The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Can it be Thursday again already? It must be, for here is Alex Fitch to tell us about the radio and podcast shows he is involved with this week; as usual check the Panel Borders site for more details and links to archived podcasts of previous shows:

Strip!: Adapting prose for manga, games and genre comics, tonight on Resonance FM at 5pm, extended podcast on Panel Borders after transmission

Concluding adaptation and inspiration month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to writer and graphic designer Antony Johnston about combining text and image in comics and other media from his illustrated novella Frightening Curves to enriching the computer game he scripted – Dead Space – with a comic book prequel and interactive websites. Alex and Antony also talk about the latter’s influences, writing the new Wolverine Manga and adapting the prose work of Alan Moore and Anthony Horowitz into comic book format.

Electric Sheep Magazine Podcast: The current state of gay cinema, online on 3rd of June

A special ‘feature length’ episode of the Electric Sheep podcast looking at modern gay filmmaking and reappraisal of classic proponents of the genre who are producing new work. ESM editor Virginie Selavy talks to renowned experimental directors Kenneth Anger and Monkia Treut about their work, Chris Patmore talks to Paul Morrison about his film Little Ashes which sees a fictionalised version of the relationship between Salvador Dali (played by Twilight’s Robert Pattinson) and Federico García Lorca hit the screen and ESM assistant editor Alex Fitch reviews recent examples of gay cinema including Little Ashes, Cthulu and the London Lesbian and Gay film festival.

Electric Sheep film club: Audition

Japanese enfant terrible Takashi Miike’s most notorious work remains genuinely shocking. The story of a middle-aged man who, following his son’s advice, holds auditions to find a new wife is the pretext for an exploration of fantasy, desire, cruelty and obsession that is as visually beautiful as it is gruesomely disturbing.

The film will be followed by an informal discussion with Electric Sheep writers in the bar. Price: £5 / £3.50 Prince Charles members; Certificate 18 Dir: Takashi Miike, Japan 1999. 8pm, Prince Charles Cinema, 7 Leicester Place, London, WC2H 7BY

Previous podcasts:

Panel Borders: Adapting the classics – Klimowski and Schejbal

Continuing adaptation and inspiration month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to the illustrators of some recent literary adaptations in comic book format. Self Made Hero is a relatively new publishing company who have made a name for themselves with their range of Manga Shakespeare adaptations and are now doing European style graphic novels of literary classics. Alex talks to Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal, their illustrators and adaptors of The Master and Margarita and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (reviewed here).

Panel Borders: Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Grey by Ian Culbard

Continuing adaptation and inspiration month on the show, Alex talks to Ian Culbard, illustrator of Ian Edginton’s adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray (reviewed here) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (reviewed here) about his art style, getting into the business via Dark Horse comics and artistic licence in adaptation to a different medium…