Little Girl Giant Plays in the Park from XINERGY on Vimeo.
This not-so-little girl was created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company as part of a public show entitled The Sultan's Elephant. She's part a cast of amazing giant wooden puppets created by the French theatre group.
Taken from:Make


I want me a Swing-Wing!

Rear Window

Tom Galvin's great take on one of my favourite movies- Rear Window.
Tom actually uses his blog to do what I should be doing-sketching and doodling- but I'd rather just surf and upload other peoples work. I think lazy is the word I'm looking for.

Ming Doyle

Every now and again an artist comes along that really stands out from the outset-

Check out Ming Doyle.

Alarm...

The site is almost there, should be finalised by next week.

Damien Hirst trips over a diamond the size of his head and dies.

www.piek.com

Hellboy 2

The first Del Toro movie that I watched was Chronos back in 95. It showcased the talents of a visionary new writer/director with a unique and slightly skewed perspective. Artistically his direction was flawless and coupled with his sense of the weird and choice of subject matter(which can be somewhat esoteric) it was enough to get me hooked. Watching it reminded me of the first time I sat through Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen or Gilliam's Brazil. This director was obviously one to watch.

Then came Mimic in 97 which was somewhat of a disappointment. This may have been part due to the alleged clashes that Del Toro had with the Weinsteins during the shoot as apparently they were constantly second guessing him. It may have been a slight misfire for Del Toro but still embedded within the movie was the directors flare for the visual and there were still some excellent standout scenes.

He returned to Spain for his next movie; The Devil's Backbone. Released in 2001,this movie was compared to The Others and the Sixth Sense which was probably the easiest way for the studio to market it. In reality it is a far superior movie.

With Blade 2 released in 2002 Del Toro was back in Hollywood. I quite enjoyed this one to be honest, especially the new take on the vampire myth/design. The Bloodpack gang that he teamed up with were great and the overall mood and look of the piece really worked for me. It was flawed but very entertaining.

Hellboy in 2004 seemed like the perfect fit for Del Toro as he had an obvious love for Mignola's work. He did in fact capture the world quite well and really breathed life into the characters. Pearlman who had worked with him on Chronos and Blade 2 was perfectly cast as Hellboy. The ending fell flat, but it was still a good take on the character and a decent 1st Hellboy movie.

Pan's Labyrinth(2006)completely blew me away. Again like The Devil's Backbone(Del Toro has called Pan an unofficial spiritual sequel to The Devils Backbone) and (the Del Toro produced)The Orphanage, was set again in the time of the Spanish Civil War. This was an almost perfect movie in every way and I cannot rate it highly enough.

I originally started this post with the intention of doing a quick review of Hellboy 2, but ended up doing a quick rundown of Del Toro's movies to date. Anyway:

The opening stop motion sequence was fantastic and then ...
Well and then it just got mired in bad character interplay, a poor script and the sound of my creaking cinema seat.

Hellboy as a kid, just looked like a kid in bad Halloween makeup. Maybe that was intentional as I do realise the movie was paying homage to the monster movies of yesteryear-but it still looked awful.

The romance angle was fun to begin with but got tired rather quickly especially when all of the characters seemed to have been missed by Cupids Arrow. God even Mr Ectoplasmic Johann Krauss had a sob story to tell.

The characters this time around(apart from Pearlman)were incredibly flat.

The comedy was overplayed and there just seemed too much of it. I didn't think I'd ever find Jeffrey Tambor annoying unless it was a character trait he was purposely trying to evoke-as with The Larry Sanders Show, whereby he was intentionally annoying- but funny. In this he was just annoying.

When they mention that they have to go to the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland my wife actually turned to me and smiled(-My part of the world)And I must admit I was half excited to see how Del Toro would compose his shots of this unique landscape. But no, we ended up on a big cliff face that could have been anywhere in the world-with no Giants Causeway.

Then the script goes from bad to worse. Even the visuals and action scenes seemed perfunctory compared to his usual-don't get me wrong overall the look of the movie was great but at times it seemed he was was just testing or getting up to speed on certain techniques possibly to apply to his next movie-The Hobbit.

I feel like I have ended on a sour note and that is probably why I tempered this post at the start with my obvious admiration of the man- Also why having seen the movie some time ago I couldn't bring myself to write a review-until now.

Think I'll go and watch Pan's Labyrinth-again.

Monkeys

Tomer Hanuka

Phenomenal artist.
http://www.thanuka.com/index.php

Worth trying to get your mitts on a comic he did with his brother Asaf some time ago. It's called Bipolar.

Red Sonja

Just picked up on this. I had heard rumours that Rodriguez was possibly going to try to do a new take on Barbarella with Rose McGowan which didn't exactly fill me with glee: Hard to for me to see pass Jane Fonda I'm afraid.

I have always been a bit of a fan of Red Sonja, having been initiated into the Frank Thorne stuff at quite an early age.
Rose McGowan as Sonja? Don't see it myself.

The teaser posters look more like advertisements for hair care.
The scent of 300 anyone?

Charlie, Enid and Tippi.

Brilliant.


Fantastic custom job on a rather bland figure. I bought the original for the Clowes box art.

Yes I am that sad.


