Old sketches

I found these sketches, from a story idea I was working on long ago, before Why Are You Doing This?, but that never happened. Maybe some day...

Detective Story

A panel from the book I'm currently working on.

PAF!

A drawing done for Glen David Gold who wrote a very kind blurb for the back cover of Low Moon. It's based on the cover of his novel Carter Beats The Devil.

Frank Miller

Top five Frank Miller books:
1. Batman Year One, with David Mazzucchelli
2. Ronin
3. Daredevil - Born Again, with David Mazzucchelli
4. Elektra Lives Again
5. Dark Knight Returns

Batman Year One is number one. It's still a great comic. The first thing I ever read by Miller was Ronin number 3, and it really blew my mind. I knew nothing about Japanese comics and Lone Wolf and Cub, I thought it was all Frank Miller. It's interesting to see Miller work his way through his idols here, Goseki Kojima, Moebius and Hugo Pratt. It's uneven, but the book has a lot of ambition, something that is missing in the later Sin City books. I was actually a bit disappointed by Dark Knight Returns, since it was a lot less visual and cinematic than Ronin. Elektra Lives Again is also a great book, with very moody colouring by Lynn Varley.

Interview

There's a new interview with me on The Casual Optimist, here:
http://www.casualoptimist.com/2011/10/27/q-a-with-jason/

Rain Songs

Ah, it's raining... Okay, top five songs about rain!
1. Rain, Martin Stephenson & the Daintees
2. Tinseltown in The Rain, The Blue Nile
3. Famous Blue Raincoat, Leonard Cohen
4. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, Burt Bacharach
5. Why Does It Always Rain On Me?, Travis

Paula Frazer

Gotten hooked on this artist, Paula Frazer. I found and played Mirador by Tarnation, a cd I've had a long time, but haven't played in years, googled the name, and discovered she's done several solo records, all with an angelic voice that can make a grown man cry, in his beer or not.

Phantom Lady

I like these old comic book covers for Phantom Lady, the pulp/cheesecake quality.

Tom Waits

Top five Tom Waits albums:
1. Swordfishtrombones
2. Heartattack and Vine
3. Rain Dogs
4. Small Change
5. The Heart of Saturday Night

It's difficult to choose only five, since Tom Waits hasn't really done any bad albums, even though I must confess I don't re-listen to some of the later stuff, like Alice and Blood Money, that often.

Kaurismäki interview

A short but good interview with Aki Kaurismäki about his new film Le Havre can be found here: http://www.indiewire.com/article/2011/10/20/interview_le_havre_director_aki_kaurismaeki_im_not_interested_in_the_upper_

Howard Hawks

Top five Howard Hawks films:
1. Rio Bravo
2. His Girl Friday
3. Only Angels Have Wings
4. The Big Sleep
5. Bringing Up Baby

Giallo actresses

Top five:
1. Edwige Fenech
2. Barbara Bouchet
3. Rosalba Neri
4. Femi Benussi
5. Susan Scott / Nieves Navarro

Magritte meets Hopper

Tintin

Top five Tintin albums:
1. The Seven Crystal Balls
2. The Shooting Star
3.The Broken Ear
4. The Blue Lotus
5. King Ottokar's Sceptre

The Black Island is also very good - the 1943 edition, not the updated, redrawn version.

Magritte 3

John Ford

Top five John Ford films:
1. The Searchers
2. My Darling Clementine
3. She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
4. The Quiet Man
5. Grapes of Wrath

Napoleon

Hopper 2

Edward Hopper

Bob Dylan

Top five Bob Dylan albums:
1. Blood on The Tracks
2. John Wesley Harding
3. Highway 61 Revisited
4. Bringing It All Back Home
5. Another Side of Bob Dylan

Robot Monster

Waterboys

Top Five Waterboys songs:
1. Red Army Blues
2. This Is The Sea
3. The Whole of The Moon
4. A Bang on The Ear
5. Raggle Taggle Gypsy

Pretty hard to choose! Be My Enemy should also be somewhere on the list. Five favourite albums would be a lot easier: The first five ones, from The Waterboys to Room to Roam.

