A personal diary keeping people abreast of what I am working on writing-wise.

Monday, January 30, 2012

OF MONSTERS & MADMEN

Finally, the Madman 20th Anniversay Monster is on its way to stores. Expect it in comics shops this Wednesday.

I wrote the framing sequence, which was then pencilled by Jim Valentino, inked by Mike Allred, and colored by Laura Allred. Here is the first page...




In addition, you get a new full story from Mike and 20 new one-pagers by some of Mike's favorite creative talents. Here is the full soliciation:

FRAZETTA! KIRBY! TOTH! MOEBIUS! KUBERT! MILLER! STEVENS! The BIG one! Literally: This gigantic 11 x 17 hardcover is the coffee table book of the Millennium! Nearly every great artist to ever work in comics is in this book which includes new stories from Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Philip Bond, Peter Milligan, Darwyn Cooke, Dave Cooper, Dean Haspiel, Los Bros Hernandez, Erik Larsen, David Mack, Pat McKeown, Bernie Mireault, Michael Avon Oeming, Paul Pope, Eric Powell, Frank Quitely, Steven T. Seagle, Teddy Kristiansen, Jeff Smith, Jay Stephens, Craig Thompson, Matt Wagner, Joe Quinones, and Maris Wicks. Also, Michael Allred”s latest - and most epic ever - Madman story! PLUS, almost every Madman illustration collected over the past 20 years from all the greats. Surprises galore!
Now is a good time to order the book from Amazon, by the way. It's 48% off the cover price!

Current Soundtrack: Radiohead, Live from the Basement: The King of Limbs



Saturday, January 28, 2012

PAYDAY, YOU'RE A WINNER! SWEEPSTAKES!

WIN THIS ORIGINAL SPELL CHECKERS DRAWING FROM NICOLAS HITORI DE!



Nico is giving away this piece of art. All you have to do is be a fan of the book and create your own art about it. It can be anything. An illustration, a photo, a video, an original piece of writing, or a song. It just has to be Spell Checkers themed, feature the characters, however you want to express yourself.

Mail you submission to hitoride.nicolas[at]gmail[dot] before March 31. Nico will choose the winner shortly after.

Spell Checkers is published by Oni Press: www.onipress.com/series/spellcheckers

Current Soundtrack: The Mary Onettes, "Love's Taking Strange Ways"

Thursday, January 26, 2012

PEOPLE'S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS



NEW TO THEATRES...

* Le Havre, Aki Kauirsmäki's newest has a familiar quirkiness, and not necessarily in a nourishing way.

* The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of my Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby, a documentary as unwieldy as its title. Colby remains as much a mystery in the end as he was at the start.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

Two by Luis Bunuel...

* Belle de Jour, a classic with Catherine Deneuve is now on Blu-Ray. (Also at DVD Talk.)

* The Exterminating Angel, a surreal critique of blind faith and class-based hubris.




* Sid and Nancy, Alex Cox's punk-rock biopic. (Also at DVD Talk.)

* Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's complex, entertaining drug drama. (Also at DVD Talk.)


THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...




* The Big Country, a uniquely masculine western with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston.

* The English Patient, a sweeping epic spanning two timelines, though the one with Juliette Binoche is better than the more famous romantic storyline.

* Film Socialisme, Godard's most recent intellectual puzzler.

* Love Story: If love is never having to say you're sorry, but I hated this movie, doesn't someone still owe me an apology?

* Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Takeshi Kitano enacting a bloody chess game with all the boredom of real chess.

* The Piano, Jane Campion's literary romance, starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, and a young Anna Paquin. (Get prepared to feel a little creepy, True Blood fans!)






Current Soundtrack: The Colbert Report, special guest Terry Gross

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

Saturday, January 21, 2012

LEARN TO LOVE ME AND ASSEMBLE THE WAYS

The folks over at SpazDog Press are doing a second Unite and Take Over anthology, collecting comic book stories inspired by Smiths lyrics.

For this volume, I have written a script suggested by the song "Well I Wonder," and the amazingly talented Christopher Mitten has drawn it.

Here is a sample page:




The publisher has a Kickstarter campaign going to help support the book. Here is the page. Please look it over and, if any of the rewards offered strike your fancy, consider donating to get this comic off the ground. There is also a full list of contributors and the songs they are tackling, and plenty of good people are involved.

Current Soundtrack: Teenage Fanclub, Shadows

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

FELT AS FRESH AS THE PAINT IN THIS NEW FLAT

As 2012 progresses, there will be many announcements to come, but I am stoked to get started here with the revelation that the short story Megan Levens and I have been working on for quite some time, "Two Wheels, Two Feet," will be seeing the light of day via the Double Feature comics app.

Double Feature is an exciting platform created by Tim Seeley alongside Mike Norton and others. For the past year or so, they have been presenting themed-issues featuring their own characters and contributions from other like-minded creators. They sell the comics via the iPad app or you can buy the pdf direct at a mere $0.99. Turns out that February is going to have a special "Romance Issue" for Valentine's Day, and when Mike asked me if I wanted to contribute, it was as if the perfect opportunity presented itself.


