Archive | August, 2007

Those Spanish cartoons

7. August 2007

3 Comments

The Olive Press, a fortnightly periodical based in Andalucia, considers the state censorship of the satirical El Jueves magazine for its recent cartoon depicting members of the Spanish royal family. It is interesting to get a Spanish perspective on this ongoing case – the Olive Press blog makes the point that the staff of El [...]

Continue reading...

Dean Haglund at the Fringe

7. August 2007

Comments Off

Dean Haglund, best known to science fiction fans for playing Langly in the X-Files and the Lone Gunmen, has a show entitled “The X-Files Improv” running at the Edinburgh Fringe throughout August at The Lot (venue 24) in the city’s Grassmarket (conveniently located for some fine pubs and inns in the shadow of the Castle, [...]

Continue reading...

A Gentlemen’s Duel

7. August 2007

3 Comments

“A Gentlemen’s Duel” is a cracking animation from Blur Studios, directed by Francisco Ruiz and Sean McNally, which centres around a Frenchman and a British man vying for the attentions of a pneumatically endowed noblewoman in the grounds of her stately home, which looks to be inspired by some classic cartoons (“well of course, you [...]

Continue reading...

William Gibson interviewed

7. August 2007

Comments Off

William Gibson is interviewed by Chris Watson for the Santa Cruz Sentinel podcast, discussing his new novel Spook Country. Chris starts the article by commenting how back in 1984 it would have cost a reader a whole $2.95 to pick up a groundbreaking novel from a new writer, Neuromancer, which will bring a wry smile [...]

Continue reading...

George Miller to do JLA flick?

6. August 2007

Comments Off

Movie magazine Empire reports on a rumour that Mad Max director George Miller is eager to helm a movie adaptation based on DC’s JLA superteam. Mind you with no official word on such a project it may well be just that, a rumour. Certainly plenty of those tend to circulate in the entertainment world – [...]

Continue reading...

Nite Owl Comics

6. August 2007

1 Comment

Via Wim’s Ephemerist comes this terrific image, a fake comic book cover for the early period characters from Watchmen, with Silk Spectre leaping through the hoop; I especially like the Hooded Justice icon on the top left, nice detail. It comes from Robert Ullman’s Atom Bomb Bikini blog; his local comic store holds regular drawing [...]

Continue reading...

Warren Ellis’ Freakangels

6. August 2007

Comments Off

Warren Ellis is turning his not inconsiderable talents towards a new project, Freakangels, which will be a webcomic debuting this autumn. Featuring artwork from Paul Duffield the story is open-ended, running at around five pages a week, somewhat like a weekly British comic strip such as you might find in 2000AD – Warren notes that [...]

Continue reading...

Lost Girls video article

6. August 2007

Comments Off

SexTV has a video up on Top Shelf’s The Lost Girls, featuring Melinda Gebbie and Alan Moore discussing their ‘artistic porn’, the roots of the book, the role of early, confused sexual experiences and pointing out that sexual fantasy is just that, fantasy and shouldn’t be confused with reality (a distinction often lost on tabloid [...]

Continue reading...

Bat Segundo comics specials

6. August 2007

Comments Off

The quite excellent Bat Segundo literary podcast has a brace of recent shows online, including a chat with Austin Grossman, author of Soon I Will Be Invincible, the superhero prose novel I’ve recommended here a few times recently (an immensely enjoyable read, especially for comics fans) and a three-part series of podcasts recorded at the [...]

Continue reading...

Le Science Fiction

6. August 2007

Comments Off

Here’s something a little different – Lucas Moreno and and Marc Tiefenauer have created Utopod, a French language literature podcast exploring the best in science fiction being created in the French-speaking world. Once again I find myself wishing I’d kept up my French skills after school rather than letting them atrophy, then I could understand [...]

Continue reading...

Dandy Xtreme

4. August 2007

2 Comments

“Following extensive research, we discovered The Dandy readers were struggling to schedule a weekly comic into their hectic lives. They just didn’t have enough time. They’re too busy gaming, surfing the net or watching TV, movies and DVDs. They still enjoyed The Dandy, but if they were going to buy it themselves they expected more [...]

Continue reading...

Caricatures of religious sensitivity

3. August 2007

Comments Off

In the Courier International Joachim Tornau has a brief piece about visiting the Caricatura exhibition in Kassel, Germany, which now has over 650 works by 80 cartoonists. Tornau describes the exhibition as an “inventory of injured sensitivities”, with works including Klaus Stuttmann‘s cartoons which depicted the Iranian football team as suicide bombers and satirising German [...]

Continue reading...

What’s in a name?

3. August 2007

2 Comments

Walden Media and Fox have posted a trailer for Seeker: the Dark is Rising on YouTube, a movie adaptation based on the very popular and well-regarded fantasy novels for young adults by Susan Cooper. Another movie adaptation of a popular fantasy series, you might think, so what’s new? Well apparently there was a trailer up [...]

Continue reading...

Warhol in Edinburgh

3. August 2007

Comments Off

Not comics, but since it touches on some interesting visual art I thought I’d mention the large Andy Warhol exhibition which launches in Edinburgh this weekend, marking the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death. To mark the occasion the refined, neo-Classical exterior of the Royal Scottish Academy has been redecorated, with Andy’s trademark Campbell’s Soup [...]

Continue reading...

Comics stereotypes

3. August 2007

2 Comments

Glaurung Quena posted some material in Scans Daily from an old DC title, Adventure Comics #411, which has some delightfully ridiculous Scots stereotypes and a view of Scottish history almost as accurate as Braveheart’s: To be honest I am more amused than insulted – we’re well used to seeing Scots stereotyped in media from abroad, [...]

Continue reading...