies my fevered musings on the greatness of Richard Sala. And great he is, if you like that sort of thing, and I do. He’s often compared to Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, but he mines his own version of macabre humour. The original title of ‘Mad Night’ (it was first serialised in Sala’s comic ‘Evil Eye') was ‘Reflections in a Glass Scorpion’, a title that screams the influence of Mario Bava. Intricately plotted slasher thrillers are the order of the day here. There’s secret identities, mysterious killers, gruesome deaths, a crazed disregard for logic and plenty of psuedo-psychology, but Sala makes it his own. His artwork for example, an obvious way to draw these kind of tales would be in an EC style, all lushly detailed all the better to appreciate the violence and sexiness, instead Sala works in a quirky, almost woodcut style, with all the dreamlike menace of german expressionism (‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ clearly a major influence) Add a love for bizarre trashy crime and the Sala picture is almost complete.
Mad Night is vintage Sala, it all is, he’s sometimes criticised for doing the same thing over and over again, yet he believes this criticism misses the point, for him it’s an exploration, mining the same influences in a never ending quest to find his perfect story - as he points out, nobody complains that Hitchcock did the same thing.
What I like about Sala is that he takes all these influences and churns then up into something obviously very personal to him. A hard trick to pull off, harder still to make it look so easy.




Meow Baby by Jason

When a new book by Jason comes out I buy it straightaway, don’t care what it’s about or how much it costs, and I knew that’s how it’d be when I finished his first translated book, ‘Hey Wait’. Like Lewis Trondheim Jason uses a anthropromorpihc characters, but they have more in common than that, they both like to play with the formal elements of comic storytelling, they’re as adept with ‘silent’ comics as they are with ‘talking’ ones and they seem to move effortlessly from humour to pathos.
In ‘Meow Baby’ we get to see more of Jason’s funny side, it’s a collection of short pieces and ranges from belly laughs to wry smiles.
Jason and Trodheim share another trait, they’re prolific. Fantagraphics have released 7 books by him in the last couple of years, ‘Why Are You Doing this?’ and ‘Hey Wait’ are good places to start, but you can pick any of them up.

Frightmare by Pete Walker

‘Making Mischief’ is the title of Pete walker’s biography and it’s aptly named. Walker’s supposedly best 3 films (I can’t say if they are or not having not seen all his films... yet) are all designed to create controversy, or as he put’s it ‘to rub people up the wrong way.’ Thankfully there’s a bit more to them than that. Walker’s films are bleak grubby cynical affairs with black humour and over the top concepts that brilliantly capture the 70’s, perfectly in keeping with the decade that spawned the excellent UK comic ‘Action’ (Pete Walker directing a film version of ‘Kids Rule Ok’ would be amazing. In fact he’d have been perfect for the previously mentioned ‘Psychomania’ come to think of it) and the once excellent ‘2000ad’.
So far my favourite Walker film is ‘Frightmare’ which funnily enough is the least controversy courting film of his loose trilogy and does seem to be the best (although ‘House of the Whipcord’ is a close second). Plotwise the film seems to try and play things a bit coy by not coming out and saying what it’s about, yet Walker’s exploitation pedigree and his obvious affection for liberal amounts of blood mean that the hints are less than subtle and nothing else about the film or the marketing implies that there’s meant to be some great reveal. Which is a roundabout way of saying I’m going to tell you what’s going on, so consider this a spoiler. ‘Frightmare’ is about a cannibal old lady. There, the cat’s out the bag.
When Walker first cast Sheila Keith he must have instantly realised he’d found his muse, either that or she was cheap/available/game for a laugh, either way both found the perfect match. In ‘Frightmare’ Keith adds something a little extra to her creepy old lady act (and a fine act it is too!), gusto. The literally lip smacking relish she displays when she goes in for the kill, especially the bit with the drill, is over the top genius that must make even Tom Baker turn an envious shade of green. It’s all the more effective when juxtaposed with her scenes as a slightly confused old lady.
There’s a bit more to the plot than that and it’s actually quite a good one involving teenage kicks far too loving husbands dopey psychiatrists and Peter ‘Manuel’ Sachs, but I’ve already given too much away. ‘Frightmare’ is available as part of an Anchor Bay boxset and it’s very nicely put together, 5 films, a fair amount of extras and available pretty cheap on amazon and no doubt elsewhere..... it’s also got ‘Die Marianne Die’ which has a title sequence that features Susan George wearing a very skimpy outfit and giving it some serious go go dancing.... just thought I’d mention it.

