As many of my friends may know, I kind of got priced out of the Emerald City Comic Convention three years ago… and while I’ve been able to kind of attend by helping friends I kind of came to the conclusion that it wasn’t a good professional investment for me due to the focus being superheroes and not slice of life webcomics with a tiny fanbase. Besides, the place has become such an overcrowded madhouse you can’t even network properly because all of the people you want to contact have to focus on the people and are wiped out after hours.
But one thing I learned from the last couple of years of Sakuracon, that doesn’t stop me from hanging around the convention center with a sketch book. Anyway for the con’s first Thursday opening and, while the pickings were slim, I think I did okay. There weren’t that many people so I just spent about two and a half hours before going to the Pioneer Square Art Walk.
A good start I think.
Pikichu and some Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Raven texts and has coffee, a girl with an amazing smile and some cosplayers checking out their picture.
For this week’s selection I finally went with something I’d been wanting to do for a while, Rogues, but couldn’t find an appropriate partner to go with the film that inspired me to go this way in the first place. When I finally thought of what I’d go with it was painfully obvious.
I first heard of the gentleman crook Arsène Lupin through the classic manga Lupin the Third by Monkey Punch. It would be years before I actually read the manga let alone see any of the anime (Miyazaki’sCastle of Cagliosltro is a long time favorite of mine but) but before that I was curious enough to check out the original material by Maurice Leblanc. It was okay, though I never got past the first book. But Lupin was an interesting enough character to maintain an interest. For film versions I had two choices, unfortunately the recent remake was only in PAL format so I had to settle for the original 1932 version starring John Barrymore. Based on a play based on the book this is a fun barebones production as a lot of this filmed plays were. It pretty much consists of Lupin hiding in plain sight disguised as a count seemingly committing crimes more to troll his primary police advisory, Detective Guerchard, than anything else. Barrymore puts on a fun charismatic performance though there is to it. It has it’s moments though, My favorite being when Lupin manipulates his appearance so the description that witnesses give are identical to Guerchard’s.
Diabolik, played by John Phillip Law is a mysterious and ruthless thief carrying out brilliant heist after brilliant heist accompanied by his beautiful partner and lover, EvaKant played by Marisa Mell. From here the movie features an episodic cat and mouse game between Diabolik, the police and criminal rivals with Diabolik always coming out on top, even when he seems to have lost.
This was a fun and trippy piece of sixties psychedelic camp. I kept imagining it as an evil version of Adam West’s Batman, except Diabolik takes itself seriously which makes it a guilty pleasure even at it’s dumbest.
I spent my Sunday afternoon at the Zoo… not my first choice for good drawing time but it was a nice day so why not. Regrettably when I got to the Orangutan exhibit I heard that the male Orangutan, Towan, had died of respiratory problems the week before. He was 48 years old.
I feel just a little bad that the last time I sketched him, really was the last time.
For this week I decided to try for something in the way of a rockumentary… or more accurately mockumentarys like This is Spinal Tap or the Ruttles since i enjoy parodies. Unfortunately this didn’t go quite as I planned. Having seen most of the ones everyone talks about the remaining ones on my list turned out to not actually comedies more accurately dramas using the documentary style to tell the story and were only mildly funny… (either that or I didn’t get the joke.)
The first film I watched, Hard Core Logo is based on the novel of the same name by Micheal Turner and directed by Bruce McDonald and tells the story of the reunion tour of the Punk Band Hard Core Label after being brought back together at a anti-gun benefit inspired by the shooting of their mentor.
From there we follow them across Canada watching everything that go wrong, including the band’s schizophrenic bassist looses his meds, the guitarist missing the opportunity to join a more successful band. Gradually everything falls apart ending with the band falling apart and the temperamental lead singer shooting himself (after getting into a fight with the guitarist on stage.
While this film has it’s funny moments, it’s definitely more of a drama despite marketing suggesting it’s a Canadian version of Spinal Tap.
From there come’s the history of what starts as Punk and becomes what will be known as the Manchester scene as well as the bands Tony supports, including Joy division(who become New Order after their lead singer’s suicide,)A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column and Happy Mondays.
Factory Records is technically successful butl barely ever breaks even, finally falling apart. All of this is a romanticized version of the mostly true story with Tony as our narrator frequently breaking the fourth wall to tell us that something that we just saw on the screen didn’t actually happen.