Megan and I originally started this story for a print anthology that never happened. We had intended to finish it eventually and find either an online venue or print it ourselves. In the meantime, we have been circling the idea of doing something more. 

Now both are happening. We're developing other ideas, looking ahead to see what we can bring together.

In the meantime, check Megan's take on the same subject over at her blog, and make sure to check out her own webcomic Somewhere in Between while you're there.

Current Soundtrack: The Vaccines, Tuck and Roll; Rose Elinor Dougall, The Distractions EP [free download]

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich



Monday, January 02, 2012

THREE HEARTS, SEVEN SEAS, TWELVE MONTHS OF MOVIES

The Online Film Critics Society posted the results of our annual awards voting today.

You can read all of our picks here. I think the only ones I actually voted for myself were the wins for The Tree of Life (including Jessica Chastain as Best Supporting Actress) and also Cave of Forgotten Dreams (which I reviewed for the Mercury). Which isn't a gripe, I don't have any problem with any of the choices here. Had I seen We Need to Talk about Kevin earlier than yesterday, I might have debated voting Tilda Swinton over my personal choice for best actress, Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia. Rango is really the only film I didn't like as much as my colleagues, but it wasn't a knock-out year for animation, honestly. (I voted for The Adventurs of Tintin.)

Since in one stage of voting I had to organize my top 3 favorite films, I thought I'd go ahead and list them here, with links to my original reviews:



1. The Tree of Life: A film that only grows more glorious the more time you spend with it. My second viewing was actually on an iPad while traveling, and it lost none of its power. In fact, the second time, what seemed hard to grasp on first look gels and it becomes even more obvious that Malick is 100% clear in his intent. It's a powerful movie that reaches back through the dawn of the ages and connects man and his condition to the very spark of life before taking us beyond our own petty concerns into something far more majestic.




2. Melancholia: Lars von Trier's movie is as dour as Malick's is hopeful, yet both recognize the lesser impulses that mar human existence. Both films see life as being full of pain, but whereas Malick encourages us to struggle against the tide, von Trier's end of the world scenario suggests we should discard our delusions and embrace the emptiness. Oddly, there is as much comfort in his finish as Malick's, it just depends on what kind of oblivion you prefer.






3. Drive: This one is just bad ass. I can layer on my existential philosophy and argue about its deeper themes of pure love, but screw it, it's just bad ass. Nicolas Winding Refn channels Jean-Pierre Melville into a Paul Schader script, and builds his nasty little crime drama with an exceptional cast. Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks, Carey Mulligan, and Christina Hendricks are all great and fit perfectly into Drive's desolate pulp world. Tough-minded and yet, like all the films here, desperately human.

Films still not seen this year: Carnage, Corialanus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Le Havre, The Iron Lady, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Pariah, A Separation, War Horse, Young Adult. 


Current Soundtrack: Common People are People at Turntable.fm


LOOK OUT, HERE COMES TOMORROW

Robot 6 asked me for my most anticipated comics of 2012, as well as to share a little of what I have going. That means sneak peeks of art from upcoming comics.

Natalie Nourigat!
Megan Levens!
And what's this...Mike Norton?! Why yes. Mike Norton.

You didn't know that, did you? In fact, the last script I wrote in 2011, finished on Thursday night, has charged Mike with drawing pink smoke and, essentially, a big fart. And they aren't the same thing!

Click over to CBR and scroll down; it's a huge list and I am a bit down the way.

And for all you people, how about a little snippet of 2013. Here is Dan Christensen:




And don't forget Nico Hitori de! Spell Checkers vol. 3 is deep into production.




And there will be some all-new work with Joëlle Jones, too, but that's still way undercover...and it's easily going the best thing she and I have ever done together, so you really can't wait. Trust me.

Current Soundtrack: The Who, Quadrophenia deluxe version disc 4




e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich



Sunday, January 01, 2012

POLICE & THIEVES



UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Hunger, Michael Fassbender stars in Steve McQueen's harrowing portrait of the IRA prisoners' hunger strike in the early 1980s.

Three gonzo crime films from the uniquely crazy Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki:
* Take Aim at the Police Van (1960)
* Tokyo Drifter (1966)
* Branded to Kill (1967)


THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Art of Getting By, a predictable but solid Young Adult story, with fine performances by Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore.

* Behind the Mask, a mid-40s misfire that attempts to turn the popular Shadow radio serials into...light comedy?!

* Crime Story: The Complete Series, the Michael Mann police drama set in the 1960s but made in the 1980s.

* A Farewell to Arms, Frank Borzage's masterfully melodramatic adaptation of Ernest Hemingway.

* Incident in an Alley, a middling early 1960s crime film based on a Rod Serling short story.

Seven Chances, an hilarious Buster Keaton short where the great comedian plays a man in desperate need for a wife.


Current Soundtrack: The Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Sessions; NME's Best of 2011 playlist on Spotify


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich