Jason's Blog, page 176

Some more sketches

And finally, more old heroes

This was a Danish translation of Jaime Hernandez' Locas stories, published in an album format. Gilbert's Heartbreak Soup was also translated. The first issue of Love and Rockets I bought was number 17. And yes, me too, I had a crush on Maggie.

I had several of the Holt, Rinehart and Winston Peanuts books. I've later bought the Fantagraphics books, but I've chosen to hold on to these softcovers. For one thing, the panels are bigger. Anyway, it's still a masterpiece.

To end this series of comics I read in the 80s, during my teens and early twenties, I have to go back to Tintin. It's still the major influence on how I draw, and for anyone who wants to learn how to tell a story in pictures, I think you can do a lot worse than study the work of Hergé.

Well, whaddayaknow, more old heroes

Joes's Bar by Munoz and Sampayo impressed me with it's bleakness. And of course the expressiveness of Munoz' drawings. The Alec Sinner albums are also great.

What was the first graphic novel is a debate still going on, but for what was the first important graphic novel, the answer is clearly Maus. Together with Epileptic and Jimmy Corrigan, it's the holy trinity of graphic novels, showing the way it can be done. I've never cried from reading a comic, but must confess I came pretty close reaching that final page of Vladek and Anja finally meeting again.

I'm not sure how well the historical saga Passengers of the Wind has aged, but I enjoyed the five album series when it first came out. Well drawn and impressivly researched, but Bourgeon, the old fox, was careful to always include some nudity in each album.

Still more, is he ever gonna shut up?, old heroes

I've mentioned Jean Giraud, the artist of Blueberry. I should also mention the work he did under the name Moebius. Reading The Airtight Garage for the first time was pretty amazing. He also did this book, Le Bandard Fou. The John Difool albums he did with Jodorowsky I found to be a bit less interesting.

Don Martin was an idol at that time, when I was doing strips and cartoons for a humour magazine.The above book was a big softcover collection of some of his best strips.

Berni Wrightson was another artist, like Barry Smith, whose drawings I tried to copy, without much luck. In Denmark Swamp Thing was published in the European album format and in black and white.

Even more old heroes

We're still talking about the early 80s here. The two best Francobelgian artists at the time was Jean Giraud and Hermann. If Giraud was Beatles, then Hermann was Rolling Stones. Or Star Wars and Alien, if you want. Actually, Hermann has something in common with Ridley Scott, the way he tells the story visually, and the way he fills the panel with details. Bernard Prince was sort of an update of Terry and the Pirates. Besides Bernard Prince and the Western series Comanche that he did with the writer Greg, there was also the After The Catastrophe series Jeremiah and the Middle Ages series The Towers of Bois Maury that he did alone.

One of the earliest Francobelgian comics I discovered, besides Tintin and Lucky Luke, was Gaston Lagaffe or Viggo as he was called in Norwegian, by Franquin, the artist of the classic adventure strip Spirou. Gaston was a humour strip, a series of one page gags. Personally I prefer the early strips, like above, still fairly restrained compared to the later ones.

At that time I sold strips and cartoons to a Norwegian humour magazine called Konk. A lot of the money I earned went to buy comics, usually ordered from Denmark. One favourite would be Barry Smith and his Conan stories. I'd try to copy his drawings, but of course fail miserably.

A cover for Bild & Bubbla...

...the Swedish magazine about comics. They did an interview with me some years ago.

More old heroes

In the early eighties I used to order albums from Denmark that hadn't been translated into Norwegian. One of them was The Ballad of The Salt Sea, by Hugo Pratt, where Corto Maltese makes his first appearance. It's one of the first graphic novels (before that term was invented!), and it's still a great book. Pratt's drawings are just as fresh today. The book has been published in both black and white and in colour, but I really reccommend the black and white version.

Storm P (1882-1949) was a Danish cartoonist. I had several collections of his drawings and really enjoyed his characters and the inventiveness of his drawings.

Whereas the Blueberry series was influenced by the Ford and Hawks westerns, the Jonathan Cartland series was closer to the revisionist westerns of the 70s, like A Man Called Horse and Little Big Man. The drawings by Blanc-Dumont were detailed, but slightly frozen. The first four or five albums were quite good. I especially remember this one, La riviere du vent, having an effective cliffhanger at the end, and then unfortunately the later albums were less interesting.

Old heroes

This was one of the first graphic novels I read: Silence by Comès. It was originally published in (A suivre), and then collected in a book. The version I read was the Danish one. It's a very powerful story, drawn in striking black and white images, that really deserves to be translated into English.

I really enjoyed the Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu comics drawn by Paul Gulacy, a very appealing mix of James Bond and martial arts. I never had all the issues of his run, and I think the ones I had I've managed to lose, so the publication of a complete collection would be nice.
Serge Clerc was a hero of mine, and I still enjoy his drawings a lot. There was a book of his drawings, Mémoires de l'Espion published by Les Humanoides Associés in the 80s, that might be difficult to find now, but that really blew my mind when I first saw it. On the net I found this drawing of his based on Dan Clowes' Lloyd Llewellyn.

The Gift

Cate Blanchett is a psychic. She is asked by the police to help find a missing woman. Also starring Keanu Reeves as the least convincing redneck ever - where's Sam Rockwell when you need him? - and Giovanni Ribisi. Co-written by Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Sam Raimi.

Another Southern Gothic by Thornton, but less successfull than Sling Blade. Raimi's earlier film A Simple Plan was also better. One problem is that the film falls between two chairs. It neither works as a horrorfilm or as an indiefilm type portrayal of life in the South. The psychic stuff is hard to believe, but you can sort of accept it. The ending however goes one step further, and instead of being profound it's just silly. Blanchett is good in her role, though, and the film was maybe necessary for Raimi on his way to do the Spider-Man movies.

... and some more