The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

A snow-covered Alex Fitch takes time out from building his own chorus line of snowmen (to act as extras in his video entry for Britain’s Got Talent) to update us on the various radio and podcast shows he’s involved with over the next week or so; as usual check the Panel Borders site for more details and links to podcast archive versions of previous shows:

Strip! – Comica 2008, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast later on Panel Borders
Dickon Harris presents a trio of interviews recorded at last autumn’s Comica festival at the ICA; Dickon is talking to the winner – Julian Hanshaw – and runner-up – Isabel Greenberg – of 2008′s Observer / Jonathan Cape Graphic Short Story competition and to Tim Pilcher about his books on Erotic Comics.

I’m ready for my close-up: Julien Temple’s Eternity Man, tonight at 10.30pm on Resonance FM

In an interview recorded just before last week’s screening of The Eternity Man at the Barbican, Alex Fitch talks to director Julien Temple about his film of the modern opera by Dorothy Porter and Jonathan Mills. The Eternity Man tells the true story of Arthur Stace who wandered the streets of Sydney for two generations, writing the word “Eternity” in chalk on a myriad of surfaces and Temple’s film vividly brings to life this modern avatar of the Wandering Jew. Alex and Julien also talk about the director’s other work from Absolute Beginners to Pandaemonium and notions of combining fact and fiction on screen.

In the cinema...

Hectic Peelers: Azur et Asmar / The Princes’ Quest

Electric Sheep Magazine and Resonance FM’s monthly FREE film night at the Roxy Bar and Screen returns after a two month hiatus and we begin 2009′s season with a screening of Michel Ocelot’s acclaimed Azur et Asmar / The Princes’ Quest, a CGI tale of feuding brothers involved in a magical quest worthy of Scheherazade. After the screening, Electric Sheep assistant editor Alex Fitch will be talking to former animator Grant Rogers (Ducktails, Dogtanian, Father Christmas) about Ocelot’s work such as Kirikou and the Sorceress and the continuing interest in cut-out animation.

Coming soon:

Strip! – The work of Adrian Tomine, due on Resonance FM on February 12th at 5pm

Eagle Award winning writer and artist Tom Humberstone will be talking to American comic book creator Adrian Tomine about his work including his collections of short stories Summer Blonde and Sleepwalk which have just been published in the UK by Faber and Faber.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: The art of Ken Reid

In the last of this month’s quartet of shows about four generations of British Cartoonists, Alex Fitch talks to writers Alan Moore and Pat Mills about their favourite cartoonist, the late Ken Reid who drew Rodger the Dodger in the 1950s Beano and a variety of underrated strips in children’s comics such as Wham! and Whoopee! including the creepy classics Faceache and Frankie Stein, up until the 1980s…

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Hitchcock, Hyde and Houdini – the Magic of Classics

In an interview / Q & A recorded live at the Roxy Bar and Screen, Alex Fitch talks to magician Granville Markland about depictions of magic and magicians on the big screen, focusing on the work of Harry Houdini in such films as The Man from Beyond (1922) and the more recent blurring of fact and fiction in movies like The Prestige and The Illusionist. Also, Alex talks to musician and comedy writer Robin Warren from the band Liberation Jumpsuit about the recent BFI cinema rereleases of Hitchcock’s Notorious and Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde (1932) which combine suspense and eroticism to beguiling effect.