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MIKE WIERIGNO

Sadly comic book artist, Mike Wieringo, passed away this Sunday of a sudden heart attack. Wieringo was 44 years old.

John Siuntres of the excellent World Balloon has posted a tribute to the life and career of Wieringo, an interview from 2005.

ANIMATION TREASURES!

Drop what you're doing and go check this amazing blog out.

THE SELFISH GIANT

I love how the selfish giant's castle is sign posted! Thanks to Colin Fawcett for pointing me in the direction of this gem. I rather like the background art and snow and frost and the Wagnerian accompaniment to the arrival of the north wind and hail.... in short, lovely stuff.

THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL

The Little Match Girl was the last film made by Disney to use CAPS,Disney's digital ink & paint system. The film was supposed to be a part of Fantasia 2006 (The Music Project) which was canceled.

It also features the glorious music of Alexander Borodin (String Quartet No. 2 in D Major: Third Movement: Notturno, Andante).

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER ANIMATED PREVIEW

Justice League: New Frontier Animated Preview. Very much looking forward to seeing this. Thanks to Will Kane for the heads up.

A NEW DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? *HERE BE SPOILERS* (UPDATED)

Rumor has it, via The Sun (which, while not particularly reliable for any other sort of news, has proved to be right on more than one occasion regarding the new series of Doctor Who) says that James Nesbitt is the next shoe-in for the role of The Doctor in BBC's Doctor Who.

James Nesbitt currently appears in BBC's Jekyl, which I've managed to completely miss (but my sister assures me that she'll be getting me it on DVD for my Birthday), which is written by Doctor Who writer (and one of the best writers of the show) Steve Moffat. Interesting. I've not really seen James Nesbitt in anything but Cold Feet and Yellow Pages commercials so we shall see, but it certainly seems to make sense to me. I wonder if all planets have a County Antrim also and Nesbitt will be keeping his accent? David Tennent is expected to leave at the end of season 4 as is, rumor has it, Russel T Davies who will apparently stand down as show runner, and Moffat is rumored to be taking over the reigns (which, given how terrific "Empty Child", "Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink" have been can only be a good thing).

UPDATE: According to Outpost Gallifrey, Steve Moffat has chimed in on the discussion forum there, saying:

The James Nesbitt story is a total fabrication. Made up. A fantasy. Just a guy sitting at a desk and just inventing stuff.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm getting embarrassed for the deeply wonderful Jimmy Nesbitt. So tell everyone please, cos it's getting very silly.

Steven Moffat

So, the James Nesbitt story has been denied, but I notice no denial of Steve Moffat taking over as show runner! Could it be?

OVER THE HILL AT RUSHES SOHO SHORTS FESTIVAL

“Over The Hill” is appearing in its first festival; Rushes Soho Shorts which takes place in and around Soho cinemas and venues this week. We heard yesterday that the film is a finalist in the Animation category, which is excellent news. The film will also be showing at the Edinburgh festival later this month.

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!!!!

We're laughing now, but ... please tell me people have heeded the warnings from films like Terminator, The Matrix and I Robot?

HE'S BACK - INDIANA JONES AT COMIC-CON 2007

MOON

This weeks Illustration Friday Topic is "Moon".

D'ISRAELI

Met up with comic artist Matt Brooker (D'Israeli) for elevenses yesterday at the Malt Cross. Great to meet up with him at long last. Daleks did crop up in conversation. Go check out his wonderful blog. He often posts about his work process, and if you scroll down the sidebar you'll notice he has an indispensable section called "Tools, Materials & Resources". Go check it out now.

FISCHERKOESEN FEST

A while back I posted about Hans Fisherkoesen's Verwitterte Melodie (Weather-beaten Melody), well here's some more from Hans Fisherkoesen. The first film here is The Snowman which again shows off some very early 3D techniques as Verwitterte Melodie did.

And here are some of FisherKoesen's commercial, from which the Philips light bulb commercial is perhaps my favorite. Enjoy!

YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!

