| Realms of Fantasy |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|01:56 pm] |
I was profiled by Mia Nutick in this month's Realms of Fantasy magazine. There are the proper shout-outs to Starstruck, the HP Lovecraft Film Festival, D&D, The Smithsonian Institution, and John R. Neill. Better still, there are a dozen paintings, 3 of which are full pages. |
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| Portrait & Travel |
[Jul. 21st, 2009|02:23 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Wuthering Heights - The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britian | ] |
I'm off to ComicCon in SanDiego soon (horribly early on Wednesday). I hope to see a whole lot of you kids there, but I'll miss the too-many others who are unable to come this time. I will be reachable via cell phone, and Annaliese can hook you up with the # if you don't already have it...
But before I can leave, I am finishing Issue 4 of Starstruck. To that end, here's a portrait of Nick " The Geezer" Pico - a very important bkgd character whose activities will be brought to the readers attention in one of the many new features of the book. The symbol behind him and on his coat is Running In Place (RIP). It's a method of extending one's life, and it's made Mr. Pico a very wealthy man indeed. Michael's drawing is typically superb - apparently the character is based on lifelong sculptor pal Steve Harper. I've modeled the painting on a 120 year old Russian painting of Tsar Nicholas II aka Nikolai Alexandrovich.
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| It's a MEME people. How long has it been? |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|01:08 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Tied Up Too Tight - Hard-Fi | ] |
Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) regyt via roozle, words. The meme deal is: reply to this post by yelling (or even saying gently) "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
Regyt's 5 words for me were: Memory. Enthusiasm. Professional. Art. Craft.
In my case, the last two simply had to be answered in a single go:
Memory
It took me years, and a great conversation, to realize that there is an entire genre of movies about Memory (Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dark City, Memento, et al...) And that it was hands-down my favorite genre. Even terrible movies strike a chord with me when they speak directly to memory. I remember very little of Barbarella for example, but was struck to the core when the "good" angel lets the villainess go and is dressed down by Barbarella. He tells her that "Angels have no memory" (who knew that Emanuel Swedenborg influenced the saucy French cartoon?). It was that quote that was the key to Memento for me. Without a memory we cannot have an agenda or an identity.
I am fortunate to have few bad memories (very few compared to so many people I know and love). I seldom have nightmares (that I remember), and I don't consider memory much on a daily basis. I treat my memory like a treat my car, refrigerator or computer. It's there for me. It almost always works. And when it fails, I become prone to four letter Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. But like my computer, I use it like mad. For work, for conversation, for Scrabble. I try to make good memories by doing good and being of service where I can.
Though I'm not a nostalgic person, I occasionally get a pang of regret for my old start-up "Ah, those were the days" I think. Until I look around and realize how far I've travelled since, and how my love for my colleagues has not diminished. There was considerable (and unexpected grief) when that rollercoaster came to a stop and disgorged us all to different places. But I've been to all my great colleagues weddings (Ethan's as recently as last month), and while I don't think of my thinking, it's the memory that does its job. Joann Hanna, my second mother, died unexpectedly some years back, but she's still here with me.
I have an especially good memory for things visual, for location, and for the spoken word. But my memory for names is full up. While I am sometimes embarrassed to be unable to retrieve a name from my mind, I am just as often surprised when I use a word I've never had occasion to use, or manage to remember an obscure fact. People who are gifted with names amaze me.
Enthusiasm
I love seeing this word on the list.
But then I would, wouldn't I?
This is so me, so integral to my way of being, that I never give it thought. It feels deeply connected to Curiosity, and while I Enthusiasm must be able to exist without curiosity, I find it hard to imagine. It would be pretty scary I think.
It amazes me to hear my friends briefly allude to a movie or a play and move on. "Didn't they like it" I wonder. "But how WAS it?" I think. I am so enthused about things that I am sometimes baffled by the lack of enthusiasm in others. And when I was an Art Director at EA, I learned to my disadvantage how earnest enthusiasm is the enemy of any settled Matrix-like bureaucracy. I am so gung-ho, so filled with joie de vivre that it gets me in trouble. People sometimes find it threatening, treat me superficially, or show a hipster disdain for my earnestness. On the old Myers Briggs, I'm at 99% on the Extrovert scale. I'm dying to meet someone who's got 100%.