What Happen's Now by Jeremy Dyson

I’d been waiting for this for a while being a League Of Gentleman fan, but also because Dyson’s collection of short stories was fantastic. The pained expression I wore whilst reading it was not because it was bad, it was a sign of it's brilliance.
What Happens Now is the story of two sensitive emotionally unstable people and what happened to them to make them that way. Some books you can’t put down even when you know they’re going somewhere you don’t want to be, What Happens Now is one of those, it's painful reading, but so beautifully written that you have to keep going. Alistair Black is a fantastically realised character, nervous, shy with a imagination that opens him up to occassional brilliance but his naivety is a flaw that will have grave consequences for himself and Alice Zealand.
I can't recommend this book highly enough, every one should wear the frown I had to wear when reading it!

The Silent Executioner (a Fantomas story) by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

It's hard to explain this book, and I don't think it would make any difference anyway. Certainly the plot is the reason for a lot of the book's charm, and it has loads, but it's not because of what happens. I can't really tell you much about Fantomas either, at least no more than the back of the book would tell you. Fantomas is an arch villain and master of disguise, he likes money and enjoys setting elaborate traps the kill in fairly gruesome ways, but really I think he just enjoys spreading terror.. Uh, that's it for Fantomas, I mean he doesn't even appear in the book until at least half way, they really go to town with the whole disguise thing, we don't even get to know who he's pretending to be and it's not exactly obvious, well, it might be if it wasn't for the fact that it could 'obviously' be a few people. Apparently later in the series it's entirely possible that Juve, the smart, but not smart enough, police detective trying to bring him to justice, is Fantomas.
If you're getting the impression that the authors were just making it up as they went along you'd be amazed how right you are. To get the Fantomas stories out regular and often enough Allain and Souvestre worked out a basic plot and then went off and wrote a alternate chapters with very little contact. This is probably the reason for the strange dreamlike atmosphere that makes Fantomas so enjoyable not just to the general public loved the stories but to the surrealists of the time.
It's easy to see why the Fantomas series became such a cult hit, I loved it, I just couldn't honestly tell you why!

ZombieWorld Champion of the Worms by Mike Mignola & Pat McEown

So, zombies, I love ‘em, and the last couple of years proves I’m not alone, not even part of a small select audience, I’m actually part of a huge flesh eating hoard. Cool. The zombie craze hadn’t boomed when COTW came out but now it’s back to take advantage and I’m very happy it has, I never got round to replacing my original issues and I much prefer collections - especially when they have lovely sketchbook sections at the back. I don’t think ZombieWorld quite took off when it first came out, Mignola and McEown set up this environment with COTW for other creators to follow and play in. The trouble is it was a hard act to follow and more importantly the COTW felt like a personal vision, the others were just stories (interestingly Bob Fingerman who did the excellent ‘Beg The Question’ wrote a ZombieWorld story, it was really good but it just didn’t quite have the same spark as COTW. Fingerman’s just finishing his own zombie story, nothing to do with ZombieWorld, and it looks fantastic - ‘Recess Pieces’ (a pun Americans will get easier than most Brits I guess) has a space on my bookshelf all lined up ready).
Anyway, on with the review.
Lovecraftian monsters, mummies, zombies, museums, a solid quirky story and absolutely beautiful artwork. It’s the artwork that really sold me (although Mignola’s story is great, especially as it manages to be a little different to the usual zombie tale - don’t get me wrong, I like the usual zombie tale, but it’s nice to have a change), McEown’s previous work (on Grendel was great, but Zombie World was something else, Basil Wolverton meets Yves Chaland on a particularly strong Herge kick, just jaw droppingly beautiful stuff. Sadly McEown seemed to disappear from comics (into animation I belive) with only a few stories left behind (one of which was a serious inspiration for my own Simian Smith as it happens), I’m hoping his recent reappearence in Dark Horse’s Book of the Dead bodes means he wants to do more comics, I’ll be keeping an eye out.
COTW's demands you read it and it's pretty cheap (insert your own 'arm and a leg/zombie' gag here!) so you've got no reason not to give it a go. NOW!

