What is best in life? The new Conan film?

Aug 262011
 

 

I read the online Guardian review of the new Conan movie yesterday and had a wee smirk to myself. Marcus Nispel’s film did not, as I expected, get a good review. I haven’t seen it yet but I am looking forward to it. Let us be honest, now; it will not be up for Oscars; it will continue to be universally slagged in reviews; it will likely make a stack of money; there will be more Conan movies.

Us fantasy fans are pretty poorly represented at the cinema. Since the Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter movies reignited the public’s appetite for cinematic depictions of fantasy, we have been a bit short on options. The odd Narnia here, a bit of Hellboy there, a welcome swash-buckle of Solomon Kane, for sure has helped, but Conan has been a long time coming. I hope it’s good; all the building blocks are there for the film-makers – although, again, like the Arnie attempts (which I am still fond of, particularly the first), this latest Conan is not directly lifted from Robert E. Howard’s source work. A shame.

And there is the Ron Perlman factor! I like big Ron, and believe he generally enhances any film he’s in. Um, for the most part. We’ll forget about the Mutant Chronicles… This Jason Momoa fella I know next to nowt about, bar knowing what he’s been in (Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones), but he is in keeping with the author’s vision of Conan as being dark and swarthy. He’s a big chap as well so should stride through the combat  and action scenes, of which there will be many.

I’ve been looking forward to this since the second trailer was released; it depicted epic landscapes, brutal warfare, heroism in the face of evil, etc, etc. I don’t ask for much, but I do want the basics done well. I’m hoping to see it this week so will report back with glad tidings or disappointed grumblings…

Andy Jamieson, Editor

ps – that’s the poster for the American release, above. Pretty cool, non?

Local Talent: Ryan Thomason Q & A

Aug 262011
 

Above: Ryan Thomason, aged 396 months, approx.

 

Ryan Thomason is a bookseller by day, a father, and a freelance illustrator. He is the creator of Zombie Kitty and Pizza Ninja (coming soon), two comic strips exclusive to the Edinburgh Geekzine newsletter and the Geekzine website.

How long have you been an illustrator? Being pretty much completely self-taught, I suppose I should date that from when I started my art blog which can be found at tezoarillustration.com, (discreet plug!) which would be three years now.

What inspires you as an artist? Deep sea animals fascinate me. I think it’s the stretching of something you know and recognise, like a fish or a crab, into a slightly disturbing new shape that appeals. That’s probably what I like about the steampunk aesthetic as well – once you get past the people glueing clockwork gears onto their hats it turns into a great game of what-if, where you can take something normal and twist it into something unexpected. Which is what I like doing best.

Which illustrators/artists do you admire? I probably got into illustration because of 2000AD and indie graphic novels, hence my inspirations are people like Jamie Smart, Frazer Irvine, d’Israeli and Nicholas Gurewitch. More recently I can’t get enough of Kate Beaton, who might well be the funniest cartoonist on the internet.

What are your ambitions as an illustrator? I’m intrigued by the possibility of working in comics (hah! one more plug!). I think what keeps me going and fuels my work is a desire to make the world a slightly dafter, slightly weirder place.

What are you reading at the moment? Just now I’m going back through the Game of Thrones series, and I’ve got my eye on Charlie Stross’ Rule 34 to follow – I loved Halting State and the Laundry novels.

Favourite things? I think the books and comics that have really stuck with me would have to be…
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – I first read this when I was seventeen, and for somebody who had subsisted till then on a diet of Stephen King and the like, Billy Pilgrim kicked my brain on to some genuinely subversive tracks.
Bear by Jamie Smart is wonderfully insane, featuring stories of an incredibly sarcastic stuffed bear and my favourite psychotic cat. Jamie’s done some amazing work since as well, but Bear holds a fuzzy little place in my heart.
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein will take the blood out of you and replace it with bile and rage, this little book is completely terrifying and I’ve been throwing it at everyone in range since I realised that it was written in 2007 but describes completely and without fail everything bad that’s happened to this country since the election.

In film terms, well I had a look at my Lovefilm list just there and I’ve given about a hundred five-star ratings, so it would seem I’m not too hard to please. To keep it brief then, there are two that have really grabbed me in the last few months. The first is RED, from the Warren Ellis comic, and I really loved just everything about it – the script is a crackly excited thing, the cast look like they’re having a brilliant time and it finishes far too quickly for my liking. Very much on the other hand is Inside Job, which takes a good hard rummage through the reasons why the banks lost all our money but none of their own, and inspires unheard-of heights of disgust. I know, it’s a documentary, but trust me, it’s a work of art carved out of bile and anger.