But then I would, wouldn't I?
Professional
I always strive to be professional, but know that I err sometimes. Every client is different and client interactions can span a huge range - a surprisingly huge range. And that means the meaning of "Professional" changes with each client. There are countless people who do not believe this, or if they do, they endeavor not to show it and they behave like robots. I can never understand how so many people take professional to mean "inhuman". If our business is not by, for and about people and the world outside, then what good is it?
For everyone I know who did all the right things, took all the proper steps, and followed a "career path", I know many more who did not - people who made their own professions and their own rules. In my case, my profession came through stubbornness and poor judgment. And I couldn't be much happier with it.
Art and Craft
There are many fine books to be written on this subject. Of the many that have, budding illustrator Tom Wolfe really gets it:
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00125
" I feel very comfortable predicting that art historians 50 years from now,
assuming we're in a world kind enough to indulge art historians, will look
back upon illustrators as the great American artists of the second half of
the 20th century."
Many years ago, Scott Lefton wore a button that I liked. It read "Art is what you can get way with". And indeed that what ART had come to mean. But it was not always so. All the Art in the Museums of Classical Art are all illustrations. All of them. Portraits and paintings and sculpture commissioned by the Church and the Wealthy. But it all went wrong when brilliant illustrator Maxfield Parrish learned that printing technology would allow him to sell prints so that the common man could own his work. Almost immediately, his work (and the work of his fellows who had been famous, the Rockstars of their age in some ways), was declared "Kitsch". Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the "Gibson Girl", JC Leyendecker, creator of the modern Santa Claus (years before the oft-cited and quite laudable Haddon Sundblom), Rose O'Neill, creator of Kewpie dolls, polymath Winsor McCay, Norman Rockwell, James Montgomery Flagg, creator of Uncle Sam - all were suddenly gauche. All those people who had created the cultural infrastructure for our age were declared non-people. Illustration was for the poor, and the rich had to have something more...exclusive. And usually something more mindless, sensational and stupid. Sure there were some talented artists who rode the waves. Adding "con" to the word "artist", Dali apparently forged more of his works than he painted originals. And why not? The goal became not quality work that could bring beauty and wonder to the world, but rather kissing the asses of the rich and letting the common man go hang. And moaning about one's "Muse" and making excuses for their institutionalized failure. Painters and sculptors working up the latest fabrics for the Emperor's New Clothes. You needn't be a genius to see poo for what it is.
Art IS craft. It has no other meaning. It might have several meanings agreed on by several people at once, but ask a crowd what "Art" means and the result will be contradiction and confusion. Is there any other abstraction that means less in our world? "Compassionate Conservatism" comes to mind, but even there the rich selling the term might agree, if they could speak off the record, that it's horseshit.
Happily, we've started to see a fascinating shift in public perception. Just as everything I thought was cool when I was 17 finally, officially IS cool, so too has the world of "Fantastic Art" slowly spun around. When the Delaware Museum of Art (possessors of a brilliant Pre-Raphaelite collection and the largest collection of Howard Pyle paintings and drawings imaginable) held a fantastic art exhibit in 1990 they were ahead of the curve. But now artists like James Jean, Brian Despain, and Jon Foster have become gallery staples. And with Phil Hale painting the official portrait of Tony Blair, and shows like Pixel: Artists Who Use The Computer raking in vastly more money than other exhibits... well, Mr. Wolfe's prediction looks to be coming true.
I feel like I've just sent back the refracted light from a single facet of each of these words, but it was nice to consider them and share my thoughts. :) |
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| Palin? |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|01:08 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Living On A Thin Line - The Kinks | ] |
I would be DELIGHTED if Sarah Palin resigned when she realized that she was an utter failure that had nothing left to offer the school but date rape and AIDS jokes. Like Lady Bracknell, Palin is a monster without being a myth, which is rather unfair.
