Back in the summer of 2006, towards the end of an interview with Bryan Talbot I asked him about an artist he was working with, Véronique Tanaka, who had approached him at Angoulême and was creating Metronome, which had been described as a ‘graphic poem’. Bryan replied :”It’s actually much more like music than a poem. It has a rhythm, a constant beat, and visual themes that are repeated, like phrases in a musical piece. It’s very hypnotic. It’s a sixty-four page “silent” comic and it occurred to me that it would work just as well as an animation – one comic frame to one animation frame, one second each – so I’m slowly compiling it like that and will make it available as a Flash animation on the internet.”
From the little I could see – the half French, half Japanese fine artist is quite mysterious and in fact ‘Véronique Tanaka’ isn’t even her real name – and from what Bryan told me I was quite intrigued and wanted to see more. Fast forward to 2008 and thought meets deed in the form of an animated look at Metronome now live and up on the web. Better still, it is up there to promote awareness of an upcoming graphic novel version of Metronome which NBM will be publishing in the spring. NBM’s site has a three-minute clip of the animation, but for a very limited time it is possible to see the entire seventeen-minute version online here – enter code 04545 to access it. I think this looks fascinating, different and unusual and it will be going on my ‘to buy’ list and frankly if Bryan Talbot is telling you it is good then it should be going on everyone’s watch list. (thanks to Bryan for the link)
(preview panels from Metronome, borrowed from the NBM website and (c) Véronique Tanaka)
Mon, Jan 21, 2008
Art and animation