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[Jul. 5th, 2009|10:36 am] |
It was a war zone of explosions and fire sirens in our neighborhood last night. So ends another Independence Day.
For you foreigners: July 4th is when Americans celebrate their independence from England by trying to set each other's houses on fire. In 2006, fireworks caused an estimated 32,600 reported fires, and in 2007, American emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,800 people for fireworks-related injuries. If you add up the celebrations dating back to 1776, we've probably caused more damage commemorating our independence than we did while winning it. Take that, Revolutionary War! |
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| Props. |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|08:13 am] |
Today I saw a guy walking around on fake legs. I could tell they were fake because they were shiny metal Terminator legs, not tan plastic mannequin legs, and because he was not wearing pants, but shorts. My first thought was,"Why wear shorts that reveal your fake legs when you could wear pants that conceal them?" My second thought was that it is summer, after all, and perhaps he chose shorts to cope with the heat....
Then I realized that he'd made a wise choice. If your clothing convinces people that your robot legs feel the weather, it's doing its job. Better to look fake, but seem real, than to look real, but seem fake (as his legs would have, had he been hobbling around in pants).
I think the same is true of art. If gross shortcomings of skill or medium doom a work to look fake, then instead of trying to cover those shortcomings, just place the work in an authentic context. Kermit the Frog's plastic eyes and felt skin could never be gussied-up to resemble those of a real frog, let alone a real person, but when he strums a banjo or rides a bicycle, we believe. Countless fussy adjustments can be swapped for the right prop or garment, to better effect, and the most convincing works rely more on a few smart choices than on finesse.
(But don't take my word for it; I'm the guy who thought fake legs get sweaty in summer.) |
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| Strive on. |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|08:25 pm] |
Today I saw a little girl run out of a karate dojo wearing a bright white gi. A gi looks roomy on anyone, but this girl couldn't have been older than five, so she looked like an origami chicken with a little girl head on top. She fluttered over to a nearby car to retrieve something, then rushed back to the dojo's front door, thrusting her hands against it with an ardent "hiiiYAH!"
Unfortunately, it was one of those "PULL ONLY" doors, so it didn't budge. So sad to see this tiny warrior humbled by a glass door. I wondered how many obstacles in my own life have solutions written on them which my training conceals.
In other news, I think I've finally learned the secret to fried rice. I've tried to cook it numerous times, but my efforts never taste quite right. I've tried various oils -- vegetable, canola, maybe even olive -- and varying amounts of soy sauce, along with store-bought "fried rice" flavorings. I even questioned the proprietor of a Chinese food cart, but our language difficulties left me with nothing but tears and an order of egg rolls. However, hope is in the wind. My pal Gene Yang (<--- HE IS CHINESE) was in town the other day, and he clued me in to the missing ingredient: sesame oil! So tonight I will try again...
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| Fear, Tactics, and Weight Class |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
More on the horror genre.
It occurs to me that, although our fear of a threat increases as the threat grows larger, that fear doesn't increase evenly. In other words, though a threat's size may increase at a steady rate, our fear will not increase at a steady rate. There seem instead to be junctures at which our fear spikes.
Let's say you see a large spider, and your fear response is at level "X." Then you see a spider twice as big, and your fear response is at "2X." And you continue to see bigger spiders, resulting in bigger fear responses. There seems to be a size at which your fear response will climax, followed by another period of gradual increases commensurate with the increases in size. So as the sizes increase, your fear might look like this: 1X...2X...3X...5X...4X...5X...6X...9X...7X...8X...
I think this is the result of Hick's Law, a psychological phenomenon whereby decisions tend to take more time when there are more options. The greater the number of choices, the longer the decision takes. The relevance of Hick's Law to threats is this: when dealing with a lethal threat, indecision can be fatal, so threats that straddle two categories are more dangerous than threats that occupy a single category, since threats of the former kind force us to choose between two different defense strategies. Returning to the spider example: up to a certain point, increases in the spider's size will only increase our efforts to kill it in the conventional way (by smashing it). But beyond a certain size, we'll need to change tactics (treating it the way we might treat a rapid dog, perhaps). After all, you can't smash a 40 lb spider. Now, the point where we realize a change in tactics may be necessary is the point at which our fear will spike. This is because that juncture confronts us with the possibility of fatal indecision.
Here's the relevance to fiction: when devising a threat, it's useful to place the threat at the nearest juncture between likely categories. So if you feature huge spiders, make them slightly too big to be smashed, but slightly too small to be fought off with a chair. If you feature an ogre, make him slightly too big to defeat hand-to-hand, but slightly too small to easily hide from. Strive to find that "in between" weight class which will make it difficult for the hero (and therefore the reader) to choose a defense.