Zombie Kitty and Pizza Ninja are quite unusual ideas but work so well as comic strips. How did the ideas come around for each project? Zombie Kitty came from the wreckage of a completely deranged conversation at work, the details of which are probably best forgotten, and Pizza Ninja… I honestly can’t remember. The character had been bouncing around the back of my head for a while and then one day I was sitting on the bus and the idea for the strip just crawled out of its cave and hit me over
the head. I’ve had some fairly strange characters crawl out of my brain over the years, and a good example of this would be the set of gig posters I did for a friend that chronicled the story of a badger and the giant squid he grew to hate. The stimulus for that was me demanding he name me an animal at about 4am at a festival, and then a few days later when the idea had time to slop about for a bit the whole concept just crawled out into the daylight.

What else are you working on at the moment? My current project is a kid’s picture book, which is a big departure for me as it features neither swearing or entrails. Yet.

Interview with Andy Jamieson, Geekzine Editor

The Dead Of Winter by Chris Priestley

Aug 252011
 

The Dead Of Winter by Chris Priestley (published by Bloomsbury, PB £6.99 – out October 2011)

Edgar Allan Poe. M.R. James. Wilkie Collins. Now we can add Chris Priestley to that list, as an esteemed storyteller of ghostly delights. Following on from his Tales of Terror trilogy (of which this book is a great companion piece to), Priestley’s latest is a novel of rich, gothic-laced atmosphere; young orphan, Michael, moves to the country manor of Hawton Mere, set amongst misty marshland, to live with his guardian, the sickly and troubled Sir Stephen.

But something is not right at the estate and, from the off, Michael is certain that there is a ghoulish mystery waiting to be uncovered…

Michael’s adventure is gripping, and by the end you will be feverishly turning pages to discover what happens next. This is an exceptionally well-crafted book, and more than matches the high standard of the Terror books. It’s simply a great pleasure to read and reiterates that Priestley is very, very good at what he does – there are not many writers out there who are as talented as this here fellow. I read this over the Christmas period of December 2010, when it was particularly snowy in Edinburgh – there couldn’t have been a more ideal time to read this book – and I think I will perhaps read it every Christmas from now on!

If you’re looking for a new writer to follow, Chris Priestley is your man.

Andy Jamieson, Editor

 

 

Domu: A Child’s Dream by Katsuhiro Otomo

Aug 242011
 

 

Domu: A Child’s Dream by Katsuhiro Otomo

(published by Titan Books at £12.99. It is currently reprinting)

A little girl and a crazy old man battle it out for the control of an apartment complex in suburban Japan. It might sound like a strange concept for a comic, but throw in some psychic powers, a very confused police force and the close-knit, slightly claustrophobic society within the apartment buildings, and you have the unlikely ingredients for a masterpiece.

Mostly everyone, even non-manga fans, has at some point heard of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo’s legendary comic series and breakthrough anime film. For many in the west, it was Otomo’s Akira movie that introduced them to the pleasures of the complex art form that is manga.

And in Domu: A Child’s Dream, originally released in Japan in the early 1980’s before Akira, Otomo is at his best. His work is beautifully crafted; the lines and detail of each of the buildings within the apartment complex are so strong and sharp that they sometimes overshadow the characters, giving this otherwise staid architecture an overbearing presence on the storyline.

From their initial chance encounter in the courtyard of the complex, the tension gradually builds as the two opponents move against each other, either directly or by proxy. The old man is particularly malicious and mischievous, his child-like wickedness countered by the peculiar maturity of the little girl. As with any good tension-grinder, events spin out of control in a page-turning frenzy until they ultimately explode in a dazzling finale. As a reader you are never sure if the darker side of the residents’ nature is there because they’re being manipulated in this battle of wills or whether Otomo has more to say about society. Either way, this is a fascinating, engrossing read that is manga of the highest quality.

 

OTOMO FACTFILE:

– Born on April 14th 1954 in Miyagi Prefecture.

– Domu was originally serialised in 1980, running for two years. When it was released in book form in 1983 it won the Nihon SF Taisho Award, which is the equivalent in Japan of the Nebula Award.

– The manga of Akira took eight years to complete. The movie came out before the manga was finished, similar to Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä.

– In 1996, Otomo guest authored/pencilled Batman: Black & White #4.

– Otomo’s biggest film hit after Akira is the 2004 movie, Steamboy, a Victorian-era steampunk-esque adventure.

 

RECOMMENDED OTOMO:

The Legend Of Mother Sarah (1990) is a hard-to-find collection of fantasy adventure, in contrast to the grim SF of Akira.

Hipira: The Little Vampire (2001) is Otomo doing cutesy horror.

 

Stuart MacDougall, Bookseller, Waterstone’s Edinburgh West End 

Weaveworld by Clive Barker

Aug 242011
 

Weaveworld by Clive Barker (HarperVoyager, £7.99, out now)

Stunning. Incredible. I’d go on but you get the idea. This is quite simply one of the best books I think I have ever read. Fanboy gushing aside, you don’t get to read many of those, I think it’s safe to agree. This title is over twenty years old now, but you wouldn’t think it from the freshness of the imagination on display. When Weaveworld was released it coincided with the launch of the original Hellraiser movie. A hell of a week for Clive Barker fans.

Weaveworld is an epic horror-fantasy-thriller-surrealist-painting of a book (it’s so good it’s hard to categorise) of dark melting genius, veined throughout with lush, rich detail that dazzles and indeed excites. Clive Barker conjures such vivid imagery with his words; to read this again is to be reminded of what an amazing talent he is. Writer, painter, film-maker… I happen to think that he has never really been given the true credit he deserves, a talent under-appreciated.

The story concerns one Calhoun Mooney, a young chap who is innocently enough drawn into the great adventure of his lifetime when he discovers a fantastical realm hidden within the weave of an old carpet… And what a world he discovers. There is o much detail to this book that I could never do it justice in a review. You really do have to just get on and read it. Truly, it is spectacular. Epic doesn’t come close.

This is a striking, bewitching read, a timeless literary feast of intense beauty. So good you’ll want to read it again and again.

Andy Jamieson, Editor

 

30 Days Of Night: Red Snow by Ben Templesmith

Aug 242011
 

30 Days Of Night: Red Snow by Ben Templesmith (published by IDW, £13.50 approx, out now)

Back in 2002, before all this Twilight/vamp-goth-rom malarkey nibbled its way into the mainstream, writer Steve Niles and artist Ben Templesmith came up with 30 Days Of Night, a neat spin on the vampire genre, set in the small outpost settlement of Barrow, in Alaska, where for 30 days – you guessed it – the place is plunged into darkness. Flash-forward eight years and numerous spin-offs/sequels later, the concept isn’t quite so fresh. Vampires, and horror in general, have penetrated the mainstream market and aren’t the niche attraction they once were; we have tv series, book series, film series… The whole genre has arguably got tired and predictable.

Then in 2007, like a blast of fresh air, the 30 Days Of Night stable delivered quite possibly the best in the series so far, and certainly the most original: Red Snow, written and illustrated by Ben Templesmith, on solo creative duties for the first time on the title that launched his career. Set on the Eastern Front in WW2, Nazi raiding parties are terrorising the small pockets of civilisation dotted around the frosty landscape. Enter British military attaché Corporal Charlie Keating, assisting the Soviet war effort against the viciousness of the Nazi raids. Things get perilous when Keating soon realises there are worse things than the SS out in the cold… Yup, there’re vampires prowling the darkness and they aren’t fussy whether it’s Soviet or Nazi blood they gorge on! This volume collects the 3 issue mini-series and it’s a cracker; Templesmith has produced an excellent tale, skilfully plotted and brilliantly scripted, fully exploiting the claustrophobia of the setting to its maximum potential. His art, as usual, is atmospheric and hauntingly evocative. He even has time to cram in a couple of sneaky cameos from the first 30 Days Of Night…

So, a great WW2 story and a brilliant standalone vamp yarn (it’s by no means essential that you’ve read the rest of the 30 Days titles), plus a reinvigoration of a flagging series. A must-read.


TEMPLESMITH FACTS:

– Born on March 7th 1978 in Perth, Western Australia.

– Made his American comics debut with Hellspawn in 2002, a spin-off from Spawn.

– He is left-handed.

 

RECOMMENDED TEMPLESMITH:

Fell – Volume 1: Feral City (Image Comics, £10.99) collects the initial run of this currently ongoing series; written by Warren Ellis (you’ll have heard of him, right?), this is a supernatural detective thriller which is mean, moody and spooky. Wormwood – Volume 1: Gentleman Corpse (IDW, £14.99) is Templesmith’s creator-owned comedic-horror title and has run since 2004, on-and-off. Collected in three volumes so far (2: it Only Hurts When I Pee & 3: Calimari Rising, both available at £14.99, published by IDW), this fuses sick laughs with gruesome horror.

 

Andy Jamieson, Editor

 

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