cats without dogs

Wild Bill, Jesse James and JFK...

2012-02-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

...walk into a bar...

Wild Bill by Walter Hill is the biggest disappointment. This is the same guy who made The Long Riders? Why does it look like a rock video? There are constant flashbacks in black and white, shot in Dutch angles, interrupting the story. It's not even much of a story. None of the dialogues or characters ring true. There's an annoying narration by John Hurt, that doesn't really contribute that much. Jeff Bridges does the best he can, but even he can't save this film.

JFK. Well, you have to pay attention, I'll give it that. There are lots of names and facts to remember. But the film has some of the same MTV feel as Wild Bill, with constant, blurry black and white flashbacks showing what the characters are talking about. And subtle has never been Oliver Stone's middle name. It's a bit tiring in the end. Kevin Costner is okay, but I feel sorry for Sissy Spacek, who has to do the You're never home, the kids never see you thing. Until Bobby Kennedy is killed, and then she's all You go get them, tiger.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, by Philip Kaufman, starring Robert Duvall as Jesse James and Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger. It's a quirky revisionist western, that even has a baseball match. It's fun to see all the different versions of the Jesse James story and the Northfield bank robbery. And then to check out wikipedia and find out that Jesse James probably wasn't even present that time. But the legend is often more interesting than the facts, and if so, for me, The Long Riders is still the best version.

Doodle guy

2012-02-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

Just some drawing, I'm not sure what it is. A self portrait? Probably...

Another one

2012-02-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

...drawn some years later. The J'azzz signature didn't last long.

An old cartoon...

2012-01-31T03:30:00.000-08:00

...drawn 30 years ago, before I started using Jason as a pseudonym. 30 years?!? Yes, time to buy that porsche and get those hair implants...

Used dvds bought in Paris

2012-01-28T09:10:00.000-08:00

1. Matewan
2. The Graduate
3. Hearts of Darkness
4. Open Your Eyes
5. Jeremiah Johnson
6. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid
7. JFK
8. Wild Bill
9. Carnal Knowledge

I've been looking for a copy of Matewan, so finding one for one euro was a catch. It's a fullscreen version, which is a bit annoying, but still...

A signing

2012-01-25T01:13:00.000-08:00

No Angoulême for me this year, but I'll have a signing at the bookstore Super Heros in Paris, on Friday 27, at 5 o' clock.

Girl Reading

2012-01-24T01:02:00.000-08:00

Another drawing from the early 80s. Ah, a Rubik's cube!

Corto sketches

2012-01-23T01:42:00.000-08:00

Pen sketches copied from Ballad of The Salt Sea by Hugo Pratt, around 83, 84.

Snoopy

2012-01-22T02:48:00.000-08:00

Drawing from around 82 or 83, I'd guess, copied from a Peanuts strip. It should have been put up on my other site, The Old Cat and The Dog, but there is not much happening there.

Blow Out

2012-01-20T00:40:00.000-08:00

A conspiracy thriller where sound recordist John Travolta might have evidence that a presidential candidate has been assassinated. Also starring Dennis Franz at his sleaziest and Nancy Allen at her most vulnerable, directed by Brian De Palma.

Ah, De Palma... His two latest films, Black Dahlia and Redacted were pretty awful. I thought he was such an established director that he could afford a couple of flops, but there hasn't been any new film from him in several years. Give us one more masterpiece before you kick the bucket, okay? Blow Out is an homage to Antonioni's film, taking up themes that concern De Palma as well: reality, illusion and the lies underneath. There are several bravura sequences, one of them being Travolta finding out his tapes have been tampered with. There's also a pretty big plot hole. At some point Travolta just needs to take a phone call to find out something. He doesn't. It would have ruined the ending of the film, of course: A resigned sadness, that I'm not sure you can get away with in modern Hollywood films anymore.

Captain Easy

2012-01-18T01:55:00.000-08:00

A bit more depth in the characters would have been nice, but it's impossible not to enjoy the charm of Roy Crane's drawings. There's a fun to the stories that I miss a bit in current comics.

Blow-Up

2012-01-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

Photographer David Hemmings takes some pictures of a couple in a park. While developing the film he realizes he might have been witness to a murder. Also starring Vanessa Redgrave and in a small part Jane Birkin, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

Another slow art film, but actually, it's pretty good. It's an enigmatic thriller, where even the question of whether a crime has been committed or not isn't entirely certain. It doesn't explain anything of what is happening, something you will either find frustrating or appealing. Personally, I like that. It also captures a time and a place: Swinging London in the sixties.

A bit SPOILERish:

I've seen this film several times. I've always loved the ending with the imaginary tennis ball. It's one of my favourite movie endings. But watching it now, it's the first time I noticed this: After Hemmings throws "the ball" back, the camera stays on him, we don't see the mime tennis players anymore, but now we hear the sound of an actual tennis ball being hit. What is the significance? An indication that the whole thing took place in his head? Hmm...

Next: Blow Out

The Moderns

2012-01-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

Keith Carradine is a struggling artist in Paris in the 20s, agreeing to forge some paintings. Also starring Linda Fiorentino and Wallace Shawn, directed by Alan Rudolph.

Still haven't seen Midnight in Paris. There is no rush. I'll wait until I find it used or at half price. I re-watched this film, also taking place in that period, and with Hemingway and Gertrude Stein as supporting characters. I seem to remember liking it when I saw it in the cinema in the late 80s, but there's something annoyingly smug and clever about the film. It's slow and arty and ends up even more boring. It also feels a bit claustrophobic since it keeps reusing the same four or five sets. The characters are not someone you care about. And does it have to be so serious to be art? Put in a couple of jokes for chrissake!

The Long Riders

2012-01-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

Jesse James robs banks and is shot by Robert Ford. It's the one with all the brothers: Keith, David and Robert Carradine, James and Stacy Keach, Dennis and Randy Quaid and Christopher and Nicholas Guest. Also starring Harry Carey jr, from the John Ford westerns, Mr Blue and Pamela Reed. Directed by Walter Hill.

It's a great western - one of the last good ones. It's well written. The dialogue rings true, something that often is not the case in modern westerns. There's a great score by Ry Cooder. Actually, there are real musicians in the film, playing music. It used to bother me in the old Ford and Leone films, that the fiddler or whoever was clearly an actor faking it to prerecorded music. People are being shot in Peckingpah-ish slow motion. For being a Hill film, there's a surprisingly strong female character, Pamela Reed as Belle Starr. Okay, she's a whore, but still... Dennis Quaid plays the goofy brother, not Randy. David Carradine is badass as Cole Younger. Love the scene of the Swede trying to buy his horse, in the middle of a bank robbery. The horses through the windows scene is still impressive. There's even the cowboy being shot and falling off the roof scene!

The Duellists

2012-01-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

In Napoleonic France Harvey Keitel keeps duelling Keith Carradine. Also starring Albert Finney, directed by Ridley Scott.

Well, this is one gorgeous looking film - almost like a series of paintings come to life, often shot at magic hour, and with a convincing recreation of the time period. The fencing looks very realistic, far from the clearly choreographed Errol Flynn type of fencing. Keitel is intense, as usual, and I've always found Carradine to be an underestimated actor. The film has a sort of impressionistic storytelling - short scenes with big gaps in between - and is less Hollywood than Scott's later films. Actually, I would say it's his best film.

Hellboy

2012-01-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

... painted on a cigarette case.
Thanks, Nicolas Verstappen for the photo.

Aliens

2012-01-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

This one I saw in the cinema. In Norway it was censored. Several scenes, like Bishop being ripped in two, were cut. It's Cameron's second film, if you don't count Piranha 2, and his best one. I doubt he will make anything better. It's a pretty much perfect film. There's an element of Greek myth to it, the way Ripley goes down to the kingdom of death to get back the little girl. The characters are memorable. The budding relationship between Ripley and Hicks is never mushy. The fight between Ripley and the alien queen is intense. You can sort of see that some of the vehicles are models, but it doesn't take you out of the film the way bad CGI does. It probably should have been the only sequel. I don't know if anything would be lost in a world without Alien 3 and 4. Every alien film is basically one thing: people running down a corridor and the alien coming after them, and how many variations can you do on that?