I Drink Your Blood

Despite it’s lurid title ‘I Drink Your Blood’ is a surprisingly sensitive film chronicling the plight of a young boy stuck in dying town. Okay, that’s a lie, ‘IDYB’ is as lurid and as fun as it’s title suggests and any review of it is pointless as it’s the kind of film you’ll either love or don’t care about. I loved it. Great drive in fodder with a strong emphasis on gore. What is surprising about ‘IDYB’ is how cool the gore is, there’s some really choice moments which although not what you’d call convincing are effective.
Like ‘Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’ ‘IDYB’ avoids the typical pitfall of this kind of film, ie dumb kids played by bad actors mill around doing nothing we care about until near the end when the director can finally spend the tiny budget on the effects. A bit of wit, something for the dumb kids to do and a lot of verve give ‘IDYB’ a solid pace, and they don’t wait until the end for cheap thrills either.
So, if you want a film with a plot that involves satanic hippies, LSD spiked old geezers, rabid dog infected meat pies and people running around attacking each other all to the strains of a very funky cheesy sound track I can give no higher recommendation than ‘IDYB’.

Psychomania

Getting their kicks the only way a group of bratty hell’s angels in early 70’s Britain know how, the biker gang ‘The Living Dead’ decide to kill themselves. But wait! According to the leader of ‘The Living Dead's’ mam ,who knows these things, if you truly believe that you will not really die then death will have no hold on you! Yes, ‘The Living Dead’ actually become.... the living dead! HAHAHAHA! Cue blackly humorous suicides and resurrection followed by more motorbike carnage.
‘Psychomania’ is ever so not quite as much fun as the plot suggests unfortunately. For some reason the director decides that camp is not the way to go and plays it a bit too straight, which is a shame because it’s undoubtedly a fun film very well done, just not quite the classic it deserves to be.
The devil worshipping mam is the biggest example of opportunity not played to the hilt. With a class act like Beryl Reid playing a character she could really get her teeth into the only thing a director needs to do is point the camera and ask her to go over the top. What we get instead is a good performance of a character that never really cuts loose despite being a rich devil worshipping druid/witch who uses her son to form a pact with said cloven hooved chap (for reasons unknown and pretty vaguely (but psychedelically of course) presented), she’s even a bit upset when her son uses his knowledge for evil for crying out loud!
Anyway, despite not running (riding?) with it’s fantastically daft idea (let’s face it Robert Fuest should’ve directed this, the man who gave us Doctor Phibes would’ve had a right old laugh with it.) ‘Psychomania’ is a great film with enough chuckles, thrills and British actors to go ‘oh it’s him, what’s his face, he was in thingy with that other bloke’ to merrily while away an hour and not quite a half.

New Recruits by Various

An anthology of work by new talent published by Dark Horse, could this be a replacement for DHP? Hope so.
Andrew Krahnke’s ‘Zombiekiller’ disappointed slightly, barely starting before it ends with a ‘to be continued’. Where? Dunno. It’s all set up with no pay off, to the extent that we don’t get any zombies let alone someone killing them! Either more pages were needed here or a self contained story. Krahnke draws well but more was needed here.
‘The Pied Piper’ by Nick Plumber and Adam Adamowicz didn’t do much for me. I didn’t get why what happened happened to the main character. The art style is nice, all pencil sketchy, a technique that gives the story a gritty squalid look suiting the content.
‘Discrete Despair’ by RHS is an odd fit. It’s nice to have range in an anthology, but this looks like the print run got mixed up with Kithcen Sink/Fantagraphic’s Blab. That said I did like it, and the artwork was very appealing, particularly the colouring.
‘The Mighty Skullboy Army’ by Jacob Chabot was one of my favourite pieces in the book. Sweet with a hard edge. I liked this a lot - especially the robot.
The last two strips are by INJ Culbard. ‘Way of All Flesh’ is a zombie story, which makes me happy, especially as zombies actually appear, but it’s the way it’s told I really liked. Culbard has a lovely clean art style no doubt informed by his animation day job. The storytelling’s clear and straightforward and maybe I’m imagining it but Tor makes a guest appearance, which is a nice touch.
I’m inferring from the intro that there’s more of Culbard’s ‘Wild Talents’, I hope so as it deserves a comic of it’s own, it’d fit in perfectly with DH series like ‘The Goon’ and ‘Hellboy’, not to mention one offs like ‘Amazing Screw-on Head’ and ‘Scarlet Traces’. Murder mystery in Victorian London, and a few more surprises. Excellent.
And that’s volume 1. Despite my complaints it’s well worth buying, all the people featured clearly have talent and anthologies, by their very nature, aren’t going to please everyone all the time, but that’s part of the fun, it’s a chance to sample different things.