This principle isn't limited to physical size. It can apply to any force of antagonism: the amount of a debt (sell your house, or declare bankruptcy?), the spite of a spurned lover (change your phone number, or carry a gun?), the length of a likely prison sentence (serve the time, or flee the country?), etc. The key is to prevent your reader from settling on a solution.
Previous posts on horror:
http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/7126.html
http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/26865.html
http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/5379.html
http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/30225.html |
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| This chaps my hide. |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|09:51 am] |
Last year, a certain blog post pointed out that the popular "Emily Strange" goth character was ripped off from a '70s children's book. "Emily," a Hot Topic favorite, has gone on to earn millions in revenue, and an "Emily" film is in the works.
Last month, the offending party actually filed suit against the original creators in an apparent preemptive strike, hoping to establish in court that the Emily character is not a rip-off. Doubtless the original creators, who are respectively 80 and 94 years old, aren't pleased about being dragged into court to defend themselves against the guy who got rich off of their character.
What's also galling is that the original character wasn't poorly drawn -- a possibility which the "Emily Strange" merchandise never prepared me for. They not only stole her, they left behind the good parts. It's all very Strange indeed. |
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| "Can I get this in a plain brown wrapper?" |
[May. 31st, 2009|01:05 am] |
Had I known when I started this blog that I'd someday be recommending PEOPLE magazine, I'd have chewed through my mouse cord.
HOWever... there's a special edition of PEOPLE on the stands which chronicles the changing looks of numerous celebrities from childhood to adulthood. Photo spreads show each celeb growing and aging, losing the glasses, gaining (or losing) the weight, adding wrinkles, switching fashions, and basically undergoing all the changes of life. In some cases, only two or three eras are depicted, but in others, we see pics from every few years of the person's life.
This book is an invaluable resource for students of art. I don't know of any other book that compiles age progression photos of people from childhood through adulthood. Here you can study the effects of aging, weight fluctuation, and trends of fashion and make-up on specific people, comparing where the differences occur and what stays the same. Marvelous!
(Here's half of the Liz Taylor spread.)
The book is called PEOPLE: CELEBRITY TRANSFORMATIONS (a.k.a. PEOPLE: HOW THEY'VE CHANGED). The $34 hardcover is available from Amazon for $25, but the $12 softcover is still on shelves at the grocery store. Snap it up! |
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| Message Board (a haiku) |
[May. 30th, 2009|06:47 pm] |
Page One: "Let's be friends!"
Page Two: "I beg to differ."
Page Ten: "Yo' MUHtha -- !!!"
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| I got to draw Archies! |
[May. 10th, 2009|06:14 am] |
(2.5" x 3.5")
Along with numerous other cartoonists, the Periscope gang was recently invited to contribute sketches on trading cards for the March of Dimes. Details here. |
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| Caricature! |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|06:55 pm] |
Here's a great thread from The Drawing Board, a forum for posting and discussing artwork. It's nothing but caricatures of Scarlett Johansson by dozens of artists. The works range from dismal to amazing, but they all offer an instructive look at how resemblances are achieved (or not!) in art:
http://www.drawingboard.org/viewtopic.php?t=67948
Well worth checking out, especially if you're interested in caricature, portraiture, digital painting, or what Scarlett Johansson might look like on a really bad day. |
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| "Maybe Wolfe was right. Maybe you can't go home again." ~Thomas Magnum |
[Mar. 31st, 2009|08:06 am] |
Yes folks, the rumors are true: there's a Magnum, P. I. film in the works.
As a Magnum fan, I must join the throngs of all fans who have ever heard rumors of a favorite work being adapted, and denounce the project, sight-unseen, for failing to retain the spirit of the original.
The original Magnum is a Vietnam veteran in his thirties. But since most Vietnam vets haven't seen their thirties since the 1980s, I'm guessing the filmmakers will drop this detail about his war experience and update him to the present day. The trouble is that his status as a Vietnam vet IS NOT A DETAIL! IT IS THE ESSENCE OF HIS CHARACTER!
Join me as I explore that fact, in a delicious place I like to call The Sick, Sad World of Thomas Magnum. ( Read more... ) |
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| Spider-Woman |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|12:38 am] |
Some warm-ups for a story that I'm writing and drawing for kicks.
Jessica Drew is so much cooler than Peter Parker.
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| I knew it! |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|04:52 pm] |
It's official: daylight savings time kills people.
