THIS WEEK IN THEATRES...
* Barbara, an enthralling German drama about one woman exiled to the country in East Germany, ca. 1980.
UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...
* Vengeance is Mine, Shohei Imamura's 1979 portrait of a serial killer.
And in that vein, Imamura's 1967 breakthrough A Man Vanishes, reviewed for DVD Talk. In addition to the main film, there are also five documentaries the Japanese director made in the years leading up to Vengeance is Mine.
THIS WEEK IN BD/DVD REVIEWS...
* Misfits: Season Two. Well, you can't win them all. Sophomore slump?
Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, "Heaven" remixes
We're only a few weeks away from Dark Horse Comics releasing Creepy Comics #11. It's the Valentine's issue, and in amongst the other horrific love stories, Joëlle Jones and I have a little tale called "Someone To Watch."
We haven't shown any of the art anywhere, so here's a little tease for you. A panel from the story and one of her drawings of Uncle Creepy (a.k.a. my next author's photo).
Creepy Comics #11 is in stores on February 13. Behind the lovely Chrissie Zullo cover, you'll also find new material from J. Torres & Amy Reeder, Peter Bagge, and Gilbert Hernandez!
Current Soundtrack: Matmos, "Teen Paranormal Romance;" sampling various tracks from Beats Antique and Caravan Palace
* 56 Up, another seven years in the life of Michael Apted's groundbreaking documentary series.
* Amour, Michael Haneke's drama of old age. Reserved and emotionally powerful.
* Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunter. I'm a sucker for Gemma Arterton so I went to see her as Gretel, and now I'm a sucker for this movie.
UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS... * Empire of Passion, in honor of Nagisa Oshima's passing, I watched one of his most famous movies. And it turned out to be my favorite of his.
THIS WEEK IN BD/DVD REVIEWS...
* 5 Broken Cameras, the Oscar-nominated documentary made from one Palestinian man's personal video diary.
* Dangerous Liaisons, a 2012 Chinese update of the French novel, transplanting it to Shanghai in the 1930s and starring Zhang Ziyi and Cecilia Cheung.
* Indiscreet, the Stanley Donen romance film reteaming Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman appears to be geting better with age.
* Mrs. Miniver, sincere propaganda done as a moving drama by William Wyler, buoyed by an understanding performance from Greer Garson.
Art and lettering is by the regular team: Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, and Crank!
This almost looks like it could be from a crossover with one of Mike's other books, Revival.
Speaking of Mike's other books, on sale right now is the first issue of The Answer, his creator-owned collaboration with writer Dennis Hopeless. Dark Horse Comics released it just yesterday, in comic book stores and via the Dark Horse digital app.
By the way, It Girl #6 also got a great review from Greg at CBR.
"It Girl and the Atomics" #6 is a fun little side step away from the main action set back on Earth; if all the interludes are this enjoyable and well-put-together, I don't think anyone will complain too much about not getting another issue drawn handsomely by regular artist Mike Norton. Rich and Clugston Flores clearly had a good working relationship back when Rich was Clugston Flores' editor at Oni Press, and that has continued through to here. If you haven't tried out "It Girl and the Atomics" yet, this is a fun place to start.
It's a new year, and once again, time to announce that I'll be attending two awesome Pacific Northwest comic book shows.
Emerald City Comic Con, happening in Seattle the first weekend of March, has announced Joëlle Jones and I as special guests. They always have an awesome selection of people--take a gander for yourself, right here--and we're proud to be amongst the 2013 roster. ECCC is a good time, guaranteed.
This year, Joëlle is promoting Helheim and I am promoting A Boy and a Girl, so we are setting up with Oni Press rather than Artist's Alley. Our collaborators will also be in attendance. Cullen Bunn will be there for Helheim, and Natalie Nourigat is setting up with Periscope Studios. I am told that Natalie and I will be on a panel with Oni to talk about A Boy and a Girl, which the publisher has postponed to launch around the same time. (Which is why you haven't seen the launch happen this month; we're bummed about it, too.) Megan Levens will be at the show, as well.
This is going to be an exciting event. Chynna Clugston Flores is a special guest of the con, and I will likely be running her spotlight panel. We should have plenty of It Girl issues on hand.
Nicolas Hitori de has also booked a trip to be here. We'll probably be carrying around some Spell Checkers vol. 3 pages as a sneak preview.
