"I love comic book movies!"
This is a constant refrain. While I don't wish to discourage people's new found interest in the medium, I take issue and even cringe a little knowing that they believe "comic book" to equate "superhero". Sure the capes and tights are still best sellers.
Though, when I hear this I can hardly contain the urge to sarcastically reply with something along the lines of, "oh, ya? I love Road to perdition! Did you see Ghost World? I heard My Friend Dahmer is the ginchiest!"
It does seem this day that every Hollywood Blockbuster is based on a superhero book or at least every superhero is getting a Hollywood flick.
The available tech and CGI makes the fantastic completely common in these moving pictures. It does make for some spectacular stuff but many of the best adaptations of comics are not related to the genre.
In days gone by the only comics people getting anywhere in the motion picture biz were artists who were largely relegated to storyboarding or set and costume design, rarely having the opportunity to pitch their story ideas to the studios.Today, more and more Hollywood studios are turning to comics for ideas, fortunately there are many execs willing to dig into the more esoteric or personal stories that the medium offers.
Daniel Clowes, auteur extreme has seen a few of his works adapted like
Wilson or the previously mentioned Ghost World. Comics' Mad Mage Alan Moore, much to his dismay has had several of his works refigured by Tinseltown to varying degrees of success.
Others comic scribes are getting ever closer to this with seemingly every new creator owned series being optioned for film by one company or another.
At any rate it is not just capes and tights that have made their way of the page and onto the silver screen and quite often it's the more realistic stories that have made for the best films.
I'll spare y'all my usual long winded web of conspiracy and intersecting evidence that justify my opinions and just lay out a list of good to great films that started as comics.
All the links are for the books, you can do the IMDB search work yourselves.
Here's my shortlist of excellent comic adaptations:
Barbarella by Jean Claude Forest
Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat
Max Allan Collins' Road to Perdition
John Wagner and Vince Locke's The History of Violence. Masterfully directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's historic fiction From Hell was adapted largely faithful to the source material at least in tone.
Ghost in the Shell has been adapted to Anime and now live action.
Harvey Pekar's American Splendor
Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night
And of course Frank Miller's 300 and Sin City
Honorable mention go to :
Greg Rucka's Whiteout
Warren Ellis' RED
Mark Millar's Kingsman
Antony Johnson's ATOMIC BLONDE
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Memory Lad and The Fire of '91 .
This
was the beginning of the glory years, the 90's were upon us . The
great boom before the eventual bust of the industry and Unicorn
Comics, the store that would eventually become Worlds Collide, was
the King of the Hill and soon to be located on top of one!
Unicorn was the original Oshawa comic store, preceding all other immitators, a one of a kind until there was two but that story is for another day.
The period of 1988-91 was in and around the time your not so humble writer began frequenting the Four Color wonderland, captivated by the litany of mags, rags and periodicals available. (mostly Hulk and Punisher comics at that time, truth be told.) The store had been in business for nearly a decade at this point and we had already seen the first generation of specialty comics shops erupt, the Batmania of '89 had come and gone but there was such a swell of interest in the medium and there was such a wealth of material availble the likes of whch had never been seen before.
The Comics Code Authority would dictate the path of the maintstream publishsers for several more years, many new indie publishers and underground artists were......no longer having to deal with the contraints of the news stand, publishers and creators werefreed to make the comics they wanted for whatever audience they wished. Some of the most remarkable talent in comics history appeared on the scene throughout this period and their unbridled creativity brought the medium to new heights while slowly nudging it towards mainstream literary repectability.
I clearly remember wandering downtown toward the store and seeing a closed sign, and although everything downtown closed up by 5 O'clock it was way too early in the day for that. Then looking in on the wreckage of the place. Peering in through the smoky and discolored windows there were comics strewn about, charred, smoke damaged and waterlogged. So many wonderful stories and pieces of art lost to the ravages of fire and the efforts that quelled it. The wreckage of the place was disheartening and a bit shocking.