God Told Me To by Larry Cohen

If I was a proper reviewer and had been making notes as I watched ‘God Told Me To’ the only intelligible words I’d have scribbled would be ‘wow!’ and ‘huh?’ over and over again like some Jack Torrance outtake.
Larry Cohen’s most recent success has been his script for ‘Phone Booth’ for Joel Schumaker (he’s also the man who gave us the calssic TV show ‘The Invaders’) but I much prefer his low budget films particularly when he’s writing, directing and producing them. He plays with genre very well and can usually be relied upon to come up with something weird and wonderful, and ‘God Told Me To’ from 1976 surely comes under the category ‘weird and wonderful’.
Random everyday folk suddenly go on killing sprees, giving the same reason, ‘God told me to’. The detective investigating one of the cases not only finds that these various cases are connected but that the killers are actually telling the truth. A mind boggling mix of horror, thriller and scifi with religion and genre ambiguity as it’s key themes I’m not kidding when I say I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it - although aspects of the plot seem to crop up in the ‘X-Files’.
‘God Told Me To’ is shot with lots of handheld camera work around New York making it look as fresh as anything you might see in modern US cop shows. Another plus in terms of feeling fresh and realistic (important in a film with such an outlandish plot) is Cohen’s love of old character actors, he clearly loves unique expressive faces and they repay him with memorable performances.
The DVD is available on Region 2 but it’s through Vipco and although I appreciate some of the titles they’ve released their presentations are not so good so I decided to get the Blue Underground produced Region 1 copy. The picture and sound are excellent and there’s a great commentary with some funny behind the scenes stories (as he was about to shoot a scene requiring a rifle with a telescopic lense Cohen found out that nobody had got hold of one and didn’t want to upset him by telling him. Seeing as the scene was being shot next to a New York apartment block Cohen simply asked if anyone had such a rifle.... sure enough someone did) and a easter egg of Cohen being interviewed at a festival.
I can’t recommend ‘God Told Me To’ enough, it’s fun, silly, strange, disturbing, smart and pretty cheap to buy online.

Hatchet for a Honeymoon by Mario Bava

After reading and hearing about mario Bava I finally got round to watching one of his films. The main impetus for watching was an interest in the ‘Gaillo’ genre (I quite like the old ‘Pulps’ and Gaillo (pronounced with a hard ‘g’) is the Italian equivalent; it’s even named for similar reasons, i.e. the look of the books - gaillo means yellow and this was the colour scheme of the books, yellow covers with suitably lurid illustrations) and Richard Sala is a big fan. Well, there’s only so long you can read about something before you finally dive in.
‘Hatchet For The Honeymoon’ is as stylishly and inventively shot as I’d been led to believe a Bava film could be. Interesting angles, carefully shot compositions and neat little tricks abound (lot’s of people’s faces only seen in reflections, particularly in the main character’s cleaver, was a nice touch), Bava’s grounding as a cinematographer is apparent and appreciated.
The plot is suitably bizarre and darkly humorous, the boss of a bridal fashion company murders brides to be in their gowns because each time he does a repressed memory of who killed his mother becomes clearer. The boss is creepily played by Stephen Forsyth (“My name is John Harrington, I’m thirty years old. I am a paranoiac... The fact is I am completely mad.”) a strikingly handsome man with rather cold and slightly feminine features making him an excellent casting choice even if his acting slips in a couple of scenes .
A brief subplot about his own wife haunting him turns up in the middle of the film, is dealt with, forgotten about and then resurrected near the end. I found it to be interesting but unnecessary her final scene could have been kept in without the previous scenes, and might have been a little more effective in fact. Other than that it’s a solid and very interesting film, possibly not Bava’s best but it’s got me wanting to watch more of his films.
Special mention goes to the soundtrack which had a nice ‘groovy nightclub’ track as well as some great discordant clanging moments.
The DVD is an Anchor Bay package and as such has more than just ‘Biography’ and ‘Trailer’ as special features. The documentary ‘Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre’ was a nice introduction to the director whose influence was on a lot more the just Dario Argento (a film expert pojnts out the some of Friday the 13th looks like it was shot on the same set as a Bava film such is the degree it take’s ‘homage’). Contributions from Kim Newman are always welcome and I was glad of the chance to finally see some scenes from ‘Planet of the Vampires’ after usually hearing it in connection to alien.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

It took me way too long to read this book, and that’s a shame, because it’s an excellent read, obvious and misleading, creepy and odd, all quite appropriate considering it’s about magicians. It’s fun reading a book the lovingly presents an attractive rug, invites you to step onto it and then yanks it away from you... and then shows you another pretty rug.
Christopher 'Momento' Nolan is directing the film adaptation and I've got high hopes for it.
One word of warning, if you check the Wiki link careful if you look at their info on the book, it gives away all the plot and it really would spoil it.