Hell is the second song from The Tiger Lillies album "Births, Marriages and Deaths". The Tiger Lillies are the greatest. My wife and I were fortunate enough to catch "Shockheaded Peter" when it was on at Drury Lane. An amazing spectacle it was too. They're a three piece from London who cite Gypsy music, Russian music, Greek folk, Blues, Italian Opera, Kurt Weil, 30's Berlin cabaret, French chanson, Flamenco as their influences. Their songs are about blasphemy, murder, criminals, prostitution etc, all delivered with darkly comedic aplomb.

THE NEW FRONTIER

The New York Times has the first image from "The New Frontier", a straight to DVD animated adaptation of Darwyn Cooke's funny book mini series of the same name. Due to be released in February 2008 and previewed at the up coming San Diego Comic-con.

According to the original article neither Wonder Woman nor Lois Lane (who make prominent appearances in the comic) were in the first three drafts of the adaptation. So the above image is somewhat reassuring, as is the following from Mister Cooke himself.

“It’s much more complete than I would have thought,” Mr. Cooke said. “Even things we dropped, we reference in scenes. It won’t interrupt the story for people who don’t know, but for someone who has read the book, it’ll hit that trigger and be there for them.”

Lucy Lawless stars as Wonder Woman, Steven Blum as Batman, David Boreanaz as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Kyle MacLachlan as Clark Kent/Superman.

Superman: Doomsday, the first of three straight to DVD animated adaptations (of which "The New Frontier" is the second) is due out in September 2007 and features the voices of Adam Baldwin as Clark Kent/Superman, Anne Heche as Lois Lane and James Marsters as Lex Luthor.

The third film in the line "Teen Titans: The Judas Contract" is set for a 2008 release.

COCKED, LOCKED, AND READY TO ROCK!

I am back after a week long holiday with my wife and son by the Norfolk coast. We managed to catch some sun! Feeling slightly shattered now after driving through torrential rain. It's good to be home.

INDIANA JONES AND THE T-SHIRT JAKe DESIGNED

First thing this morning I thought I'd stroll by the Indiana Jones front desk to check out any stirrings and sure enough, they've posted a clip of Harrison Ford as Doctor Jones. All tremendously exciting stuff, naturally, seeing Harrison Ford donning the hat again, but much more exciting than any of that, and something that had me spitting out my cereal in surprise was to see George Lucas wearing a Han Solo t-shirt designed by JAKe Steel!! A "Han Shot First" t-shirt no less!

MOOMINS - OPOWIADANIA MUMINKÓW

Often referred to as the 'fuzzy felt Moomins', this was the third production of five to make it to TV screens. It was made in Poland (Opowiadania Muminków) by Film Polski for Polish, Austrian and German television and later sold to the UK (among other places) where I think it really benefited from another integral ingredient, the voice of Richard Murdoch.

The series has been collected onto DVD. There are a 100 English episodes in all, edited down into 5 minute episodes from their original 78 x 30 minute episodes but you can watch the original episodes also (in German and sans Richard Murdoch's wonderful voice).

For more on Tove Jansson's Moomins I recommend you visit Brian Sibley's Ex Libris blog where he's written a wonderful piece about the books and their author.

THE LITTLE STORY ON THE BIG STORY

The Big Story. This brilliant short film was carried with the screening of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction upon its theatrical release in the UK.

Tim Watts (one of the directors and animators of the film) , a fellow Kingstonian alumni, came back to Kingston when I was studying there and gave a talk about his work, which included The Big Story. We even got to see pencil tests for the film which you can view by clicking this link.

Tim told us that originally they'd tried to contact Kirk Douglas himself to get him to do the voices but eventually got through to one of Kirk's sons (I cannot recall which) who said Kirk wasn't available to do the voice, but all was not lost. Tim and David where advised by one of Kirk's sons to get hold of Frank Gorshin and get him to do it because apparently, according to them Frank Gorshin could do a better Kirk Douglas than Kirk Douglas. As was testimony in a short clip Tim showed us of one of Gorshin's impersonation routines where he pretends to be both Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. For an example of Gorshin's talents outside of playing the Riddler in the Batman TV series watch the following clip.