I'm sure the people of Texas were pleased when they lost W, their village idiot. But despite his chronic disastrous and highly profitable early failures he came closer than Hitler, Mussolini and Michael Jackson to destroying our country. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of her winking failure
Even as I wondered at the reasons behind her complete dereliction of duty on this fourth of July weekend, I came across the following:
From the Anchorage Daily News, March 4, 2009
The two Veco Corp. officials at the center of the Alaska public corruption scandal once again on Wednesday had their sentences for bribery and conspiracy postponed.
Former Veco chief executive Bill Allen and a Veco vice president, Rick Smith, won’t have to worry about prison again until at least June 30, when federal prosecutors will present another status report
I wonder if this means what it sounds like. |
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| WTF Wyden? |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|06:50 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Por Mujeres Como Tu - Pepe Aguilar | ] |
I was appalled to learn that Ron Wyden has not yet stood up to support a public option on health care. It makes me want to research his donors and see if the obvious Big Pharma taint or giant HMO taint lurks.
If you are an Oregonian, please call him to insist at:
Phone: (202) 224-5244
Fax: (202) 228-2717
And for those in other states, here are the people most in need of a boot to the head:
Baucus (MT)
Bingaman (NM)
Conrad (ND)
Bayh (IN)
Begich (AK)
Byrd (WV)
Cantwell (WA)
Dorgan (ND)
Bill Nelson (FL)
Ben Nelson (NE)
Feinstein (CA)
Landrau (LA
Tester (MT)
Hagan (NC)
Lieberman (CT)
Udall (CO)
Carper (DE)
Lincoln (AR)
Wyden (OR)
Specter (PA)
Snowe (ME)
Collins (ME)
Reid (NV) |
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| Party Time (at last). |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|05:32 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Tear This Building Down - T-Bone Burnett | ] |
Annaliese and I (and our glorious House, Houseguests and Dog) are having a party!
The house turns 100, Lee 45, Lego 6.
Lee & Annaliese will be celebrating their 15th Anniversary.
Liz and Mikey from Canberra will have been here a mere 6 days.
Father's Day will have been legal for 43 years.
Join us!
Sunday, June 21st 4pm - midnight. Please bring a little food to share (not gifts).
PS: Polidori Truffles in/on the house! |
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| Incredible |
[May. 24th, 2009|12:15 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold - Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band | ] |
It's just amazing how much work one can accomplish on a day one waits for "real' work to arrive. |
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| What I've been up to. |
[May. 1st, 2009|01:17 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Camera One - The Josh Joplin Group | ] |
IDW is proud to announce the return of the science fiction classic, Starstruck, to comics. Debuting in August, the 13-issue series will showcase the fine writing of Elaine Lee and the remarkable art of Michael Kaluta. Scanned from the original art to ensure the highest quality, the entire series is being re-colored by fantasy artist, Lee Moyer, whose painted work has appeared on the covers of books by Iain Banks, H.P. Lovecraft and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
"Starstruck is a classic work, and some of Michael's very finest art-it has been out of print for too long," said Scott Dunbier, IDW's Starstruck editor. "Our series will present Elaine and Michael's vision as never before. New readers will be astounded by it, while diehard fans will delight in seeing their old friend looking better than ever."
Set in a far-flung and very alternative future, Starstruck chronicles the lives and relationships of Elaine Lee's characters from her play of the same name. The sometimes dark, often hilarious, and always surprising Starstruck is a visually stunning tale in which the offspring of two powerful houses vie for wealth and dominance in a newly free, but completely anarchic universe. First printed in Heavy Metal and as a Marvel epic series, then a Dark Houre comic, Starstruck is a joyride to the far side of the spiral arm.
Author, film director and visual artist, Clive Barker, has said of Starstruck, "I was, and am, a huge fan of Starstruck, which I think was one of the most brave and elegant experiments in comic book story-telling."