And, I am sure Natalie will be around, as well, and A Boy and a Girl will be partly underway at onipress.com--meaning we can finally start talking to you all about it. We've been sitting on this for a year now, we're dying to hear what people think.
So, mark your calendars!
Current Soundtrack: The Joy Formidable, Wolf's Law
I am excited to finally have It Girl and the Atomics #6 go on sale. It's been a great pleasure working with Chynna Clugston Flores again. I can't wait for everyone to see her latest work.
Plus, it's a stand-alone story. Even if you've never read any Madman or Atomics issues before, you can totally go along for the ride.
It's been a while since I got a new Audrey Hepburn*. I saw this on Simon Gane's excellent blog, and I had to have it. Luckily, it was not spoken for.
Simon has drawn many wonderful comics, including Paris, written by Andi Watson, which I blurbed once upon a time. His most recent assignments have been an arc of Brian Wood's Northlanders over at Vertigo and Godzilla for IDW. You should go out and find them.
* I actually have a Matt Wagner full-color Audrey that I've never shown. Someone scanned it for me and then never gave me the scan.
Current Soundtrack: A Girls related tracklist on Spotify.
A brief interlude in our second story arc. Expect some spectacular action in this one.
IT GIRL & THE ATOMICS #8 story JAMIE S. RICH art MIKE NORTON cover MICHAEL & LAURA ALLRED APRIL 17 32 PAGES / FC / E $2.99 “(NO) SURPRISES” It’s the anniversary for romantic superhero couple Black Crystal and the Slug, but it appears that Black Crystal has forgotten. To be fair, he has other things on his mind. Like giant monsters that have erupted from their home beneath the ocean looking for a fight!
Current Soundtrack: The Soulless Party, "Tales from the Black Meadow - Main Theme" and Frank Ocean, "Pyramids" over at This is My Jam (jams courtesy of Warren Ellis and Annie Wu, respectively)
* The Last Stand, teaming Arnold Schwarzenegger with awesome director Jee-woon Kim. It's not as good as his Korean movies, but it's better than most Arnie movies.
* Mama, starring recent Golden Globe winner Jessica Chastain. She had a whole week to enjoy her win before this stinker hit. Notice how they didn't even mention it when she was on The Daily Show this week? It's because it's awful.
UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...
* Godzilla, the original Japanese version gives us a monster movie with a brain.
THIS WEEK IN BD/DVD REVIEWS...
* Doctor Zhivago. Not the good David Lean version, but the boring 2002 TV version.
* The Quiet Man, John Ford's romantic classic starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara is now a stunning Blu-Ray release.
* Searching for Sugar Man, one of 2012's best documentaries is also a great rock-'n'-roll story.
Current Soundtrack: A$ap Rocky, LONG.LIVE.A$AP; The Trash Can Sinatras, I've Seen Everything
Another new pin-up for the It Girl and the Atomics, Round One trade paperback. This time by my Love the Way You Love collaborator, creator of Ellerbisms and Chloe Noonan, and the other half of Great Beast: Marc Ellerby.
Pretty cute, huh?
The full list of pin-ups in the trade, in addition to all the covers (including Darwyn Cooke's), in alphabetical order: Terry Blas, Adam Cadwell, Marc Ellerby, Nicolas Hitori De, and Natalie Nourigat.
It Girl and the Atomics, Round One: Dark Streets, Snap City will be released in March.
Current Soundtrack: My Chemical Romance, Conventional Weapons #4; The Indelicates, Diseases of England: Part One
Comics are a funny business. I received advance copies of It Girl and the Atomics #6 in the mail today, the same day Crank! and I sent #7 to Image Comics and also I am writing the solicitation copy for #10, the issue coming out in May.
#10 and #11 have a special surprise artist that we haven't announced yet.
This is a panel from the tenth issue. Who do you all think is responsible?
Current Soundtrack: Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man soundtrack compilation
* Gangster Squad. The low-bar for 2013 has been set. Here's your challenge, movie industry: don't do worse than this.
* Rust and Bone, Marion Cotillard in a dark drama from the director of A Prophet.
UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...
* The Man Who Knew Too Much, Alfred Hitchcock's original version with Peter Lorre is corker. (Also at DVD Talk.) THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...
* The Good Doctor, the director who gave us Kisses returns with an ethically curious medical drama with Orlando Bloom.