Alien

2012-01-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

I wish I had seen this film in the cinema when it came out. 14 years old is a good age for seeing it, I think. Problem is, in Norway the film had a 15 years old age limit, and I was such a goody two-shoes kid that I never tried to sneak into a cinema. I read the comic book version of the film, though, by Walter Simonson, and when I eventually saw the film I was actually a bit disappointed by the chestburster scene. It just seemed more ferocious and gory in the comic.

Like Jaws it's a much better film than it had any right to be. Both Spielberg and Scott were young and hungry filmmakers. One can imagine what some old Hollywood hack would have done with the same script. One strenght of the film is that the characters actually seem like real people. They talk in a very natural, 70s film style, something that is completely lost in the later films, ending up with flat comic book characters in the fourth one. And yes, I'm a cartoonist using "comic book" as a negative term here, but anyway... Re-watching the film now, it's again strange to see how slow it is. Almost an hour passes before the monster is loose. The scene where the Tom Skerrit character, Dallas, is killed has sort of been a bit funny to me. When the alien stretches out his arms in that scene, in my head I hear Gotta dance! from Gene Kelly's Broadway number in Singing in the Rain. But that's probably just me.

Charles Addams

2012-01-08T02:08:00.000-08:00

Ah, one day too late. Charles Addams was born 100 years ago yesterday.

Three things

2012-01-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

1. I've had the latest phonebooks lying around - they've been there for almost a year, I guess. I was looking through the white pages for a name for one of the characters in my new comic, when I thought I should check if my name is there. And it is! My name is in a French phonebook! I was almost as excited as Steve Martin was in The Jerk.

2. After not being in a cinema for over a year I went and saw the new Mission Impossible. It's not bad. It's not as good as the first one. It's better than the second one. The setpieces are great. There is some character stuff, and the problem with that is that you don't really care about Tom Cruise as a character. You want to see him run and punch people out. The talky/feely scenes are a bit boring. Some of the gadgets in the film, like making the new agent being able to hover over the ground was a bit hard to believe in. And the bad guy was a bit boring. Wanting to start World War 3, the Bond villains stopped doing that in the seventies. The rabbit's foot, in the third one, was a better macguffin, even not knowing what the damn thing was.

3. For some reason I've been thinking about the duet that Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash did together, Girl from the North Country. There are one of two places during the song where one of them starts to sing one thing and the other something else, then they correct themselves. I've wondered why they didn't make a second take. But perfection can be boring. And that small mistake actually makes it more memorable, more human.

Lost Cat

2012-01-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

So, yes, Lost Cat. That will be the title. Here's the very first panel of the story.
Note to self: Erase the pages as you're finished inking them, because erasing hundred pages in a row is no fun.

Good Night, Athos

2012-01-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

There's a five page preview of Athos in America, at Robot 6, here:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/exclusive-preview-jasons-athos-in-america/

Night of the Demon

2012-01-03T02:53:00.001-08:00

Dana Andrews is investigating a devil cult in England, with the help of Peggy Cummins in this film, called Curse of the Demon in the US. Directed by Jacques Tourneur.

There's an interesting link to film noir with this film. Andrews did, among others, Laura, Cummins was memorable in Gun Crazy and of course Tourneur did Out of the Past. The film looks great, and has some creepy scenes - it's mostly psychological horror, based on mood and atmosphere, in the style of Tourneur's previous films like Cat People. There's a special effect involving smoke that is pretty impressive. Unfortunately the producer wanted to show the demon of the title, and well, he shouldn't have. It's obviously some rubber thing that completely breaks the tension. The film, or possibly the short story it was based on, might be an inspiration for Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell. The ending is similar, where the person who is cursed is trying to give the curse back.

Calef Brown

2012-01-01T23:53:00.001-08:00

Calef Brown is probably my favourite illustrator. He's done several great books for kids. His website: http://www.calefbrown.com/

TOCK

2011-12-29T11:48:00.000-08:00

Is it a real detective story if there isn't a scene where the detective gets the shit kicked out of him?
I think not.

Homage / Rip-off

2011-12-28T14:46:00.000-08:00

Still haven't seen Tintin. I guess I'll just wait for the dvd. Anyway, here's one of my favourite gags from from The Blue Lotus. Which I then ripped off in my book, Tell Me Something.

