Sad, true but funny.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Thou dost protest too much...
Fuck it. I'm bringing the niggah back. Yeah I said it, "Thong song... and WHAT!?!"
Love Letter written in graphic form
Ever wonder what it’d be liked to strike off and do your own thing this can mean starting your own company; independent radio station, movie company… comic book. No..., really.
Brian K. Vaughn’s Escapist is a wonderful triumph of indie comix love. Your father’s just died. He leaves you the key to his greatest treasure, no not the Talmud, but rather a trove of comic book paraphernalia all dedicated to the fictional character the Escapist.
Beyond discovering the hidden legacy of your father, you begin to
understand him in ways that can only help to shape an understanding of yourself.
Then your mother dies and leaves you $150.000.00 in life insurance. What do you do….? You buy the rights tot he character Escapist and set out to reintroduce the world to a great comic icon. You are Max, your boy is Denny and hot chick drawing your comic is Case. The first issue hits the stands with a bang because of a stunt gone horribly wrong yet fortunately right!
But wait, a major corporation now wants the rights back. What do you do? WWBobKaneD? Based on the characters of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay as envisioned by Micheal Chabon, Escapists is Vaughn’s love letter to independent comic book storytellers.
It’s well worth the read and inspirational.
The Escapists
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Steve Rolston, Jason Alexander, Phillip Bond, and Eduardo Barreto
Cover Artist: James Jean
Genre: Crime, Action/Adventure
Brian K. Vaughn’s Escapist is a wonderful triumph of indie comix love. Your father’s just died. He leaves you the key to his greatest treasure, no not the Talmud, but rather a trove of comic book paraphernalia all dedicated to the fictional character the Escapist.
Beyond discovering the hidden legacy of your father, you begin to
understand him in ways that can only help to shape an understanding of yourself.Then your mother dies and leaves you $150.000.00 in life insurance. What do you do….? You buy the rights tot he character Escapist and set out to reintroduce the world to a great comic icon. You are Max, your boy is Denny and hot chick drawing your comic is Case. The first issue hits the stands with a bang because of a stunt gone horribly wrong yet fortunately right!
But wait, a major corporation now wants the rights back. What do you do? WWBobKaneD? Based on the characters of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay as envisioned by Micheal Chabon, Escapists is Vaughn’s love letter to independent comic book storytellers.
It’s well worth the read and inspirational.
The Escapists
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Steve Rolston, Jason Alexander, Phillip Bond, and Eduardo Barreto
Cover Artist: James Jean
Genre: Crime, Action/Adventure
Chix Rox!: Persepolis
Here's a rough draft of a review I'm submitting for a magazine. As soon as details and publishing [?] happens, I'll let you know.
Persepolis
Persepolis, based on the same-titled graphic novel published by Pantheon, begins with an older Marie-Jean (the French Sobriquet to Marjane] in the process of checking in at an Airport terminal in preparation for a departure. We do not know where she is taking flight from but the tone connotes a painful decision and reminiscent longing. Though unavoidable, politics is the backdrop to this bildungsroman, coming of age, story. It serves the purpose of providing a context without overriding the intimacy of a young girl’s development.
Persepolis is a visual autobiography by Marjane Satrapi, of a young woman growing up in Revolutionary Iran. In January 1978, the monarchy of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overturned and became an Islamic Republic under the Ayatollah Kohmeini.
Marie Jean reacts to this changing climate, at once exposed to the harsh politics and protected by her parents. At its core level this film can be described as a coming of age film where a young girl, confronted with an ever-increasing restrictive Iran is ultimately sent away to France. Young Marie jean is the archetype of the charismatic sweetly rebellious child.
During the rise of the Islamic Republic’s religious right and the requisite imposition of religious mores, young Marie Jean wears her Hijab, woman’s scarf, but also sports her carefully hand-drawn “Punk Rock Is Not Ded jacket.
While Allah plays a strong role in her life and her earliest endeavor is to become a prophet. Nightly, she converses with God. Yet, she when exposed to Karl Marx’s Dialectic Materialism
Marie-Jean cannot help to make the connection, ”It was funny to see how much Marx and God looked like each other. Though Marx’s hair was a bit curlier.”
An ascendant of political thought and action Marie-Jean is no different in her childhood demonstrations. Her great Uncle Feyerdon declared himself Minister of Justice in the “newly Independent Province of Azerbiajan followed by the support her Uncle Anoosh. Feyerdon was assassinated by the Shah’s soldiers and Anoosh escaped to Russia, only to be imprisoned for trying to return home to Iran. Young Marie-Jean, upon discovering a classmate’s father was instrumental in torturing thousands of Iranians critical of the Shah set about with the aid of her friends to beat the child senseless with a fistful of nails. While the description comes off as harsh, you can only view Marie-Jean’s actions of an innocent spirited little girl reacting to injustice.
