Rhapsodies

Batman Sketch Challenge – Day One – Batman

by wpmorse on April 1, 2018 at 10:50 am

Posted In: Art

For Day one of my Batman sketch challenge, we start with the man himself, Batman.

Common sense has abandoned me yet again, and I know I am going to regret this in a couple of days…. But I’m starting yet another sketch challenge. Fortunately this time I plan to do a fun one: the cast of Batman.

This is one I have been meaning to do for a while, I have been putting it off for a long time. The main reason (that is the excuse I’ve been using) was that I was trying to find an angle. What I mean by that is that I have been wanting to make sure there was more to this sketch challenge than simple fanart. When I do projects like this I enjoy the organic process where an idea leads to a new approach to the concept, which then leads to more ideas, ideas which quickly snowball to the point that by the time you have ‘finished’ your art is considerably different from what you originally envisioned and has become very much your own thing.

I find the best way to make this work is to go in with a planned approach. Two examples would be my nursery rhymes set in the Regency/Georgian time frame (or as close as I could come to it without doing any research) and my fairy tale challenge from last year which was based around the same period, but with a Film Noir aesthetic.

I was tempted to do ‘original Batman’ and since Batman starts in 1939 he is almost film noir by default. If 1939 is ‘Year One’ I assumed that ‘present-day Batman’ would be around 1948. However, I caught myself overthinking the timeline. Since the point of this exercise is to be spontaneous with a turnaround occurring under an hour, that was a big no-no.

Currently, my idea is to do a sort of modern version of the pulp world that the original Batman takes place in. That means using things a lot of writers desperately try to keep and rationalize no matter how obsolete modern culture and technology have made them. (stuff like spandex and such). To me, this suggests more of a masked subculture that is not exclusive to either vigilantes or criminals. The other thing that occurs to me is that Batman needs more of a support crew than just Alfred.

For the first day, I am going to start with the man himself, and then take my usual random, pull names out of the magic Tupperware, approach. Ironically Batman himself interests me the least of this project. Like most of these comic settings, conflict is the glue that holds everything else together. One thing that appeals to me in the notes I have made for this project is that while this setting will have a lot more shades of grey than usual, that is not how this Batman will see it… This should lead to conflict.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the ride for the next thirty days or more, this should be fun.

Some quick notes on this sketch itself, I’ve managed to get around the spandex thing and need to redesign Batman by having him in shadows. I’m keeping the yellow on black icon partially as a “house signal” but mostly from Frank Miller’s “I wear a target on my chest because I can’t armor my head” thing.

Right now I think I’m beginning to show some drift in my own direction with the ace of spade logo suggesting the Joker’s presence.

└ Tags: Batman, Pen & Ink, Sketch Challenge

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Rest in Peace Leo

by wpmorse on March 30, 2018 at 8:34 pm

Posted In: Art

I just heard that Leo, one of the Silverback Lowland Gorillas at The Woodland Park Zoo just passed away. Leo was one of my favorite models at my numerous visits at the zoo and I have numerous pages in numerous sketchbooks to show for it. He had a wonderful gravitas that I loved trying to catch on paper.

Rest in peace, Big Guy, you will be missed.

└ Tags: Gorilla, Leo, Woodland Park Zoo

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Wednesday Double Feature – Heists Featuring Sterling Hayden

by wpmorse on March 28, 2018 at 9:32 am

Posted In: Test

Okay, I decided to do some 1950 heist films. Beyond the genre, which I’ve already done a few times before is that they both have Sterling Hayden in them. Since a heist film is almost by definition ensemble piece, I can’t say Hayden stars in any of them, but his charisma and presence are definitely the glue that held them together.

John Huston’s Asphalt Jungle is one of those films that I was certainly aware of, in that it’s on just about every list of film noir films. But other than that I hadn’t really heard that much about it. Of course with John Huston’s name attached I was expecting good things.

The story takes place in an unnamed Midwestern city where Erwin “Doc” Riedenschneider (played by Sam Jaffe) has just gotten out of prison after a seven-year stint. He has a plan to rob a jewel safe worth more than a million dollars. He needs a backer to fund his plan to pay for a driver, a safecracker, and muscle (called a hooligan here. ) He finds a backer in Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern) a lawyer, and soon hires the rest of his team including Louie Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso), his safecracker along with hunchbacked diner owner Gus Minissi (James Whitmore), the only one everybody trusts, as the driver and Dix Handlly (Hayden ) as the muscle.

But Emmerich is broke and plans to betray Doc at the soonest opportunity. This along with a few other difficulties things start to fall apart pretty quickly.

This film is up to Huston’s usual high uncompromising standards. Presenting a dark setting. The cast is amazing with Jaffe as a quiet but flawed professional, and Stirling scary and uncompromisingly loyal even when things go pearshaped.

Really the only problem with it was the usual censorship of the time turning every crime film into moral propaganda. The sermon from the commissioner of police about the value of police felt tacked on especially since the film starts with him ranting about how many people have to be arrested in order to solve one crime.

After Huston, we move on to another rockstar of film, Stanly Kubrick with The Killing.

