Skip to content

Comics

In the Shadows

Right, my tentative PDF project now has an equally tentative title: Shadows and Reflections. Contents? Arts, media, films, etc. Plus, hopefully, some original comic strips.

I’d like to do at least one issue and see what happens from there. A handful of people are involved, in theory, including my old pal Paul Gravett (now that he’s almost finished his book on Manga!), but it’s early days and we need more contributors on board.

I’m also doing a mini-comic just for the fun of it. The (again) tentative title is Day in the Life. I scrawled a script and drew three panels yesterday. If you don’t know what a mini-comic is: it’s a format that is roughly half A5 size with a single panel per page. It’s a good method for publishing very short stories dirt cheap. I did one about ten years ago, but it was crap! I fancied having another go, so what the hell.

In the Shadows
Read More »In the Shadows

Live Long and Prospero

The puns get worse^. Richard Whiteley’s gonna sue any day now.

Okay, the first of a few postings on recent stuff I’ve read/seen, to catch up a bit. Last week, I finally got hold of a copy of Garen Ewing’s comic-style adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Thanks, Garen! You can visit his Web site for details on this and much more.
Read More »Live Long and Prospero

Road to Perdition (2002)

It’s been out a while, but we finally saw Road to Perdition the other night. In spite of my almost irrational loathing of Tom Hanks, I really wanted to see this one.

Road to Perdition (2002)

So, is it ‘The greatest gangster film since The Godfather‘? Nah. Not even close. It is very good, though. The direction, courtesy of Mr. Kate Winslett, is constantly aspiring to interesting things, and sometimes even succeeds. The style outweighs the content on a few occasions (a sure sign that nothing very interesting is happening), but thankfully, the effect is not overwhelming.
Read More »Road to Perdition (2002)

Don’t Make Me Angry, Etc.

Don’t Make Me Angry, Etc.

Well, I’m tempted to go and see it. We just watched a documentary about it on Five, which was fairly interesting. Oh, that green guy above? It’s Hulk. I bet you didn’t know that.

I have mixed feelings about the CGI. In order to make a creature that even vaguely resembles the comic book version, special effects are obviously necessary. From the scenes I’ve seen, it looks incredibly good in parts—but not so good in others. You know, I think the colour is partly the problem. The CGI Hulk looks best in scenes where there’s a lot of shadowing and the colour is subdued… but where the lighting is strong, it’s just too vivid. That shade can work in the comics, but it adds to the unreality of things on film. I think I might have gone for a more olive shade of green.
Read More »Don’t Make Me Angry, Etc.

Favourite Fiction

Yep, another top ten. Which I might have posted earlier, but I had something to do (more later), plus I didn’t finish writing the list out until around noon. And so:

TOP TEN BOOKS (fiction)

01. The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887-1927) Fiction’s greatest detective. Over a span of 56 short stories and four novels, the quality is a mixed bag—the worst can be quite dull, the best simply magnificent. Almost all of them have great moments. Doyle was the reluctant creator of a true legend.

Favourite Fiction
Read More »Favourite Fiction