John Carpenter

Good piece on John Carpenter over here: www.pajiba.com

Agree with most of it, although don't know if I would have included his Masters of Horror efforts.

Comic

Put a few sample pages of the comic strip up on the Alarm Clock Blog. Let me know what you think.

Heartsrevolution - CYOA from Jean Demery / Handz.tv on Vimeo.

C.Y.O.A. - Heartsrevolution

New adventures in the digital age.

Finally bought myself a Cintiq- the 21 UX version. Should be arriving later in the week.

Friday the 13th/Andy B

I usually avoid comics based on movie franchises, especially when it comes to the horror related stuff as it's usually poorly written with garish amateurish art.

Well I just found one that breaks all of my preconceived notions.

Written by Josha Hale Fialkov, drawn by Andy B and published by Wildstorm -this one stands head and shoulders above most of the other comics I have seen regarding the genre. The interior art stopped me in my tracks. Rendered in an almost EC comics meets Archie type style with a highly pixelated look of '60s-'70s newsprint comic strips Jason has never looked so good, David B's more "cartoony" style really helps lend to the ensuing mayhem giving it a somewhat humorous undertone. The story itself is quite properly: sordid, gore-filled and tasteless not making the mistake of taking itself too seriously and quite literally had me smiling all the way through.


Above is a black and white image of the cover drawn by artist Brandon Badeaux.

This book came out some months back and I believe it has already been collected into a trade.

Below is some samples of Andy B's art.








Andy B is also part of the excellent Toronto based www.transmission-x.com online comic book website.

Great comic!

Conan

Rediscovering The Savage Sword Of Conan through the reprints that Dark Horse are putting out.

Conan was one of my first introductions to a more adult orientated comic, I would have been seven years of age or thereabouts at the time. This in fact even predated my introduction to 2000AD which didn't come into my sights(for some strange reason)until Prog 86. I was of course still buying my Beanos, Dandys, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopees, Beezers, Krazys, Look ins and the odd Marvel UK on a regular basis at that time -so based on that rather tame content, a few billion neurons must have exploded on contact as these stories were filled with violence, blood and even a little hint of sex.

The art was masterful, usually handled by the late great John Buscema and inked by Alfredo Alcala. Alcala must have been channeling Gustave Doré as the inking is just immaculate, beautifully rendered.







The Black Colossus story above is still one of my all time favorites.

Alcala was also an artist in his own right. I remember he did some Swamp Thing and Hellblazer issues in the late eighties and also a two issue Nightmare on Elm Street comic for Marvel amongst other things. However in regards to inking, Conan must be among his finest works.

There is also some great Jim Starlin art in this vol, along with Barry Windsor Smith, Neal adams, Mike Kaluta and Alex Nino.

To be honest I had forgotten how good the art was on Savage Sword and found myself thirty years later once again lost in those fantastic visuals.

Well worth picking up.

The Penguin.

The Wire

I put season 3 of The Wire on as some background noise while I was boarding and have now just finished season 4 as well; yeah kinda broke the "only going to listen to the commentary rule" as posted a while back.

There are very few TV shows that I will sit through twice, but this one is the exception. I have already seen season 5, but as a rather poor download, (naughty!!!) so I have just picked up the boxset and will start working my way through that again also.

As I'm on a bit of a roll, looks like I'll be working back into season 1 and 2 as well. Heard they are releasing a deluxe 5 season box-set in December, I just pray there isn't too many extras on that or I'm gonna be seriously outta pocket.

Postscript to my previous Fifty Dead Men Walking post. McGowan was only in a couple of scenes and she was only mildly irritating, her Norn Iron accent surprisingly, wasn't too bad. The movie itself went a little bit "Bourne Identity" towards the end with car chases and shootouts and whatnot, but it was a decent flick, worth checking out.





God I'll miss The Wire.