... Cat

2011-12-24T02:30:00.000-08:00

The Pianist

2011-12-23T03:29:00.000-08:00

Adrien Brody is Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish musician trying to survive in Warsaw during World War 2. Directed by Roman Polanski.

It's a tremendously powerful film. It's less sentimental than Schindler's List. I don't think there are any scenes in this film that could have been parodized on Seinfeld. Each time I watch films like this or documentaries about the holocaust, it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that this happened less than seventy years ago. It's impossible to imagine what Szpilman goes through. I normally like black and white films, but I think colour works best in this story. You are used to images in black and white from WW2, and this film being in colour brings the story closer. The film makes you lose faith in humanity, but at the same time, through Szpilman's survival, makes you believe in the human spirit.

Hostage

2011-12-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

Bruce Willis is a former police negotiator who gets the chance to redeem himself. Also starring Kevin Pollak and Ben Foster, directed by Florent Emilio Siri.

On the list of underestimated Bruce Willis films - it's a pretty short list - I think this one should be somewhere close to the top. There's something strange about this film, and it took me a while to realize what it was: It's a modern action film / police drama, but the camera isn't constantly spinning around for no reason. Sometimes it doesn't move at all! It's directed in a rather classic style by Siri, who also did the terrific French film Nid de Guêpes. It's the visual style that makes it worth watching, rather than the story that's not that much to brag about - they could have worked a bit more on the script. Bruce Willis is solid in his part and Ben Foster makes a convincing psycho. I'm sure he could spend the rest of his career doing those parts if he wants to. There is some violence towards small kids in the film that is a bit unpleasant. Also a pretty neat Sin City-ish title sequence.

Fanny and Alexander

2011-12-21T00:36:00.001-08:00

It's a bit hard to get much of a christmas feeling in the south of France, so what better than to re-watch Ingemar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, his part Scandinavian melancholia, part magic realism tale of a family in the early part of the previous century and a summing up of the director's oeuvre (Look, Ma, I used the word oeuvre!).

There are some funny differences between Norwegians and Swedes. Swedes like to sing drinking songs, something that Norwegians never do. And they often refer to each other in the third person when talking. Each time I watch this film I tell myself I should check out more of Bergman's earlier black and white films, but they have a reputation of being dark and depressing, so I never do. And where do I start? The Seventh Seal? Everything comes together for this film: The composition of the images, Sven Nykvist's cinematography, all the actors, even the two kids! and the script. A masterpiece, and the extended tv version is even better. Favourite parts: the escape, the puppet, the mummy, the scene with Ismael and Gustav's speach.

Terminator 2

2011-12-20T03:32:00.000-08:00

I was going to watch Seven Samurai, but what's with the yelling of all the lines of dialogue? I know it's a classic and everything, but do I need three hours of this? So I stoppet it after ten minutes and rather put on... Terminator 2! Arnold Schwarzenegger is the bad ter... no, wait, he's the good terminator. Directed by James Cameron.

The film came out in 91. It's 20 years old! I've reached the age where it's almost a bit depressing to watch films like this. Where did all the years go? Sigh... Well, anyway... Terminator 1 is a better, leaner film, I think. T2 has some fat in the middle. The part where they go to kill the computer guy drags a bit. Linda Hamilton's voiceover they could have skipped and Edward Furlong is a bit annoying. The CGI stuff is still pretty impressive, but it's also the beginning of the end in a way. It's all going downhill from here on, ending up in wall to wall CGI fests like Van Helsing. The pepsi product placement also ruins it a bit, always showing up in the best scenes, dammit! Cameron knows action, of course, but he's also good with the small details. Love the scene of the T 1000 waving his finger in a no, no sign.

The Unbelievable Truth

2011-12-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Adrienne Shelly is a depressed teenager waiting for the end of the world, Robert Burke is a mechanic with a history. Also starring Edie Falco from before The Sopranos, written and directed by Hal Hartley.

