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From journalists Mick Bunnage and Jon Link, Modern Toss is a Channel 4 series adapted from their independent comic and website. Making use of both live action and animation, it's one of the best British comedy sketch shows to appear in years.
Stephen Floyd and J.P. Coovert are artists and founders of One Percent Press. In addition to the other artists, Floyd and Coovert create deceptively simple, honest, and refreshing works in the form of both comics and zines (as well as music).
The One Percent Press site is worth a browse with preview pages of a good number of their works. To give a flavour of their approach, here are their own words:
"Professionalism is too often mistaken for being synonymous with quality. Artists often search for some big name to be affiliated with, in hopes that this will add validity to his or her art. Even in independent circles, it seems more often than not, that artists are more pre-occupied with wanting to be on a hip new comic or record label (or whatever the case may be), than creating good art.
As artists, we reject this notion that in order to be "legitimate" you have to be involved with an already established label, indie or otherwise. As people, we come from a very strong DIY background, which we took with us from growing up in punk rock. We also reject the notion that there are any limitations or boundaries in punk, or within DIY for that matter. We will work as hard and put as much care into our art as we please.
We hope to make art that is engaging, thoughtful, and made with our best intentions and care. We're trying, and encourage anyone else to try also. We're just people trying to get our ideas out there."
Frank Miller has written a big screen adaptation of Will Eisner's classic comic series The Spirit which centers on Denny Colt who fakes his own death to fight crime in the gritty urban setting of Central City. The script has been acquired by Lionsgate for American distribution and Miller is set to direct. Odd Lot International(UK) is selling overseas distribution rights in Cannes.
After co-directing with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City, Miller has stated in regard to the adaptation of his graphic novel 300, "This, I hope, will be the last property of mine that isn't directed by me". Samuel L. Jackson is in discussion to star as the villain, the Octopus. The Spirit will be Miller's debut as a solo director after his co-direction of Sin City.
It will be interesting to see how Miller approaches Eisner's original material and how well he can come to terms with directing solo. Whatever one feels about Frank Miller's work or personal beliefs, he's undeniably single-minded in his vision and being no stranger to controversy has been a catalyst of discussion across several forums.
The downside is that as Miller asks people to question things, some of his fanbase can't seem to extend this to Miller himself. Still, that's common across all "fans" who can't seem to help sporting rosy tinted glasses in regard to their idols. Anyone who believes that any person is incapable of doing any wrong, is a fool. Likewise, the same is true of those who feel anyone in the world is incapable of any good.
Thus far on SiouxWIRE, I've stressed the importance of having a broad range of artistic influences across mediums and class, but there's also something to be said of not surrounding yourself with people who think along the same lines as you do either politically, spiritually, or morally. It's impossible to have perspective when your lens is perpetually pointing in one direction.
Returning to The Spirit, I have been reading Frank Miller's work for just over two decades and having seen several screen adaptations, I think this extremely gifted visual/narrative artist is well overdue for his time in the director's chair and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.
Links:
The Spirit (official page)
Daily Telegraph Interview(Miller)
LA Times interview(Miller)
willeisner.com
The Guardian Obituary
New York Times Obituary
Will Eisner Wiki
Frank Miller Wiki
Hollywood Reporter - Jackson casting
The preview of Tony Millionaire's Drinky Crow Show, part of Adult Swim's "Night of 1000 Pilots" is online. The full pilots will be online on May 11 and on television on the 13th(North America).
The full pilot is now available HERE.
Links:
Tony Millionaire MySpace
Adult Swim
Adult Swim: Night of 1000 Pilots
Channel Frederator has a brilliant cartoon podcast featuring a wide variety of artists and styles. Most of the content is lighthearted fun, but there is some dramatic work such as The Ballyvaughan Story by Sara Pocock(episode 43).
I've not seen everything yet, but the quality of what I've seen thus far is consistently good though the inclusion of advertising is a little annoying and compares so very, very badly with the content between which it is placed. Indeed, don't let the "What the hell? TOON IN!" below put you off having a look. It's the picture to look at, not the frame.
The images above are samples from the latest, "Episode 77" featuring Deerhoof - Kidz are so Small from Face 3 Media, Libraryhead by David Bazelon, and Predators of the Sprawl: A Staggering Simian by James Buran. See all these animations(episode 77) below:
A new edition of Robert Crumb and & David Mairowitz's study on Czech writer, Franz Kafka distills elements from both his stories and biography mixing them into a graphical exploration of the man and his work.
Kafka(aka Introducing Kafka and R. Crumb's Kafka) is released on May 15, 2007 and is now available for pre-order with a list price of $12.95.
Links
Fantagraphic - Crumb Page
Review - Daily Cross Hatch
Franz Kafka wiki
Robert Crumb - official site
David Mairowitz wiki
Brothers Jamie & Gilbert Hernandez' classic comic series Love & Rockets started off in 1981 as a self-published piece with Fantagraphic Books publishing their work the following year. It was planned to be a serial of graphic novels following the same characters for 15 years or more and it's still going strong.
The drawings/line art are very confident, and individual, the storylines are incredibly human and real world despite the "magical realism". For me, the real hook was that this world seemed so familiar and real. Even beautiful characters had some physical "flaw" and "happy" people secrets.
At about the same time as I discovered Love & Rockets, I was reading Deadline magazine which most prominently featured Jamie Hewlett's Tank Girl and her exaggerated characters and world which I also enjoyed, but this made a perfect counterbalance.
A good and fresh interview with Gilbert Hernandez is HERE at The Daily Cross Hatch. Revisit or discover the series. Read more about Love & Rockets:
Fantagraphics Books
The Unauthorized Love & Rockets Page
More Links
I haven't read much of the Maakies comics, but I was given a vinyl Drinky Crow maquette a while back and investigated its origins. Now it is being adapted for Adult Swim. Based on the syndicated comic strip from Tony Millionaire, this dark comedy series will feature both Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow. From the first 30 seconds posted below, it looks as if their humour is as nihilistic as ever.
See the opening 30 seconds of the new series which includes the theme by They Might Be Giants over HERE. And The Beat have a long article on the new show HERE.
A few older animations from the Maakies world are available on Bright Red Rocket's DVD compilation God Hates Cartoons and an interactive Flash animation is available HERE.
Based on Marjane Satrapi's comic book autobiography, it is an animated feature that Marjane is codirecting with Vincent Paronnaud in France. Sony Pictures Classics will be releasing the film in North America; the official site HERE.
The story is the coming-of-age story of an outspoken young Iranian girl beginning in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Following through her feats of outstmarting her "social guardians", discovering punk, ABBA, and Iron Maiden, then escaping to Europe only to find more religious fundamentalism and extremism.
There is a MySpace page with graphics and video(in French) - HERE. Read more about the original graphic novels HERE.
EDIT: Here is the trailer...
A Robert Crumb retrospective has started at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Curated by Tod Hignite, it runs from March 16 - July 8(2007) and features over 200 pieces spanning his career.
Alvin Buenaventura of Astoundingly Wonderful Books & Comics has posted a large set of pictures from the exhibition's opening night on Flickr HERE. Link to the YBCA HERE.
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