Bo Bigelow's Blog, page 15
April 20, 2012
April 14, 2012
This Will Ripen In The Sun
Rough version. Copyright Bo Bigelow 2012.
Citroen (rough cut)
This is my rough cut of "Citroën." Stay tuned for more from Pineapple Humidor.
February 29, 2012
The Wire, but in paperback
This past week I got my hands on What it Was, the latest novel by George Pelecanos. He wrote and produced for the HBO show The Wire, which is sometimes called the greatest show to ever be on TV.
Now, to be honest, I'm late coming to The Wire. I don't have HBO, and I only recently started watching the DVDs this year. I just finished season one, which aired in 2002.
Brief aside: I did the same thing with Daft Punk's 2001 album Discovery; my discovery of that one wasn't until about 2010, when I called friends and said, "Have you heard of this Daft Punk? It's great stuff." And much eye-rolling ensued.
But anyway, Pelecanos and The Wire. If The Wire isn't the best show ever to be on TV, it's definitely one of them. One thing I love is the way it introduces its characters. We hear drug dealers talking--about Baltimore takeout food, or Timberland boots, or whatever. They're real conversations. The writing puts you there, with them, in the room or on the street. Unlike intro scenes on other shows, the characters don't say each other's names a million times, because that's not how men speak to each other in real life. Then, as the police investigation deepens, drug dealers' names start to come up more and more, mostly when the cops are talking about who they're targeting: Wee-Bey, Stinkum, Wallace. And later, events gradually unfold in order to show you which guy is Wee-Bey, which is Stinkum, and which is Wallace. Aside from making you care about the people in the show, it has this other cool effect: you get to know them in pieces, so you know what food they eat before you even know their names. In other words, you're finding out about them in the same way the cops on the show are finding out.
As soon as I started the new Pelecanos book, I felt that old feeling from The Wire. It's D.C., not Baltimore, but I feel like I'm there, in the bar with these two characters, from the moment the first guy says anything, because the dialogue is spot-on. For example, at one point a junkie, fearing his impending death (correctly, as it turns out), says: "The reaper 'bout to come at me, Frank." It's the way men actually talk. And in true TV-writer style, Pelecanos pares down his scenes to show just enough, but not too much--sometimes only two sentences of dialogue, followed by a knowing nod. And I love how Pelecanos makes me follow these men around the city as they go about their business, so I can see what they wear and drive, how they smoke their cigarettes, what kind of lighter they use, and what sort of women they woo.
It's simply a great way to tell a story.
And have you guys heard of this show Seinfeld? So funny!
Inking takes a long time.
Here is page one of my new graphic novel, The Loop. It's freshly inked. Estimated release date for The Loop: 2054.