In addition to classic Starstuck material, each issue will contain an episode of Galactic Girl Guides by the same creative team as the main comic, including material never before published. Artist Charles Vess, best known for his work with Neil Gaiman, has inked Kaluta's pencil art for these additional stories. |
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| Matt Taibbi FTW |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|05:49 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Great Buddy Bolden, Pt. 2 - Jelly Roll Morton | ] |
Matt gets it. Read his full article here.
Two snippets:
.........
In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherfucking turkey!
.........
The really irritating thing about these morons is that, guaranteed, not one of them has ever taken a serious look at the federal budget. Not one has ever bothered to read an actual detailed study of what their taxes pay for. All they do is listen to one-liners doled out by tawdry Murdoch-hired mouthpieces like Michelle Malkin and then repeat them as if they’re their own opinions five seconds later. That’s what passes for political thought in this country. Teabag on, you fools. |
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| !?! |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|01:59 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Believe - The Bravery | ] |
Apparently being outraged and paying attention really aren't as causal as the last 8 years might suggest...
Epic clueless faith-based what-the-fuckery as documented by San Francisco's Kim O'Connor:
Say no to HUMAN sacrifice, I get that.
But really, what a bunch of sociopathic douchebags... |
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| Billy Pilgrim, but in a good way. |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|01:28 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Life Between the Wars - Al Stewart | ] |
There's been too much afoot to report any of it. Better than the alternative surely, but I feel like the events are slipping through my fingers and mind at too swift a pace.
I've had 3 separate visitors from the past over the last weeks. If I suggested that I'd been listening to the recent Al Stewart albums while I hung out with Heather, Kate, Newton and Cary, the few readers who know these people would guess I was talking about being 18 years old. But instead, it's all about Portland. And the latter two as house-guests at separate times. Strange.
It looks like Cat will be our guest on Saturday, and Keith not too far behind. And then a meeting with Liz G from the UK before Liz A comes to Clarion and brings Mike to our house (where we've already enjoyed Liz W and Mike, also from Canberra)... It's SO nice to have really viable guest quarters, and nice to know so many Lizzes from foreign lands.
There's a rumor that suggests I'll be back in NYC at the end of May. Please let me know if you'd like to visit while I'm there.
I found out that I got 2 pieces into this coming year's Spectrum. Finding that one has gotten a single piece in is always a great relief, getting more than one in is a real blessing! "Ms. Lewis Carroll" has aced all competitions, and as such must be considered my most successful piece ever. Now if I can just get the Communication Arts people on board...Fingers crossed.
Even as I have been trying to give Newton some salient critique and useful techniques, I have taken my first class from Za Vue. Za is a fabulous woman (and former lead animator at Disney) whose Anatomy for Animation has come rightly recommended. I think I learned more on the subject in a single class from her than I have heretofore. I hope that I can keep up as those lessons intensify in coming weeks.
Amid the mania, the yard planning is moving along well, and the 10 cubic yards of compost and 2 yards of topsoil have been delivered. Concrete has been dispatched, the lilacs have all found good new homes, vast amounts of earth-moving and weeding has been accomplished... now to finish off the odious vinca and plant the fruit trees.
Working like mad on Comic stuff, but will not announce the project here quite yet. First I'll finish painting the alternate cover for Issue 1.
I have been thinking of Q, and hoping that her recovery is going perfectly.
I hope that all is well with everyone else out there in LJ Land too. |
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| Yes... but do you have a flag? |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|06:05 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Josephine Baker - Al Stewart | ] |
The ever vigilant Mark Fearing has found the secret plans that reveal the real truth of American Cinematic Imperialism in 1942:
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| Though Zevon is gone, we have Leonard in London |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|12:16 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ain't No Cure For Love - Leonard Cohen | ] |
On the slight chance that someone out there in LJ land shares my love of Leonard Cohen, Here's a LINK to his new live album. It will be live for the rest of the month, so get it while he's 74!