Besides our losses there were several apartments above the store and a whole bunch of people were displaced, their shock and trauma as a result was surely even worse than ours.
Unicorn was the original Oshawa comic store, preceding all other immitators, a one of a kind until there was two but that story is for another day.
The period of 1988-91 was in and around the time your not so humble writer began frequenting the Four Color wonderland, captivated by the litany of mags, rags and periodicals available. (mostly Hulk and Punisher comics at that time, truth be told.) The store had been in business for nearly a decade at this point and we had already seen the first generation of specialty comics shops erupt, the Batmania of '89 had come and gone but there was such a swell of interest in the medium and there was such a wealth of material availble the likes of whch had never been seen before.
The Comics Code Authority would dictate the path of the maintstream publishsers for several more years, many new indie publishers and underground artists were......no longer having to deal with the contraints of the news stand, publishers and creators werefreed to make the comics they wanted for whatever audience they wished. Some of the most remarkable talent in comics history appeared on the scene throughout this period and their unbridled creativity brought the medium to new heights while slowly nudging it towards mainstream literary repectability.
I clearly remember wandering downtown toward the store and seeing a closed sign, and although everything downtown closed up by 5 O'clock it was way too early in the day for that. Then looking in on the wreckage of the place. Peering in through the smoky and discolored windows there were comics strewn about, charred, smoke damaged and waterlogged. So many wonderful stories and pieces of art lost to the ravages of fire and the efforts that quelled it. The wreckage of the place was disheartening and a bit shocking.
Besides our losses there were several apartments above the store and a whole bunch of people were displaced, their shock and trauma as a result was surely even worse than ours.
Circling back around.....
Pictured above is the unforgettable Memory Lad, Dave Campbell. He was a relentless ball of energy who would depart this world barely a year after this photo was taken. His enthusiasm for comics medium was infectious, you couldn't help but be convinced by his proclamations and arguments. Although it was his indelible and eidetic memory, his superhuman capacity to recall and discuss the stories, artists, writers and anything else related was the most impressive and is still unsurpassed.
Following
Dave's death, Ramon Perez, Eisner Award winner and Legion of
substitute Unicorns member painted a wonderful memorial to his lost
friend, a warm and thoughtful portrait that still hangs in the store.
Featuring Dave as an idol-like golden wonder, he beams with his
trademark enthusiasm ,while the background is populated by a gallery
of mourners, composed of Dave's favorite comics characters in visible
states of disquiet and mourning. This Wake is visited specifically by
Cerebus, The Tick, Animal Man, The Crow, Silver Surfer, Ambush Bug,
Acroyear from The Micronauts and Morpheus the Lord of Dreams.
Every day I look up at Dave and remind myself of the way he treated me and all the others who came through the shop and i try my best to impart that same kind of joy, wonder and love of the medium that he did. Personally I feel the need to always engage the customers, discover their wants and needs, to pick their brains about the books their reading, and as a result i spend countless hours pouring over the latest comics and revisiting classics. Always trying to gain a greater understanding of the comic artform/medium, trying to pack as many wonderful stories and images into my mind as it can hold. It's a Sisyphean struggle but never stops being fun or rewarding.
Every day I look up at Dave and remind myself of the way he treated me and all the others who came through the shop and i try my best to impart that same kind of joy, wonder and love of the medium that he did. Personally I feel the need to always engage the customers, discover their wants and needs, to pick their brains about the books their reading, and as a result i spend countless hours pouring over the latest comics and revisiting classics. Always trying to gain a greater understanding of the comic artform/medium, trying to pack as many wonderful stories and images into my mind as it can hold. It's a Sisyphean struggle but never stops being fun or rewarding.