Says the article: "the number of heart attacks, on average, increases by about five per cent during the first week of summer time." And: "The disruption in the chronobiological rhythms, the loss of one hour’s sleep and the resulting sleep disturbance are the probable causes.”
Of the autumn changeover, another article reports: "recent research indicates that pedestrian fatalities from cars soar at 6:00 p.m. during the weeks after clocks are set back in the fall. Walkers are three times as likely to be hit and killed by cars right after the switch than in the month before DST ends." And: "This research corroborates a 2001 study by researchers at the University of Michigan, which found that 65 pedestrians were killed by car crashes in the week before DST ended, and 227 pedestrians were killed in the week following the end of DST.
Stop messing with everyone's clocks, you Daylight Savings Nazis! Want more daylight? Get up earlier yourself!
And with that, we begin today's video segment:
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| WATCHMEN |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|11:34 am] |
I saw Watchmen at an advance screening last night, and I'm happy to say that it's as good an adaptation of the comic as one could hope for. It's not a perfect film, but to be any better it would have had to improve on the excellent-but-flawed source material -- and when you're painting a portrait, it doesn't do to fix the sitter's nose. Director Zack Snyder and his writers crafted a movie which is clever, strange, and involving, and hews closer to the source than any film this side of LOTR, without seeming forced. It's easily among the best superhero films so far, ranking with Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 & 2, and The Incredibles.
The book's flaw, which the film also bears, is that there are too many primary characters. Imagine if The Godfather had given equal weight to the stories of Michael, Sonny, Fredo, and Tom, and you'll have an idea of where this story goes wrong. A principle in painting is that you should pick one focal point, and orient the rest of the picture's elements around that point in a descending hierarchy of interest. This hierarchy prevents the elements from competing with each other, by giving the viewer a plan from which to view each part of the work without dividing his attention. Alan Moore (and therefore Snyder) would have done well to adopt a similar approach in the telling of Watchmen. One of film's screenwriters, David Hayter, used this principle well in the first X-Men, orienting the various characters' narratives around the central story of Rogue & Wolverine, but I'm guessing he couldn't give Watchmen the same treatment without straying too far from the book. Too bad.
Another major problem is the ambivalence of the ending. I'll refrain from spoilers, but I will point out that a character who is outraged by the story's climax is then happily content in the next scene. What changed? It seems as though the writers had to acknowledge two potential, conflicting audience reactions to the climax, so they gave voice to both reactions in the same character without bothering to resolve or even acknowledge the contradiction. A bridging scene could have remedied this and greatly improved the film.
I also found some of the "R" elements too graphic. I suspect Snyder's goal was to reveal the ugly side of superheroics -- it's harder to root for caped crusaders when they're delivering bloody compound fractures -- but I think he should have made his point with less offense. I suspect his audience will either reject the violence and turn away, or embrace it and become even more inured to the excesses he parodies. Alerting viewers to horror without inuring them to it requires a veil of suggestion which Watchmen lacks (see films like Jaws or The Ring for notable counterexamples). And for Malin Ackerman, transcending the role of sex object in that latex suit was probably hard enough without revealing her tah-tahs.
A lesser complaint: Watchmen's cinematography gives everything a sharp-focus sheen which made details compete with each other in a way similar to the characters' stories. It looks unreal -- a friend accurately described it as "glossy" -- and detracts from the gritty naturalism which much of the film seems to aim for. I'm not sure what to blame this on. The lighting? The lenses? Whatever it was, it made me long for the murkier, simply-lit films of the '70s.
All of that aside, Watchmen is fine entertainment: sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, always smartly unpredictable. |
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| Random bullets: |
[Feb. 26th, 2009|09:05 am] |
*I figured out what bugs me about many current ads:
When I was a kid, ads directed at adults were directed at people who clearly fit the role of adults. Truck ads showed construction workers doffing their helmets and sliding into their vehicles; paper towel ads showed Kate & Allie moms cleaning up after their kids' spills.
But today, ads are directed at this vaguely hip, 30-something-but-passing-for-collegiate demographic. Everyone buying grown-up stuff in these ads wears sneakers, casually-layered shirts and fabric bracelets -- hip-huggers on the women, sideburns on the men -- mussed hair all around.
Is this where adulthood is at these days? A hazy postadolescence? I know I still wear jeans and Thundercats shirts to work, but good grief -- I draw comic books for a living.