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

This book took me no time to read. It may 400 pages but each chapter is only 2-5 pages and there’s a gap of a couple of pages between chapters (there’s chapter headings that have sheet music accompanying them), but it’s not the length that had me finishing this book sharpish, I just didn’t want to put it down.
The only other book I’ve read by Thompson was the first part of her Switchers trilogy which was pretty good but a little old fashioned, oddly her latest book is about fairy folk in Ireland yet seems a lot less old fashioned.
Thankfully even though the subject matter is about a young lad stumbling into the land of the fairies (he’s trying to find where all the time goes and his hoping to get some more) it’s written in quite a straighforward manner. There’s a few mysteries to be solved on the way but not everything is resolved, this seems less to keep it open for a sequel and more because life doesn’t always work that way.
The New Policman is a fun, fresh read that put a nice big smile on my face.

The Tooth Fairy

This is a book I remember coming out in hardback and flicking through a few times before putting it back on the shelf. There was something about it that fascinated me and yet almost as soon as I picked it up I was putting it back as if slightly repulsed. My best guess is it was because of what I'll call Gaimanitis. Something about it made me think of Neil Gaiman, and I’m very very undecided about Gaiman’s work - at the very least I lean towards thinking it might be a load of pretentious nancy wank, but then sometimes I think I quite like it.
After finally reading a different Graham Joyce book altogether (‘TWOC’, if you don’t know what that means you’re either an honest law abiding citizen, or you’ve never had your car nicked) and enjoying it, I decided I’d read ‘Tooth Fairy’. It’s supposed to be about a boy who is regularly visited by a, surprise, tooth fairy, but rather than being a lovely little pixy of this fairy is foul and sinister, well, sometimes. I say supposed to be about, because it’s really a book about growing up and Joyce wisely uses the fairy sparingly, instead treating us to the growing pains of a group of 3 boys and the various people who play a part in their lives. Joyce evokes a lovely bittersweet childhood nostalgia with ease and I wonder how much is autobiographical.
‘Tooth Fairy’ is a very easy read due to familiarity (I doubt I’m the only one who cringes with recognition at some of the boys antics) but still has nice challenging prose which only occasionally gets a bit to fancy for it’s own good. The Gaiman comparison wasn’t far off it seems, but I got a lot more out of Joyce and next time I look at one of his books I’ll know to just buy it.