In
a prescient moment, not uncommon for Dave when asked to pose for a
picture to go with the newspaper article he went and grabbed up one
of the Cerebus "Phonebooks" to not so subtley represent and
show off the greatest Canadian made comic, Dave Sim's Cerebus. It is
a landmark series that came to be at the beginning of the Direct
Market Comics Shop boom and it's possibility, popularity and
proliferation are all inextricably tied to shops like ours. In a
strange way this disaster became a boon, certainly it garnered us some
free advertising.
At any rate, what was a catastrophe for the unfortunate folks that lived in the apartments above the store, did not become the devestating blow to our unique enterprize that it could have.
The pieces were picked up, the store reassemmbled and soon business resumed with hardly a beat missed.
Soon the business would resume and reform, finding itself in what Tim refers to as The Mansion on the Hill, perched overlooking the Oshawa Centre.
Next story: Midnight Madness!!!!
At any rate, what was a catastrophe for the unfortunate folks that lived in the apartments above the store, did not become the devestating blow to our unique enterprize that it could have.
The pieces were picked up, the store reassemmbled and soon business resumed with hardly a beat missed.
Soon the business would resume and reform, finding itself in what Tim refers to as The Mansion on the Hill, perched overlooking the Oshawa Centre.
Next story: Midnight Madness!!!!
Monday, September 11, 2017
Redlands
Jordie Bellaire is widely acknowledged in the comics community as if not the best colorist ( and I think she is) but certainly she is the most prolific and decorated in her craft.
Her ability to speedily and deftly add colored dimensions to just about any art style and within any type of book makes her a highly sought out commodity.
Plenty of primary artists have made the turn to writing in the last few years: Becky Cloonan, Jason Latour, Brian Michael Bendis for that matter, now Jordie steps to the plate with REDLANDS.
And Sweet Lord Below.... she comes out with blazing hellfire with a story that channels the dark depths to drag you into its thrall.
Vanessa Del Rey is best known for her work on Image's Hit and Boom's Empty Man. She is a versatile artist who has opened the artistic Necromicon for this.
Alternately unsettling,and down right horrifying this is a horror mag on a mission.
These ladies, along with arcane typesetter, Clayton Cowles are coming for your soul.
REDLANDS is a blend of Southern Gothic, supernatural horror, ancient grudges and modern angst and it rolls over you in fevered waves.
Bleak rural vistas, people and place rotted from humidity and hate. Fetid and sinister swamps, filled with sharp toothed and diseased creatures only slightly more dangerous and venal than the deluded locals. Then there is an old and vengefully devout coven about to set fire to it all.Too often a comic feels like the artist and writer are not working together. Redundancy abounds in modern comics, the narrative Silly Putty stretched almost beyond recognition to maximaize page count with terminally unvisual art, damn the story.
This is not that kind of book. Torturously paced, with evil lurking around every page. The words and image achieve that symbiosis that is essential in all great comics. Visual metaphors and hieroglyphic construction, filled with purposed and encrypted dialogue. Each statement is pregnant with menace, every name is a curse.
Pure Witchcraft.
This series will seep into your pores and possess you. Give in. Don't miss out.
Issue One is still on the shelves and Issue Two arrives Wednesday September 13th
Check out more at
Image Comics
Jordie's Webspace
Vanesa's Page
Clayton Cowles' thingbob
A brief Preview of #1 is available here via Previews Mag.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Bagged, Boarded + Buried
taking care of one's collection can be overwhelming. at the very least it is time consuming. even for folks like me who have less than zero interest in reselling their personal cache. cumulatively,making sure that the fragile and flimsy paper products i have spent most of my life hoarding are maintained for continuous enjoyment totals thousands of hours.
some of the more obsessive types may enjoy all of this tedium, even find it theraputic, but at this point it is simply an unconscionable task. fruitless, endless and soul crushing.
when i stop to thik how many hours of my life have been spent bagging and boarding comic books (keep in mind that on top of collecting comics for over 30yrs i have also spent a good portion of my working life being paid to do all of this in Comics Shops) it is fairly stupifying.