This needs-oh whats it called? Oh yeah: An expression!
As it looks now like Tippi is actually enjoying the killer crows gnawing on her flesh.

I'd still buy it though.

Did I just write that out loud?

Tunes...

King of the world...

You'll never guess, but I started playing around with imovie: In reality I just figured out how to convert to Quicktime and upload.

I thought I would share this one of Olin, it was taken about five years ago here in Vancouver.



I've ten hrs of similar footage-wanna see it? We can huddle around our collective monitors with a nice cup o' tea and a biscuit and share some holiday snaps and movies...

Wouldn't that just be absolutely spiffing...?

Carlos Meglia

Very sad to hear about the passing of Carlos Meglia/Aug 15th.

Amazing artist. I first came across his work with the comic Cybersix and was hooked ever since. The Superman book Infinite City that he did more recently was completely mind blowing.

What a loss.

One of those days...

More here: http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/sixoclock/index.html



Lorcan Finnegan's great use of the photocopier for Dublin based band Sickboy.

Trooper AA-268

My son got me this for my birthday today...



I ain't complaining.

Pam

This blog is becoming more like Hello magazine or some shit. Anyhow... how could I not mention that Pamela Anderson was physically,literally one block away from my living abode yesterday.

To think I was off buying my apple wireless mouse at the time.

Wireless indeed...

KRAZY!

Finally got around to checking out the Krazy! exhibition at the Vancouver art Gallery.
Some excellent stuff on show, my own personal highlights being;

Harvey Kurtzman's "Corpse on the Imjin"
I was like a deer caught in headlights viewing this one. To see his brush strokes up close is really something as his inking and use of line is just masterful. The man was a genius. I couldn't resist sneaking back to have a second look and that's when I snapped the pics as seen below. If your interested you can find the complete comic strip here: http://www.geocities.com/warpub/imjin.html







Chris Ware. The above is one of his four Thanksgiving illustrations that he did for the New Yorker. The published version can be found here:http://laughingsquid.com/the-new-yorker-thanksgiving-covers-by-chris-ware/



Seth-one of the co-curators of the exhibition- was also on show(above-one of his roughs)

Also on view was Daniel Clowes David Boring, Herriman's Krazy Cat,Chester Brown's Louis Riel and of course Art Spiegelman's Maus

In the Animated Cartoons section they had some original production drawings of Gertie the Dinosaur by the brilliant Winsor McKay and some beautiful storyboard panels from Disney's Dumbo. Sadly most of the storyboard art for Dumbo was attributed to-unknown artists: Storyboard guys,never remembered for their(sometimes vast)contributions eh;)

If you haven't seen it,I'd recommend stopping by! I believe it's playing until the first week in September.

Apologies for the quality of the photos...

Jerk It

I seen the original rough cut of this some time ago and thought it was fantastic; but in the final version they appear to have added some crappy,poorly executed Thunder Heist lightning strike images that look like they belong in a Whitesnake video. Think somebody went a little nuts with after-affects.

It's still pretty good though.

Felt a little sorry for the Rooster(ahem..Cock)but apparently:

Caleb (the rooster in the vid) was doing great the day of the shoot. He was on set with a hen of his and had his chicken stuff with him and soft landing ground for the shots. He was a bit tired at the end of the day but went home to his flock of 14 girls and acted like nothing happened. He is a Blue Cochin crossed with a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and free ranges over 7 acres so he lives a good life. He is now 4 years old and running strong as protector of the flock. So no chickens were harmed.


thunderheist - jerk it from thatgo on Vimeo.

Just in case you get lost on the way the direct link is:

http://pitchfork.tv/videos/thunderheist-jerk-it

R.I.P.

Solzhenitsyn died.

“Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.”

Couple of tunes.

The Stereo MC's lifted the riff from this one for their song-Connected.
Nothing can top the original.


This one is a scene from the greek film Mia Ellinida Sto Xaremi.

Rorshach

Rorshach at Comic Con.


RORSHACH’S JOURNAL.
July 24th, 2008

Top Cow booth: Women’s breasts draped across every cover, every display. Was offered free hug, free poster, free button… but not free comic. Free comic like instant courage — only find it on Internet.

Thought about Fortress Maximus story on way to Watchmen panel. Could happen, probably won’t. Don’t know if editor even remembers me the morning after. If not, then what? So many questions. Never mind. Answers soon. Nothing is hopeless. Not while I have his business card and an e-mail account.

In Watchmen panel, all movie stars stood in row. Neat Hollywood heroes on a giant cash register. Paid respects quietly, without fuss. Alan Moore, writer, born 1953, hates your comic book movie.

Look around at audience. Is this what happens to us? A life of comics with no time for friends… so that when it’s done, only our intellectual properties leave roses? Something in our personalities, perhaps? Some animal urge to pitch and struggle, making us what we are?

Unimportant. We do what we have to do. Bury our heads between the swollen teats of indulgence, gratification and fantastic movie options, piglets squirming beneath a sow for shelter. But there is no shelter… and this movie release is bearing down like an express train.

Hurm. Zack Snyder kicking over fanboys, shouting, “This… is… Comic-Con!”

True face of twenty-first century comic book industry. A reflection, a parody of it. Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll snare drum. Curtains.

I wonder if Newsarama will win Eisner tonight?

More of the same -here-