In this one Sterling Hayden plays, Johnny Clay a professional criminal who gathers together a specially picked team of insiders to rob a racetrack. On paper, it is the perfect plan and we watch the execution of the plan go together with perfect precision. But behind all of this is greed and betrayal and between this along with a little bit of bad luck, things begin to fall apart quite quickly.

Once again this is an example of an artist at the top of his game working with a fantastic ensemble team. Best performances go to Hayden as a cold methodical pro, Elisha Cook Jr. as the mousy, henpecked George Peatty whose slip of the tongue in front of his wife is the first weak link in the chain of this intricate plan.

└ Tags: Film Noir, Movie Review, Sterling Hayden

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Hilda and Blossom Cosplay

by wpmorse on March 23, 2018 at 10:01 am

Posted In: Art

I thought I’d start to add a few little side strips that don’t really fit into the rest of the strip, starting with Blossom and Hilda doing some Game of Thrones cosplay.

Hilda thinks she’s being typecast.

└ Tags: Cartoon, Cosplay

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Wednesday Double Feature – Kurt Vonnegut

by wpmorse on March 21, 2018 at 8:51 am

Posted In: Test

I was watching a review of the works of Satoshi Kon today, where it was mentioned that one of Kong’s major influences had been the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s Slaughterhouse Five. Since that’s yet another example of a film I’d known about for years, but had never gotten around to actually seeing. So I figured, what the heck, this week I’m doing films based on the works of Kurt Vonnegut!

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of those films that has a picture in nearly every textbook about science fiction since it came out. Yet I’d never heard anything better than mixed reviews for it. However, it was a film by George Roy Hill so at least I knew whatever I thought it would be a good piece of film craft.

Anyway, Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, played by Michael Sacks, a veteran and former POW who survived the firebombing of Dresden. Due to being abducted by the Tralfamadorians, alien from the fourth dimension, he is unstuck in time. Going back and forth between his time in the war, and his life afterward, and his experience in the alien zoo. Witnessing every possible tragedy along the way including the aforementioned bombing of Dresden, a war buddy getting shot in an SS firing squad, surviving a plane crash and his wife dying in a self-inflicted traffic accident… So it goes.

I think you really need to be familiar with the book to appreciate this film, otherwise, the nonlinear storytelling doesn’t make much sense. Otherwise, I thought it was a solid adaptation, though perhaps they cut it down a little bit too much.

For one thing, no one ever said the key phrase, “So it goes”, even once.

The next film on my list, Alan Rudolph ’s adaptation of Breakfast of Champions, tells the story of Dwayne Hoover, played by Bruce Willis, a successful but mentally unstable car salesman. If his slowly deteriorating mental condition wasn’t bad enough. He’s even more stressed out by “Hawaain week” (his dealership’s biggest sales week of the year) His wife is popping pills, his best friend and his sales manager (Nick Nolte) obsession with being outed as a crossdresser is affecting his work. Into this seething pit comes hack science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout who has been invited to attend a local art festival with just the right match.

I had not heard many good things about Breakfast of Champions when it first came out and regrettably, most of those critics weren’t far off. While I don’t think I found it painful, like Mr. Vonnegut did, it didn’t much for me either. To be honest I’m at a loss how a director could do such a stream of thought novel like Breakfast of Champions, right.

Still, Albert Finney’s performance as Kilgore Trout made it at least partially worth the slog.

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└ Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, Movie Review

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Wednesday Double Feature – Non Anime, Non Kaiju, Japanese Science Fiction

by wpmorse on March 14, 2018 at 9:10 am

Posted In: Test

This week I decided to clear my palette a bit with some Japanese science fiction, or more accurately live action, kaiju free science fiction. Regrettably, I kind of rushed into the idea without enough research leaving me with films where whether they where science fiction or not may have been a stretch, or they weren’t a good pick to begin with.

The first film I watched, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another. It tells the story of Okyauma, (played by Tatsuya Nakadai) a man who has had his face destroyed in an industrial accident. Afterward, he becomes alienated from society and straining his relationship with his wife.

A plastic surgeon gives him the opportunity to try a perfect but experimental mask, that will let him pass as an ordinary person. At the same time, however, it gives him perfect anonymity. He quickly gets intoxicated by the possibilities and plans to take advantage of the possibilities and take revenge on the people he believes have wronged him.

This was a very interesting film. It’s beautifully done. Though at the same time it’s very artsy and has the feel of a philosophy treatise so as well done as it is I don[t think it’s quite everybody’s thing.

I was aware of Machine Girl for some time. I don’t quite remember when I heard of it. It was either a poster at a video store or I saw a trailer for it before an anime film. Either way I thought it would be an enjoyable second choice when the film on my list had not been available… Really.

Ami Hyuga (Minase Yashiro) is a typical high school student whose brother is killed by bullies with Yakuza and Ninja connections (yes really) In the process she looses has her arm cut off. She replaces it with a machine gun attachment and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge.

This movie didn’t do anything for me. I have read it has been meant as a parody of a lot of schlock b-rated Japanese grindhouse movies. I even have a few friends who like it as such. For me, however, this was mostly splatter porn and difficult to watch.