usually on sunday or monday i drag out a case of 1000 loose boards and a case of bags
(this is roughly enough for the week here in terms of new comics sales.) then set to work, absently sliding one into another until my pile is gone. i'm fairly proficient with this task at this point in my life. fortunatley my job in regards to these paired instruments of storage is largely done at that point. all that remains is to stuff them in with a customer's purchases, except for the few extra needy OCD folk that prefer i bag their booky wooks for transport.
of course any new acquisitions require bagging, some issues that have been waiting for their forever home too long might also need a spiffier presentation. and that's it because no, i will not give you a free bag and board for anything out of the .50cent or Free bins!
about the time my first child emerged from inner space to the world at large i stopped keeping up with my diligent filing and sorting systems and for the last 8+ years i can not for the love of goat make myself get back on task. there's too many boxes to move, too many titles to shuffle and shift within, and so damned many to put into some semblance of order. the current count haas at least 8 long boxes of unsorted materials, just to give you an idea of the sisyphean task before me. presented with the daunting challenge of how to begin, when to do it and then actually resuming the proper storage and organisation of my preciouses i came upon an idea to solve this logistic terror.
the plan is thus:
i propose to sell all my comics to the store for what i could hope to be about 40% of their retail value, tho if i catch sight of just how many Extreme and Homage Studios books i still retain, and lets not in anyway mention the preponderance of X-Force #1's lurk in the darkest corner, i will have to reduce the collection's value signifigantly.
once the transaction is complete i will then book myself in to fully evaluate, grade,
bag + board, colate and price the books. this i figure should take a good 200 person hours.
now with a filled bank account from the sale of my collection and working double hours for a good 5 weeks. i then sell them back to myself.
using a loose math on untaxed hours combined with the purchase in take and return sale with employee discount i will only roughly lose $50000. or perhaps i could go all out, move town, open a new comic book store franchise so i can pocket the profit i make from selling the books back and forth to myself, less tax deductions of course.
this all seems strangely equitable compared to doing this on my own free time.
really i see no other way that i will ever get the motivation to do all of this.
only as part of a necessary paid task will i do it.
a year's lost wage is a pleasant happening compared to all the time wasted procrastinating, interupted by snacks or reading and lamentation that this act will surely be my existential hell to come, if i am not already there.
these books are not gonna bag themselves.
they won't even alphabetise themselves.
even just first letter organised would be great.
i occassionally think of getting a great big slide/garbage chute to rocket the boxes onto the back of a truck, destination unknown. sometimes i think about being buried with or by the books and only years after my unexplained disappearance, they find me under a stack of discolored and malodorous mags clutching my prized Weird War Tales to my mascicated breast.
mostly i think of arson as a solution. i don't even want the insurance money. just the satisfaction that i don't have to carry these things around anymore and that no one else will ever have them either.
think warms thoughts, friends.
it's cold out there.
some of the more obsessive types may enjoy all of this tedium, even find it theraputic, but at this point it is simply an unconscionable task. fruitless, endless and soul crushing.
when i stop to thik how many hours of my life have been spent bagging and boarding comic books (keep in mind that on top of collecting comics for over 30yrs i have also spent a good portion of my working life being paid to do all of this in Comics Shops) it is fairly stupifying.
usually on sunday or monday i drag out a case of 1000 loose boards and a case of bags
(this is roughly enough for the week here in terms of new comics sales.) then set to work, absently sliding one into another until my pile is gone. i'm fairly proficient with this task at this point in my life. fortunatley my job in regards to these paired instruments of storage is largely done at that point. all that remains is to stuff them in with a customer's purchases, except for the few extra needy OCD folk that prefer i bag their booky wooks for transport.
of course any new acquisitions require bagging, some issues that have been waiting for their forever home too long might also need a spiffier presentation. and that's it because no, i will not give you a free bag and board for anything out of the .50cent or Free bins!