Hartley's debut film has the Hartley touch right from the beginning. No establishing shots and quirky dialogues. A small universe where the same people keep bumping into each other. Can you have faith in other people? People are only as good as the deals they make and keep. Hartley namedrops some of his heroes here: Molière and Victor Hugo. I believe the words ozone layer is mentioned in all of Hartley's three first films. It's the ozone layer triology? Why did Adrienne Shelly die so young and Paris Hilton is still alive, that's what I want to know. Hartley is an unfortunate name, because you can't say that Robert Burke is playing the typical Hartleyian hero. Or can you?

The quality of my dvd is pretty bad. The image is too bright. Strangely, some sequences from the film is repeated in the bonus Hartley interview, and there they look much better. Bit of a bummer.

Watching The Detectives

2011-12-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

I now got 100 pages begun - they're in various states of being lettered, pencilled, half finished and finished. That leaves around 45-50 pages left. I hope to have the thing finished in May for publication in French next fall and in English in spring, 13.

I like the books of Raymond Chandler and have been wanting to do something within the detective genre. Originally I had thought about doing a story in the US in the fourties, but found it might be better to have some distance, so it's rather set today in France. Also, it's more of a playful take on the genre, it's not completely straight, so maybe something a bit closer to Truffaut's Stolen Kisses. That's what I hope, anyway. We'll see how that turns out when the book is done. And the title? The title is two words, the first word is: Lost

Mission Impossible

2011-12-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Tom Cruise is a secret agent, some people die and things blow up. Directed by Brian De Palma.

There's a new Mission Impossible film on the way. I'll probably go see it. I enjoyed the third one, even if Abrams obviously comes from tv and is used to commercial breaks every ten minutes. There was a lot of action, but not really much tension. For an example of tension, see the CIA sequence in this film. Possibly, kids today will find it slow and boring, but anyway. The second film... Actually, let's not talk about the second film. Let's pretend it never happened. The first film is clearly a "one for them" film for De Palma, it's less personal, but it's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The opening scene, though, with the tv image showing something that is a setup is very much De Palma. Apparently Cruise and the producer didn't allow De Palma to do any split screens. Oh, well... Tom Cruise is kind of a selfconfident prick in his role, but he's a moviestar, I'll admit. The helicopter in the tunnel sequence at the end is pretty ridiculous, but when the theme tune kicks in it's hard not to sit there watching with a big grin on your face.

Jason + Lewis

2011-12-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

Illustration done with monsieur Lewis Trondheim for an interview in M, a Norwegian comic book, from 2007.

The Victors

2011-12-14T10:23:00.001-08:00

We follow a group of soldiers in Europe during World War 2. Starring George Peppard, George Hamilton, Jeanne Moreau, Melina Mercouri, Peter Fonda, Romy Schneider, Albert Finney and Eli Wallach, directed by Carl Foreman.

I discovered this film by accident late one night on a French tv channel. I had missed most of the film, only getting the last half hour or so, but its bleakness made me want to watch the whole thing. Now, the dvd I have is 146 minutes, and apparently the film originaly was 175 minutes, so that's half an hour missing. A complete version would have been nice, thank you. It's actually a very interesting film, an anti war film in the style of the more famous Paths of Glory, and quite episodic: Characters disappear for a long time, then re-appear, without us knowing what has happened to them in the meantime. There are several memorable moments in the film. It shows an American deserter being executed, white American soldiers beating up black soldiers in a bar, even a soldier shooting a dog! Most memorable is maybe the scene of Wallach in the hospital, his face ruined. I don't understand why this film has fallen through the cracks, being so little known.

Alex Schomburg

2011-12-12T01:56:00.001-08:00

I love these covers by Alex Schomburg, especially the science fiction one, where the woman has a 1940s hairdo. There's a collection of his illustrations, called The Thrilling Comic Book Cover Art of Alex Schomburg, published by Vanguard.

Half finished page

2011-12-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is a page from the detective story. For the moment I have a lot of these, where the characters are more or less drawn but the background is still missing. This is usually how I work: the characters first, and then I'll go outside and find a street or whatever is needed and draw that in with pencil and then go back home and ink it. For you aspiring cartoonists out there, this is not a method that is recommended! Rather draw the setting first and then place the characters into that, okay?