The most satisfying relationship within this film is Marie-Jean’s connection to her Grandmother. A matriarchal figure that plays
prominent through Marie-Jean’s life. Her wisdom is tempered by her wit and abundant tolerance.
With the advent of animation technology, the narrative usually takes a back seat to computer gimmicks and tricked out imagery. It is refreshing to see that the aesthetics if crafted to serve the narrative and not vice versa. The look of the film is a brilliant translation of the graphic novel. The animation is simple, the story telling sparse and imaginative. Its simplicity serves the story. The graphic novel is a black and white illustrated affair with simple representative renderings. The film plays predominantly in black and white as it recounts Marie-Jean’s weary story from Iran to France and her eventual return to France. The use of color in the film is meant to delineate the visual present from its past tense.
Persepolis is a film with the heart of young girl looking out into a world filled with magic, violence, love and the sweet scent of jasmines.
Persepolis
Directed by
Vincent Paronnaud
Marjane Satrapi
Writing credits
Vincent Paronnaud screenplay
Marjane Satrapi comic & screenplay
Marjane Satrapi novel
PersepolisPersepolis, based on the same-titled graphic novel published by Pantheon, begins with an older Marie-Jean (the French Sobriquet to Marjane] in the process of checking in at an Airport terminal in preparation for a departure. We do not know where she is taking flight from but the tone connotes a painful decision and reminiscent longing. Though unavoidable, politics is the backdrop to this bildungsroman, coming of age, story. It serves the purpose of providing a context without overriding the intimacy of a young girl’s development.
Persepolis is a visual autobiography by Marjane Satrapi, of a young woman growing up in Revolutionary Iran. In January 1978, the monarchy of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overturned and became an Islamic Republic under the Ayatollah Kohmeini.
Marie Jean reacts to this changing climate, at once exposed to the harsh politics and protected by her parents. At its core level this film can be described as a coming of age film where a young girl, confronted with an ever-increasing restrictive Iran is ultimately sent away to France. Young Marie jean is the archetype of the charismatic sweetly rebellious child.
During the rise of the Islamic Republic’s religious right and the requisite imposition of religious mores, young Marie Jean wears her Hijab, woman’s scarf, but also sports her carefully hand-drawn “Punk Rock Is Not Ded jacket.
While Allah plays a strong role in her life and her earliest endeavor is to become a prophet. Nightly, she converses with God. Yet, she when exposed to Karl Marx’s Dialectic Materialism
Marie-Jean cannot help to make the connection, ”It was funny to see how much Marx and God looked like each other. Though Marx’s hair was a bit curlier.”An ascendant of political thought and action Marie-Jean is no different in her childhood demonstrations. Her great Uncle Feyerdon declared himself Minister of Justice in the “newly Independent Province of Azerbiajan followed by the support her Uncle Anoosh. Feyerdon was assassinated by the Shah’s soldiers and Anoosh escaped to Russia, only to be imprisoned for trying to return home to Iran. Young Marie-Jean, upon discovering a classmate’s father was instrumental in torturing thousands of Iranians critical of the Shah set about with the aid of her friends to beat the child senseless with a fistful of nails. While the description comes off as harsh, you can only view Marie-Jean’s actions of an innocent spirited little girl reacting to injustice.
The most satisfying relationship within this film is Marie-Jean’s connection to her Grandmother. A matriarchal figure that plays
prominent through Marie-Jean’s life. Her wisdom is tempered by her wit and abundant tolerance.With the advent of animation technology, the narrative usually takes a back seat to computer gimmicks and tricked out imagery. It is refreshing to see that the aesthetics if crafted to serve the narrative and not vice versa. The look of the film is a brilliant translation of the graphic novel. The animation is simple, the story telling sparse and imaginative. Its simplicity serves the story. The graphic novel is a black and white illustrated affair with simple representative renderings. The film plays predominantly in black and white as it recounts Marie-Jean’s weary story from Iran to France and her eventual return to France. The use of color in the film is meant to delineate the visual present from its past tense.
Persepolis is a film with the heart of young girl looking out into a world filled with magic, violence, love and the sweet scent of jasmines.
Persepolis
Directed by
Vincent Paronnaud
Marjane Satrapi
Writing credits
Vincent Paronnaud screenplay
Marjane Satrapi comic & screenplay
Marjane Satrapi novel
Monday, February 11, 2008
Busting out the brushes.
I'm mad wack right now and I know it. But I'm working on the skills. Check out this piece I did on my nana... grandmother [4/13/07.]
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