ETHAN HAAS WAS RIGHT (UPDATED)

Right now, the internet is abuzz with news of JJ. Abrams monster movie Cloverfield, a Blue Harvest smoke screen title for a movie barely anyone knows anything about. The movie has an estimated budget of $30 million and began filming last month in New York. A teaser trailer appeared before Transformers and a viral campaign is under way in order to build hype. There's also a puzzle website which presents you with 5 puzzles that unlock a series of video messages and then leaves you with a code you can use on August 1st when I'm guessing more stuff will be revealed (the puzzles are all relatively easy, it's just the interface makes it all look like hard work).

The teaser trailer is a heck of a tease, showing a group of people at a party when a thunderous roar outside halts celebrations. News channels are seen reporting the disturbance. Revelers spill out onto the street and see a large rolling ball of flame down town and the statue of liberty's severed head lands in the street as people scatter. It's noted on some sites that the ball of flame is an explosion but to me it looks like a rolling ball of flame, like an abstract monster from H. P. Lovecraft's mythos (there's a lot of talk that this all has something to do with Great Cthulhu, but he wasn't available for comment when I called). That's the great thing about this teaser, you don't really see a great deal of detail, and really you're at the mercy of the panicked camera operator given as the whole teaser appears to have been filmed on a mobile phone-camera. So you're left to fill in a lot of the gaps and that's the best bit. It's terrific.

There's also this site (click the link), which is basically the film's release date, and it has snap shots from what I can only assume is the party in the teaser. I read somewhere online that someone had checked the registration for the site and it belongs to the Freemasons and one Albert Pike. Which sounds like the people in charge of this campaign are either incredibly clever and that there's a wealth of information if anyone cares to dig deep enough, or people are reading too much into what little information there is out there. Some people have even taken the photo of the two frightened young women that appears on the 1-18-08 site and spliced their faces together in the hope that this is some sort of clue, and others are seeing the devil's face inbetween the two women. I think its more of a coincidental simulcrum myself, but it goes to show what an effect this pre-movie buzz campaign is having.

The problem with a lot of stuff like this is that the 'mystery' can often be greater than the truth. And it's largely because people build in their own conclusions. They imagine a far greater payload than the initial idea can deliver and so when the initial idea reveals its payload it usually doesn't reach spec. VAL LEWTON WAS RIGHT. Never show the payload (or in Lewton's case, never show the cat people). The mystery is the monster.

UPDATE: You can watch the teaser trailer here (click for the link). Seeing the severed head of the statue of Liberty really does evoke memories of "Escape from New York".

Yet another 'interpreted' rumor going around now is that the monster of the movie (which has been referred to as "the Parasite"), is in fact a Lion. If you listen carefully, just after the scene on the staircase as people spill out onto the street, you'll hear someone say, very quickly "I saw it, it's alive, it's huge". At least that's how I hear it. But some people are hearing the words "a Lion" in place of "a live", and drawing the conclusion that the monster is some sort of lion.

"Nice thinkin', Ray."

UPDATE PART DEUX: The rumor mill concerning JJ Abrams' untitled film thunders on. This time in JJ Abrams drops Harry Knowles a line over at Aintitcool.

So according to JJ Abrams, the Ethan Haas puzzle site has nothing to do with his film. The Ethan Haas puzzle site certainly has all the trappings of a video game. At one point I even suspected it might be the launch for a new MMORPG as the mysterious video message guy says "What role you will play, and how you live or die, is completely up to you." Time will tell.

UPDATE PART III: Ethan Haas Was Right, it turns out, really isn't marketing for JJ Abrams Cloverfield. It's marketing for a game called Alpha Omega by Mindstorm labs, which is an RPG. So there you have it.

With regard to JJ Abrams Cloverfield, it's also been said that it is not "a sequel or a remake". Which rules out "Zombie Kong"!