* Post Mortem, a strange kind of love story form Chile.
Current Soundrack: It's Immaterial, Life's Hard and Then You Die
Comic Bastards, who have been super nice to us over the series so far, have a really great review of It Girl and the Atomics #6 up on their site. It's the first I've seen, so what a great way to start!
Dustin Cabeal writes:
Big surprise here, I loved the art. The creatures that Clugston-Flores illustrates are fucking adorable. Even the little boar-Alf things were cute in a creepy way. If they make plush dolls based off the creatures then I would pick them up. There is a different flair to the art style then from her previous work, but I think part of that comes from the colorist. Being familiar with her body of work I would venture a guess that this was a little out of her comfort zone, but she really nailed the art and the variety of different setting.
I approved the issue for printing just two days ago, so it's on track for its January 23rd release. I'm pretty stoked. Chynna and I are already talking about what to do next.
Current Soundtrack: Haim, "Don't Save Me/Send Me Down"
To cap it off, the DVD Talk writers have voted for their best discs of 2012. Here are the results! I personally wrote the blurbs for the David Lean/Noël Coward boxed set and also Les vampires.
Current Soundrack: Nathan Johnson/The Cinematic Orchestra, The Brothers Bloom original score;
Adam Cadwell, cartoonist behind The Everyday and Blood Blokes, and a major component of the Great Beast publishing collective, did this awesome pin-up for the first trade paperback collection of It Girl and the Atomics, coming out this March.
As I guess is now becoming my tradition, I am forgoing any top 10 or other rankings and letting statistics speak for me.
According to the LastFm, these are the artists bands, by the numbers, I listened to more than any other over the last 12 months.
Lots of older bands mixed in with newer releases, and one comedian. Blur and Suede both had big restoration projects in the last 18 months, and so there was som re-visiting of their back catalogue. The Beasties got a lot of play, unfortunately, due to the death of Adam Yauch. The top 4 acts all had new albums, though, as did many of the others.
The most-played song list, if presented at face value, would be skewed toward bands like fun. and the Vaccines whose albums I had on repeat for a while, so I am going to only list the singles and isolated cuts. "Losing You" by Solange was easily my favorite song of the year, though, so it's no surprise that it dominates with 57 total plays. Had she released more than an EP, and had it been earlier than in the last months of the year, Solange would easily have made the top 25 artists.
Interestingly, enough, despite being my most played artist and having a great new album, Elysium, none of the Pet Shop Boys singles ranked in the final tally.
1. Solange - "Losing You" (57 plays)
2. fun. w/ Janelle Monae - "We Are Young" (47 plays)
3. Michael Kiwanuka - "Tell Me a Tale" / fun. - "Some Nights" (33 plays)
4. Christina Aguilera - "Your Body" / fun. - "Carry On" (30 plays)
5. Paul Weller - "That Dangerous Age" / The Shins - "Simple Song" (28 plays)
6. Saint Etienne - "Tonight" / Frank Ocean - "Thinkin' About You" / The Vaccines - "Teenage Icon" / Fiona Apple - "Hot Knife" (27 plays)
7. Muse - "Survival" / Arctic Monkeys - "R U Mine?" (26 plays)
8. Muse - "Madness" / Frank Ocean - "Pyramids" / The Vaccines - "No Hope" (25 plays)
9. Michael Kiwanuka - "Home Again" / No Doubt - "Settle Down" / Blur - "Under the Westway" (23 plays)
10. Paul Weller - "When Your Garden's Overgrown" / Taylor Swift - "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (22 plays)
11. Martin Rossiter - "Drop Anchor" / Of Monsters and Men - "Little Talks" / The xx - "Angels" (21 plays)
12. Brett Anderson - "Isolation" / Spiritualized - "So Long You Pretty Thing" / Bat for Lashes - "Laura" (20 plays)
13. Saint Etienne - "DJ" / Santigold - "Disparate Youth" / Nicki Minaj - "Starships" / Bloc Party - "Octopus" (19 plays)
Notable old songs that got played a lot include the Hollies "The Air that I Breathe" (28), Simon & Garfunkle "Kathy's Song" (26), Nico "These Days" (19), and Suede "Breakdown" (19).
Current Soundtrack: Billie Holiday, The Complete Commodore/Decca Masters
Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen. He also co-created Lady Killer with Joëlle Jones.