*I also figured out why sandwiches cut diagonally taste better:
1. Crust doesn't taste good.
2. Sandwiches cut vertically down the center leave a 2:1 ratio of crust-edge to crustless-edge.
3. Sandwiches cut diagonally leave a 2: >1 ratio of crust-edge to crustless-edge.
To be precise, the hypotenuse of a right triangle is always longer than either of its sides, whereas the parallel sides of a rectangle or square are always equal. So the sum of the lengths of two crustless hypotenuses will always constitute a more favorable ratio to the sum of the lengths of the crusted edges than would the crustless-to-crusted edge-length ratio of a sandwich divided vertically. E.g., a 5" wide sandwich cut diagonally leaves 20" of crust and 14" of crustless edge, while that sandwich cut in half leaves 20" of crust and 10" of crustless edge.
4. So, by cutting your sandwich diagonally, you create more crustless edge, making the world a slightly better place. (I think we all understand this implicitly from birth, but it's nice to be mathematically certain.)
*Here's my only SFW piece from last night's life drawing.
Loved the model's dreds.
*Speaking of SFW, I noticed on one of those "singles chat line" ads the other night that the spokesmodel flashes a nipple. And I don't just mean areola -- the Whole Deal. This was on network TV!
I'm all for nudity in certain contexts, but I don't care to see it in public. Propriety is like a tea ceremony: largely unimportant per se, but it reflects values of great importance. In this case, the value of girls not flashing their goodies at me during Seinfeld. |
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| Pretty. |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|09:20 am] |
Here's a painting I ran across at Art Renewal, a website devoted to the celebration of classical art.
It was painted in 1907 by Peder Monsted.
I've always been troubled by the portrayal of sunsets and other naturally gorgeous scenes, in that it's hard to portray such things without seeming to have exaggerated for sentimental effect. No matter how faithful one is to reality, the viewer thinks,"Was the sunset/beach/parrot/rainbow/woman REALLY that pretty, or is the artist just dolling it up for a sweet image?" Without photographic proof, most viewers in this cynical world must assume the latter.
What I like about the above piece is that, while Monsted doesn't shy away from the sunset's splendor, he tempers it with the dark, foreboding foreground, and that swampy crap in the water. Looking at the water, you can sense the moist chill setting in, you can smell the reeds rotting in the silt, you can hear the buzz of insects and the occasional plop of a frog... maybe even feel a few mosquito bites. By acknowledging nature's dark, damp, dirty twilight, and placing it right beneath our noses, Monsted earns the credibility he needs to serve up that gorgeous sunset without provoking our skepticism.
And the sunset isn't diminished or compromised by the murky bog. If anything, the juxtaposition enhances both elements: while the bog assures us of the sunset's reality, the sunset alerts us to the beauty of the bog. Reciprocal gains; three cheers for smart painting.
Here's the dessert-only version that Thomas Kinkade would have painted:
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| Marsh back in print! |
[Feb. 15th, 2009|09:00 am] |
I just received an advance copy of Dark Horse's TARZAN: THE JESSE MARSH YEARS, and it's a beauty.
Artist Jesse Marsh has influenced numerous cartoonists from both mainstream and alternative camps -- Alex Toth, Russ Manning, Walt Simonson, Los Bros Hernandez, Richard Corben, et cetera -- but to my knowledge, apart from a single cowboy story, none of his work has been reprinted since the 1960s. For over forty years, the only way to get ahold of Marsh comics was to hunt down the original issues -- at dozens or hundreds of dollars a pop. (I've managed to cobble together a collection of so-so condition Marshes at affordable prices, but that took years of thrifty searching.) Marsh is probably the best-kept secret of comics' Golden & Silver Ages. Hopefully, that's about to change with Dark Horse's new reprints.
This first volume is due out on the 25th. It's a handsomely designed, 255 page hardback, with an introduction by cartoonist Mario Hernandez, and it reprints Marsh's first couple of years' worth of Tarzan stories. The plan is to eventually reprint his entire 19 year run.
The book's coloring suffers somewhat from the fact that the pages were scanned from actual issues, which were originally colored for newsprint (a dingier but more forgiving format than the bright white of these archival pages). However, great care was taken to present the pages as crisply and beautifully as possible, as you can see from the comparison below:
The image at the left was scanned from the first printing of TARZAN #4. At the right is a scan of the cleaned-up version in the Dark Horse volume. I'm unfamiliar with Dark Horse's clean-up process, but I'm pretty sure it involves elves.
I've discussed Marsh on this blog previously (here and here and here), but I figure a few more words are in order on the occasion of his first serious reprinting, so here are some thoughts, along with a couple of more scans from the new volume. ( Read more... ) |
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