Hugo Pratt

2011-12-07T07:04:00.001-08:00

Top five Hugo Pratt books:
1. La Ballade de la Mer Salée
2. Corto Maltese en Sibérie
3. Les Celtiques
4. Les Ethiopiques
5. Les Scorpions du désert

Film Noir

2011-12-04T01:28:00.000-08:00

Top five film noir
1. Out of the past
2. The Big Combo
3. Kiss Me Deadly
4. The Asphalt Jungle
5. Detour

Detective story update

2011-12-03T02:05:00.001-08:00

Finished pages: 20
Some details left: 15
Half finished: 19
Just begun: 2
Only 100 more to go!

Moebius

2011-12-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

Top five Moebius books:
1. Le Garage Hermétique
2. Le Bandard Fou
3. Arzach
4. Les Yeux du Chat
5. 40 Days Dans le Désert B

Madman

2011-12-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

Drawing done for Mike Allred. It should be in his big collection Madman 20th Anniversary Monster, out in January.

Body Heat

2011-11-29T04:16:00.000-08:00

William Hurt and Kathleen Turner decide to kill her husband, Richard Crenna. Also starring Mickey Rourke and Ted Danson, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan.

A nice little film noir exercise. One thing about the neo noirs from the 80s and 90s is that the person commiting a crime actually can get away with it. He or she doesn't need to be caught and punished like in the classic films. And they can also be seen having sex, like in this film, it's no longer only implied that they do, by swapping cigarettes or slamming doors or whatever. The neo noir director is aware that he is doing a noir, something Wilder was not while doing Double Indemnity. For him it was only a crime film - there were no film noir rules set in stone to follow. Like in that film, the dialogue has an artificial quality. Rourke is the one normal person, the outsider not being a part of the noir universe. He's the voice of reason in the film, asking Hurt not to go through with it. But of course, it wouldn't have been much of a noir film if Hurt had listened.

Dune miniseries

2011-11-28T01:07:00.000-08:00

I found a used copy of the Dune miniseries, and gave it a look. It manages to make the Lynch version seem like even a bigger masterpiece. What's worse than film CGI? Bad tv CGI! The desert scenes look awful. I know, it's not fair to compare a big budget movie with a tv version made for far less money, but still... I wish they had gone for a no CGI look and given it more of a theatrical feel, that everything clearly is filmed on a stage, like Méliès' silent films. I think that in the end would have been less distracting. The production design is very imaginative, but always less interesting than in the Lynch film. The actors are also less interesting, with a possible exception for William Hurt. I didn't recognize any of the other actors. The accents are all over the place, from Scottish to East European. The cheap look of the series could maybe have been okay if the script was better - they have five hours to tell the story after all - but no, the characters don't feel more developed and the second half, the second disc, really drags. There is no vision, the way the Lynch film, for better or worse, had - it's just bland tv. The one thing that works better is the blue eyes of the fremen, okay, it looks more convincing than in the film.

The Defiant Ones

2011-11-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are two convicts chained together who manage to escape. Also starring Charles Gravelvoice McGraw, directed by Stanley Kramer.

It's a good film. It's a message film, though, so there's not really any big surprise how it turns out. The characters are not completely credible - you can sort of feel them being moved around to make a point. Still, it's more eloquently done than Racism is bad!-film Crash made 50 years later. Curtis is quite good, almost unrecognizable from his usual prettyboy roles, but it's hard not to imagine what the film would have been like with the first choice for the part, Marlon Brando.

Experiment in Terror

2011-11-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

Lee Remick is a bankteller threatened by a man to steal 100 000 dollars from her bank or he will kill her and her sister. Glenn Ford is the FBI agent working on the case. Directed by Blake Edwards.

It's a nice, little thriller, shot in black and white, with a terrific opening scene of Remick in her garage being grabbed by a man whose face we don't see. There's also a creepy scene of the same man dressed up as an old lady. In these films the victim is often not believed by the police. Here the FBI agent believes her just based on a phone call and even sends out a surveillance team! Not sure if that would have happened in a Hitchcock film... and Hitchcock would maybe have given it that extra suspenseful touch at the end. But still, it's quite an effective film from Edwards, showing he could do more than just comedy.

One more

2011-11-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

Another panel based on an earlier sketch. The main character, the detective, is again a man out of time, a bit like Athos in The Last Musketeer. The story takes place in the present, but he dresses in a fedora and trenchcoat, as if it was in the fourties. And he walks around in a French city, not in LA or San Fransisco.