about the time my first child emerged from inner space to the world at large i stopped keeping up with my diligent filing and sorting systems and for the last 8+ years i can not for the love of goat make myself get back on task. there's too many boxes to move, too many titles to shuffle and shift within, and so damned many to put into some semblance of order. the current count haas at least 8 long boxes of unsorted materials, just to give you an idea of the sisyphean task before me. presented with the daunting challenge of how to begin, when to do it and then actually resuming the proper storage and organisation of my preciouses i came upon an idea to solve this logistic terror.
the plan is thus:
i propose to sell all my comics to the store for what i could hope to be about 40% of their retail value, tho if i catch sight of just how many Extreme and Homage Studios books i still retain, and lets not in anyway mention the preponderance of X-Force #1's lurk in the darkest corner, i will have to reduce the collection's value signifigantly.
once the transaction is complete i will then book myself in to fully evaluate, grade,
bag + board, colate and price the books. this i figure should take a good 200 person hours.
now with a filled bank account from the sale of my collection and working double hours for a good 5 weeks. i then sell them back to myself.
using a loose math on untaxed hours combined with the purchase in take and return sale with employee discount i will only roughly lose $50000. or perhaps i could go all out, move town, open a new comic book store franchise so i can pocket the profit i make from selling the books back and forth to myself, less tax deductions of course.
this all seems strangely equitable compared to doing this on my own free time.
really i see no other way that i will ever get the motivation to do all of this.
only as part of a necessary paid task will i do it.
a year's lost wage is a pleasant happening compared to all the time wasted procrastinating, interupted by snacks or reading and lamentation that this act will surely be my existential hell to come, if i am not already there.
these books are not gonna bag themselves.
they won't even alphabetise themselves.
even just first letter organised would be great.
i occassionally think of getting a great big slide/garbage chute to rocket the boxes onto the back of a truck, destination unknown. sometimes i think about being buried with or by the books and only years after my unexplained disappearance, they find me under a stack of discolored and malodorous mags clutching my prized Weird War Tales to my mascicated breast.
mostly i think of arson as a solution. i don't even want the insurance money. just the satisfaction that i don't have to carry these things around anymore and that no one else will ever have them either.
think warms thoughts, friends.
it's cold out there.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Environmental Issues, Pressing the Press, Compostable Comics
Comics being the product of the resource intensive newspaper and publishing industry is not often thought of as being a particularly environmentally conscious type of business.
Despite this there have been many varied and exceedingly well done comics with cautionary tales of environmental distress and misuse. Ironically printed on paper, when our ever dwindling resource is necessary not just to make fine books but to keep air in our lungs.
Within the industry there has also been initiatives over the years to offset and mitigate the deforesting and destruction of Mama Earth. The foresight shown by some publishers is both thoughtful and promising. Dark Horse was the first to offer some books on wholly recycled papers and now virtually all the books you get have some measure of reused or recycled paper fibers being used.
Many comics, notably all DC publications carry a certification from
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification which oversees forestry worldwide to
maintain sustainability of our worldwide natural resources.
To further explore the ecological aspect of the ecological world as viewed through the comic book prism take a look at the suggestions below. You'll find some of the best and brightest creators in the art form producing some of their finest works, because they believe in the message.
Neil Young has been a champion of planet earth for ages and never so apparent in Joshua Dysart and Cliff Chiang's adaptation of his theme album Greendale detailing the lives of the Green family , their history and the activism of some of their members.
The whole of the family and their community are inseperable from the land they live on, the water they work
Paul Chadwick's tale of a man trapped in a rock body trying to reconnect with the world he previously ignored. His journey to feel alive and human again sees him cross the globe many times: he climbs Everest, scours the Ocean Depths, works on a farm, wanders the Pacific North West and even joins activist group Earth First! as a means to better the world.
as well as the general health of the biosphere.