Donjon

Following on from my gush about L’Association a couple of posts ago I just finished reading the latest in what will hopefully be a long line of translations of the 'Donjon' (that’s ‘Dungeon’ to monolingual folk like myself) series. Instead of reviewing the latest book I’ll attempt to explain ‘Donjon’.
If creators Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar (anyone who’s been reading my blog for a while will know of my deep love for those two creators) actually carry out their plan for ‘Donjon’ then it’ll be the biggest comic ever written. ‘Dunjon’ is a dungeons and dragons fantasy story. As it happens I’m not that big a fan of the genre, but what Sfar and Trondheim (henceforth known as S&T) have done is to parody it whilst playing it totally straight, a pretty difficult trick to pull off yet seemingly effortless for them, the review on amazon put’s it very nicely, ‘the parody actually reinforces the adventure’, to my mind it refreshes the cliched aspects of the genre (Jeff Smith also managed this with 'Bone', although in an different way, which I suppose proves that there’s no such thing as a bad genre just bad creators). The dialogue is funny, the characters play against type at the right moments (Marvin the dragon is a great character) and the quests are nicely ridiculous. All well and good, except S&T are not just fine genre practitioners, they are also experimental comic formalists (Trondheim’s first comic featured only three panels repeated through out several pages) and this extends to ‘Donjon’. So here’s how they have a bit of fun with ‘Donjon’.
(Coeur de Canard) ‘Duck Heart’ was the first in the ongoing series ‘Zenith’ (featuring Marvin) where we are introduced to the Dungeon it’s keeper and all the strange creatures it holds (if you’re thinking ‘Trapdoor’ then it’s not a bad starting point) ‘Duck Heart’ is in the fairly well known European comic format (like Tintin and Asterix, 48 full colour A4-ish pages). Zenith concerns the Dungeon at it’s peak. After ‘Zenith’ vol. 2 S&T started another ‘Donjon’ series ‘Crepuscule’ showing the end of the Dungeon. A couple of books later to keep a sense of balance we get the ‘Potron-Minet’ which shows, you guessed it, the beginning of the dungeon. The numbering of Zenith starts at ‘1’, ‘Crepuscule’l starts at 101 (there’ll be 99 of them too) and ‘Potron-Minet’ starts at ‘-99’ with one series ending to lead into the next, a little bit of maths should tell you that S&T intend ‘Donjon’ to be at least 297 (if my maths is any good!)volumes. Except I didn’t mention the ‘Monstres’ series which features the adventures of various supporting characters from Dunjon either did I? Well there’s already been a fair few of them. Oh, yes, there’s the ‘Parade’ series featuring funny stories about Marvin and DUCK, there’s been a few of those too. This kind of insane work load requires a degree of dedication that boggles the mind, so it’s no surprise that S&T have roped in help. S&T both write all the ‘Donjon’ stories with Trondheim producing the artwork for the ‘Zenith’ and ‘Parade’ series, Sfar art for ‘Downfall’, the excellent Christophe Blain (with a style quite similar to Sfar’s) provides art for ‘Early Years’ and various artists work on the individual ‘Monstres’ series.
With the sheer volume of work will the ‘Donjon’ story ever be told in it’s entirety? A quick look at the bibliographic section on Trondheim’s website shows far better than I could explain just how incredibly prolific the man is, he seems to be able to turn out a 48 page album every 2 months amongst other things. Sfar manages to match Trondheim in terms of speed and quality so between the 2 of them and their friends anything’s possible. But maybe it’s all a big joke, maybe they don’t care whether they do all the ‘Donjon’ stories or run out of steam part way through. Maybe the epic size and strange numbering system is just another parody of the nature of the genre. Who knows? And who cares. NBM have published three volumes of ‘Dungeon’ (although each book features two of the original volumes so six have actually been translated) and they’re are charming, witty, smart, lovely to look at and great fun to read, I don’t care how many books are eventually published (and translated) I just want to get as many as possible.

What I've been reading part II

Finally got round to adding some book reviews. Of course I only did it as a way to get out of doing something proper on my day off, but as all I could think of doing was wandering round town sighing and drinking coffeen this seems a little more productive and less pathetic.
There's’ zero information available on L.S. Matthew's ‘A Dog is For Life’ so I’ve just linked to the amazon page telling you it’s not out for a couple months. You’ll have probably forgotten about it my the time it comes out, that’d be a shame though as it’s warm smart and shocked me by making me cry at the end (although I’m a sucker for stories with dog’s in them, ‘Last Family in England’‘Last Family in England’ by Matt Haig being a recent one of note)
Finding something decent about ‘A Brief History of the Dead’ by Kevin Brockmeier was a bit easier. I’m still reading it but the prose is beautiful and it’s a compelling story. It’s famous for having it’s first chapter published in the New Yorker and then being snapped up by Hollywood, must of the info on the net mentioned this more than the actual book, but as the director attached is the hack Chris Columbus I’m not particularly excited by the prospect. On the other hand you can read that impressive first chapter, which is what I’ve decided to link to.
The proof of ‘Firecracker’ by Sean Stewart came my way a while ago and it took me a while to get round to reading it, so long in fact that it’s been out for about a month. It’s an easy enough read and nothing to rave about but some of it made me smile and some of it gave me pause for thought and you can’t say fairer than that.
Hideshi Hino is a creator of gruesome personal manga, I first read ‘Hell Baby’ and was freaked out and enthralled, he’s most famous for doing a film that Charlie Sheen believed to be a genuine snuff movie so he contacted the police. Needless to say Sheen is a drug addled loser who pissed away whatever talent he had, Hino is brilliant and ‘Living Corpse; is a fine addition to his catalogue.
David Almond is in the unenviable position of having an written ‘Skellig’ early on in his career. ‘Skellig’ is an amazing book and therefore everything he’s written since has been compared to it. ‘Clay’ is excellent, it’s beautifully written and personally I loved it just for evoking memories of the North East of England. Almond is a fantastic writer and when ‘Clay’ comes out it’s going to win him another award - or at the very least be nominated for a few.