Using more sketches

2011-11-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

Another panel based on a sketch. Now that France is moving over to cable, all the tv antennas will probably be taken down. Which is almost a shame. The rooftops won't be the same without them.

Using sketches

2011-11-14T06:20:00.000-08:00

One good thing about having done a lot of sketches this summer is that I can use them in my comic, since the story takes place in Montpellier. I used to walk around and take photos, but that is something I try to avoid now. If I need a character walking in a street I just go out and draw the background directly on the original.

Dune Avatar

2011-11-13T04:48:00.000-08:00

I re-watched Dune the other day. Okay, it's not a perfect film... It's complicated and overserious. Half the time you're sitting there, thinking, what the hell is going on?! The dialogue is stilted; hearing the characters' thoughts doesn't help. The acting is not very good. Or it's as if they're acting in an old silent film. The music is by Toto for chrissake. But I can't help but like the film. It has a unique look, the whole Victorian influenced production design. The worms look great. The opening scene with the mutated navigator is terrific. And then, unfortunately, it falls apart.

I also found a used copy of Avatar and gave it a new look. The first time I saw it was in the cinema, but the 3D glasses gave me a headache, and after the first hour I just sat there waiting for the film to end. The film has the look of a progrock albumcover from 75, that same airbrushed look. Everything is too perfect. What kind of jungle looks like this? And doing everything in the computer, it feels like the director is tempted to put in too many details. It makes me think of the Emperor (?) in Amadeus: There's simply too many notes! Okay, the dinosaurs look good, and the flying dinosaur sequences are impressive, but the aliens, the navi, still look fake. And it's hard not to compare the final fight with the one in Aliens, where Ripley fights the alien queen, which one looks most real and intense?

I watched Dr. Zhivago some time ago. The film is from 1965. If it was made today, almost fifty years later, it would almost certainly not look as good. Then everything was filmed in camera, today there would have been lots of CGI, and sorry, but most of it still looks fake. The simplest thing, like a blue sky and clouds outside a window, looks fake. If Jaws was made today, would it be as good? What's scary about the original one is that we almost never see the shark! Today it would have been there from the beginning. The first and the last Indiana Jones film, which one looks best? Will the new Alien film look half as convincing as the original one?

So, anyway... Dune 1 Avatar 0.

And another

2011-11-10T00:48:00.000-08:00

Hola, Athos!

2011-11-09T03:54:00.000-08:00

The Spanish cover for Athos in America.

And another panel

2011-11-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

The story will be in black and white + red colour pencil.

Brian De Palma

2011-11-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

Top five Brian De Palma films:
1. Blow Out
2. Dressed to Kill
3. Carlito's Way
4. The Untouchables
5. Mission Impossible

Another panel...

2011-11-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

...from the new story. I got about 50 pages in various states of being sketched, penciled and inked. For the moment it looks like it will be around 150-160 pages. So I guess this will be my first graphic novel. That means I'm a... I'm a... graphic novelist! Woo hoo!

Hitchcock

2011-11-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

Top five Hitchcock films:
1. North by Northwest
2. Rear Window
3. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 version)
4. Psycho
5. Notorious

Yes, Vertigo is not on the list! I dunno, I just never cared too much about that film...

New artists

2011-11-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

One part of growing older is completely losing touch with what is going on in current pop music. I have a vague knowledge of a singer called Lady Gaga, but that's about it. Travis and The Cranberries are new bands for me, and I don't know if they even exist anymore. If I discover new music, it's often by accident. Hearing a tape while sitting in the car of a friend or things like that. So, here's the top five of new artists, meaning artists that have appeared after the year 2000:
1. Iron and Wine
2. Marissa Nadler
3. Jose Gonzales
4. Fleet Foxes
5. Bon Iver

Some comics I've read

2011-11-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

Love And Rockets, no. 4 by the Hernandez brothers:
Another great issue, with the continuation and ending of The Love Bunglers, from Jaime Hernandez. It's a real knockout and quite touching for those that have followed the strip and these characters since the eighties. You almost have to remind yourself that, yes, these are characters, not real people! Apparently, nobody told Jaime that the quality of one's work is supposed to go down after working on a strip that long. I look forward to, in twenty years time, reading about a sixty years old Maggie.