He starts with "Dance Me To The End Of Love" and his band sounds as good as it did back when we saw him in those bygone days of The Future. While the songs will be familiar, the dialog is great too. |
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| Matt Taibbi FTW |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|11:57 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Time Wounds All Heels - Nick Lowe | ] |
"If these companies are too big to fail, they're too big to exist.
In a capitalist society we can't have a situation where all you have to do to stay in business forever is get so big that whenever you screw up the government comes and bails you out.
That's the reason we had the trust busting and the anti-monopoly laws back in the day and I think that's the reason we have to make sure that these companies are manageable and if they are incompetent and irresponsible that we can just let them fail." |
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| It's show time! |
[Mar. 23rd, 2009|06:12 pm] |
Announcing the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles Illustration West 47 Exhibition at Gallery Nucleus. 210 East Main St, Alhambra CA 91801
Wily readers will see one of my 3 pieces in the poster below:
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| On Watchmen (the comic) |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|09:12 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Monkey In The Moon - Alphaville | ] |
mhacdebhandia and I have been chatting Watchmen on robin_d_laws LJ, and since we got to talking, I thought I'd post a little bit of my Watchmen treatise here for the curious . Heaven knows many of you have heard me rambling on about this for 20 years, or read a bit of it in my response to yuki_onna's . Feel most free to move along, or stay to mock my geekery as you see fit :)
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HEREIN. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
As good as WATCHMEN is, and as acclaimed as it is, almost nobody gets how brilliant it really is. At least not consciously.
I had 2 questions as I read - 2 questions that weren't obvious to me. Why is Doc M blue? Why does the Silk Spectre have a skull on her choker?
Because they are Vishnu and Kali. Hell, Doc M has a dot on his forehead for Pete's sake. The idea of Kali as stage-mother devouring her own young is brilliant. Look for the number of times Doc M is shown to have more than 2 arms. :)
There's a flying elephant too! And a demigod of war with an ironic motif (in India it's a peacock feather), There Archie aka Garuda who breathes fire and has a deafening shriek and carries the gods into battle. And Rudra... er, Rorshach, who is the scary night god whose symbol is a jackal (dog). It goes on and on. When I discovered the Surya (the god of light and knowledge) had a chariot draw by 7 horses each of a different color, I thought I'd count how many different talents the plan required. Any guesses?
Look for Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice holding hands in the restaurant at the end of issue 1. Their bow-ties will show you who they are. :)
Look at the issue called Fearful Symmetry. Look at it from the spine (middle) out. You'll see that the whole thing is symmetrical - panel layouts, colors, characters featured - and in the very middle there's an important arrow. As if to say "J'accuse!"
And there are 6 sets of paired covers devoted to a specific character. The first shows the hero's public image, the second shows that character's private problem.
The first set is the Comedian:
1. The smiley face and blood.
2. Violence to women.
The one that kills me though is Doc M's public image. They've cropped the FALLOUT SHELTER sign to read
ALL (nuclear symbol) HEL. And then the first panel of the book crops the Nuclear warning symbol to be an exclamation point!
The covers get ever more ambitious until the Silk Spectre's duo nearly threw me completely - the first cover (that I call premature fanboy ejaculation) is clearly in keeping. The second one though... It took me a couple minutes to see that not only were we honoring the sweep hand, but to see the scarred face of the Comedian reflected. It also took me a while to realize the light reflected on the IN GRATITUDE plaque made it say IN-GRATITUDE.
Moore and Gibbons worked so many angles beyond where anyone else was even capable of understanding (though Shyamalan's Indian heritage gave him a huge leg up for making Unbreakable [Comic Heroes = American Gods]. But that's another story).
Many motifs return throughout - like the blood splat as the shape we can see through on the cover of #11.
I know that Moore changed the ending as he wrote it (I strongly believe that Hooded Justice was the Comedian's real killer, and that he and his lover [shown together in issue 1] were in cahoots with Veidt). Imagine the gay conspiracy angle there and you'll see a bullet dodged.
There's a lot more detail I could mention, but this is a taste of why I think Watchmen deserves the love and respect it gets. |
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