Moebius' Edena Cycle is more about personal transformation but still focuses heavily on a return to nature and appreciation of the world around us....away from the poisoned destructive technocracies we've built our societies into.
The far spanning and long running series of Bande Designees finally saw a complete English collection just last year.
Michael Zulli's Puma Blues was a massive achievement in terms of both it's message and Zulli's unmatched rendering of natural environs and fantastic fauna.
Stephen Murphy's script and poetry create a cautionary and remorseful tale of our world being poisoned by industry and unfettered human expansion throughout the globe.
Environmental awareness also creeps into comics in subtler forms.
Hiyao Miyazaki's Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind displays a wonder and love of the natural world.
While new books like ICHI-F , chronicling the Fukishima show the cost of our ecological errors.
Josh Neufeld's AD:New Orleans After Deluge expressed a different kind of environmental destruction that also makes for good comics.
Publishers Weekly have also put out a solid list of environmentally themed graphic novels and comics for your further enjoyment and information.
All of these and more are available to you at Worlds Collide Comics.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
And hey, it's our planet, take care of it!
Despite this there have been many varied and exceedingly well done comics with cautionary tales of environmental distress and misuse. Ironically printed on paper, when our ever dwindling resource is necessary not just to make fine books but to keep air in our lungs.
Within the industry there has also been initiatives over the years to offset and mitigate the deforesting and destruction of Mama Earth. The foresight shown by some publishers is both thoughtful and promising. Dark Horse was the first to offer some books on wholly recycled papers and now virtually all the books you get have some measure of reused or recycled paper fibers being used.
Many comics, notably all DC publications carry a certification from
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification which oversees forestry worldwide to
maintain sustainability of our worldwide natural resources.
To further explore the ecological aspect of the ecological world as viewed through the comic book prism take a look at the suggestions below. You'll find some of the best and brightest creators in the art form producing some of their finest works, because they believe in the message.
Neil Young has been a champion of planet earth for ages and never so apparent in Joshua Dysart and Cliff Chiang's adaptation of his theme album Greendale detailing the lives of the Green family , their history and the activism of some of their members.The whole of the family and their community are inseperable from the land they live on, the water they work
Paul Chadwick's tale of a man trapped in a rock body trying to reconnect with the world he previously ignored. His journey to feel alive and human again sees him cross the globe many times: he climbs Everest, scours the Ocean Depths, works on a farm, wanders the Pacific North West and even joins activist group Earth First! as a means to better the world.
DC's Swamp Thing, originally a simple Frankenstein type horror character transformed under the deft workings of Alan Moore. His re-imagining saw the series mature into a highly intelligent socially and environmentally conscious book.
Stories dealing with corporate negligence nuclear waste, chemical dumpings and poisoned land became central themes. A naturalistic approach to the art, featuring almost entirely organic shapesas well as the general health of the biosphere.
Moebius' Edena Cycle is more about personal transformation but still focuses heavily on a return to nature and appreciation of the world around us....away from the poisoned destructive technocracies we've built our societies into.The far spanning and long running series of Bande Designees finally saw a complete English collection just last year.
Michael Zulli's Puma Blues was a massive achievement in terms of both it's message and Zulli's unmatched rendering of natural environs and fantastic fauna.
Stephen Murphy's script and poetry create a cautionary and remorseful tale of our world being poisoned by industry and unfettered human expansion throughout the globe.
Environmental awareness also creeps into comics in subtler forms.
Hiyao Miyazaki's Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind displays a wonder and love of the natural world.
While new books like ICHI-F , chronicling the Fukishima show the cost of our ecological errors.
Josh Neufeld's AD:New Orleans After Deluge expressed a different kind of environmental destruction that also makes for good comics.
Publishers Weekly have also put out a solid list of environmentally themed graphic novels and comics for your further enjoyment and information.
All of these and more are available to you at Worlds Collide Comics.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
And hey, it's our planet, take care of it!
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