Prince Valiant Volume 4, 1943-44 by Hal Foster:
Again, stunning drawings. And quite bloody! Valiant is being tortured, people are killed left and right. There's a strange sequence in the book involving another knight, Tristram, who I don't think has been introduced earlier, that looks like a double of Valiant, but with a mustache! He is killed by a jealous king, but instead of Valiant and Gawain, who are there, seeking vengeance they just ride off. Not quite sure what was going on in Foster's mind there.

Tarzan, The Joe Kubert Years, Volume 3:
I remember the Kubert Tarzan stories from when I was a kid. There were some translations into Norwegian. Kubert was the perfect Tarzan artist, in my mind, his brushstrokes matching the savageness of both Tarzan and the jungle landscape where the stories take place. Still waiting for Volume 1.

Hellboy, The Bride of Hell And Others, The Troll Witch and Others, The Crooked Man And Others:
Usually I find the Hellboy stories not drawn by Mignola less appealing. No matter how good the cartoonists are, it's just not the same. An interesting exception is Richard Corben - his style is almost completely the opposite of Mignola, but somehow it works perfectly for the Hellboy universe. One thing, though: I miss the handlettering by Pat Brosseau from the early books. That handlettering had a lot of character, the square A's and so on, and the computer font from the newer books doesn't fit as well.

Our Little Kat King by Patrick McDonnell:
This is the latest of the yearly Mutts Treasury books. Is Mutts the last good newspaperstrip? It has a Peanuts quality, even if maybe it doesn't reach quite the genius of that strip. It's very inventive in its variations of the recurring setups; the hibernation strips, the singing birds, the squirrel throwing nuts and so on . Sometimes a little too cute-ish, but there are worse crimes.

Julie London

2011-11-04T03:30:00.001-07:00

Here's some great music for late night inking: Julie London. Cry Me A River, I Left My Heart In San Francisco, all the standards. Only problem is you feel you should almost wear a tie and a suit while listening. Also to have a glass of whiskey and a smoldering cigarette in an ashtray. Drinking and inking is not a good combination, though. Don't drink and ink. And a smoldering cigarette next to a lot of artwork is maybe not a good idea either.

John Huston

2011-11-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Top five John Huston films:
1. The Asphalt Jungle
2. Fat City
3. The Maltese Falcon
4. The Treasure of Sierra Madre
5. The Dead

Old sketches

2011-10-31T02:32:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-29T03:53:00.000-07:00

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

PAF!

2011-10-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-27T08:01:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

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

Tom Waits

2011-10-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-21T01:51:00.000-07:00

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

Magritte meets Hopper

2011-10-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

Tintin

2011-10-19T01:23:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-19T00:53:00.000-07:00

John Ford

2011-10-18T01:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

Hopper 2

2011-10-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

Edward Hopper

2011-10-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan

2011-10-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

Waterboys

2011-10-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

Billie Holiday

2011-10-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

New story

2011-10-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-09T01:21:00.000-07:00

Tell Me Something Cover...

2011-10-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

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

James Bond

2011-10-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

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

Sorry, Timothy Dalton!

Paul Auster

2011-10-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-10-04T04:09:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Titanic

2011-09-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

Why am I watching Titanic?? I felt like it, allright?! Leave me alone, will ya! I'll watch Titanic if I want to! I don't have to explain myself... I'll watch Last Year in Marienbad tomorrow, okay?! So, anyway... Written and directed by James Cameron

The film is some sort of pop art masterpiece. I wish Cameron had taken out some of the cheesiest lines, but asking for more three dimensional characters is kind of missing the point. I'm not sure if that would make it a better film. Actually, there should have been a scene of Billy Zane twirling his mustache. Well, he would have to grow a mustache for that. Cameron is very good in the way he introduces his female characters: Winslett in this film, Mastrantonio in The Abyss and Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. The film never drags, but they screw it up towards the end, trying hard not to make it too much of a bummer. The scene of old Rose throwing the diamond into the sea is clearly supposed to be a big, emotional moment, but... it's not. It's kind of silly. And really, Cameron, Celine Dion?!