Magritte 2

Billie Holiday

Top five Billie Holiday songs:
1. You go to my head
2. That ole devil called love
3. Gloomy Sunday
4. He's funny that way
5. I cover the waterfront

René Magritte

New story

After three months of doing pretty much nothing, basically just staring off into space, I've started a new story. It's sort of a detective story, I guess. I've just begun, so I don't know yet if it will turn into something. I'm a bit worried that just posting about it might jinx it. Hopefully, by the end of the year I should know if it will be a book or not.

Pompel and pilt

Tv show I grew up watching as a kid in Norway - it traumatized an entire generation. The two main characters can be found in two stories I did, in Pocket Full of Rain: the title story and a mash-up of this show and X-files.

... and the back cover

Tell Me Something Cover...

The front cover for the Swedish version of Tell Me Something.

James Bond

Top Five James Bonds:
1. Sean Connery
2. Daniel Craig
3. Roger Moore
4. George Lazenby
5. Pierce Brosnan

Sorry, Timothy Dalton!

Paul Auster

Top five Paul Auster books:
1. Moon Palace
2. The Invention of Solitude
3. The New York Triology
4. Music of Chance
5. Squeeze Play

Thor

Thor is the God of Thunder, son of yadda yadda yadda, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Sigh... I was hoping to enjoy this film. I thought Iron Man and Dark Knight were pretty good, entertaining films. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit? The film loses me with that boring fight between Thor and those ice creatures or whatever, and it doesn't get much better. Shouldn't a film like this be a bit fun? The script is weak, the editing is awkward. Who are these people, and why should I care? There are fights, but you don't really know what's at stake. The film apparently did quite well financially, but it has all the signs of a flop: There is nothing really funny or exciting, and you just sit there passively watching, never feeling any connection to what is happening. It has one good scene: the one where Thor has learned his lesson of humility and he finally gets his hammer back. One moment there it felt like a real movie.

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Buster Keaton is the effete son of a riverboat captain who falls in love with the daughter of a competing steamship captain. It's still a great film. It has the usual love story, but the film is also a father and son story, with Buster wanting recognition from his dad. The lack of sentimentality makes the film less dated than some of Chaplin's films, and Keaton's stoneface also makes the film strangely modern. There are lots of great scenes: The one where the wall falls on top of Keaton and he is saved by the window, of course, but also the buying the hat with his dad scene and the file in bread in the prison scene.

Pop songs, the 80s

Okay, let's get down to business. Top five pop songs of the eighties. Ah, let's make it top ten:

1. Perfect Skin by Lloyd Cole and The Commotion
2. Come On, Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners
3. Sally MacLennane by The Pogues
4. Centerfold by J. Geils Band
5. Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and The Waves
6. This Charming Man by The Smiths
7. Just Got Lucky by The JoBoxers
8. Roam by B52s
9. Let My People Go Go by The Rainmakers
10. Get Out of Your Lazy Bed by Matt Bianco

It's tough to choose! Where's Take on Me?! And I decided to go for rather poppier songs, so that means no In The Neighborhood by Tom Waits or Tinseltown in The Rain by The Blue Nile.

Buster Keaton

Happy birthday, Buster Keaton! He was born October 4, 1895. Which means that it's a good time to re-watch one of his films. I'll have to search among my dvds, but Steamboat Bill, Jr. is always a good choice.

David Sylvian

Top five David Sylvian / Japan records:
1. Secrets of the Beehive
2. Rain Tree Crow
3. Brilliant Trees
4. Gone to Earth
5. Tin Drum

Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities is also pretty good, at least what was the A side of the record.

Meow, baby!

Here's a page from a monthly Norwegian comic book of Gary Larson cartoons that had some other strips in the back. It's from 2003. I had a page in each issue.

Totem

The wraparound cover for a French fanzine about animal characters in comics, published by the comic book store La Bulle d'Or in Brussels, 2004.