OK, here we go again with a special mid-week edition of deranged ramblings. After a considerable delay, Craig finally returned from France, I sent him my questions and here is the (badly edited and somewhat stilted) Whatnot interview in full:
Craig, let me start by saying that Whatnot is a great piece of work, but you've previously been pretty successful with live action too; What prompted you to move into animation?
Thank you! It started as a throwaway experiment - I made a sort of flick book on post it notes of the Dreamer falling from the sky and left it for several weeks whilst working on other things. Eventually I couldn't resist going back and scanning it in, assembling it in the edit suite as an animation. As I did this, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to try to animate more about how the Dreamer ended up in the sky (and subsequently falling from it) and so began a sort of 'automatic animation' process whereby the most important thing was to feel my way through and animate the next and most striking images that came to mind, only later striving to create a semblance of order within the images. Obviously the kind of story I was telling (albeit subconsciously) would not have worked in any other media.
Technically, this is far more advanced than The Spoon Of Retribution (Craig's 2007 animation). Is that a result of better technology or did your learnings on the earlier film directly impact on the making of this one?
The latter - I made many mistakes whilst rushing The Spoon Of Retribution through to completion and knew I had to be far more patient on this one. What I didn't realise was that patience does not come naturally to me, and the whole process became a real tortured grind - animating through the unholy hours of the night, hunched over a scanner with dried glue on my hands and trimmed paper scattered about the room, swearing and listening to Bernard Herrmann.
You've assembled quite a regular repertory company for your live action works, while many of your musical endevours are more of the solitary, bedroom studio variety. Was the animation a one-man show or did you have a team of Disneyesque slaves drawing endless whales and writhing tongues?
It was absolutely a one man show. It was far too unsociable to get anyone else involved and the vision (though I dislike this word in this context) had to be allowed to leap from my mind onto the paper. In short, I may be a control freak.
It looks as if the whole film was converted to a negative image. What prompted that, and how far into the production did you make the decision?
The idea was to create a sense of hazy uncertainty and I felt that by inverting the colours I'd put the viewer in a strange position where they are looking at something unconventional and dark which would automatically throw them a little. I decided to invert as I was animating the first sequence, although there were two versions of the film (one inverted, one regular) right up until completion just in case I changed my mind. When the decision was final, I destroyed the regular version. Choice can be a cruel mistress, and by eliminating choice I sometimes find things easier.
Some of the character designs recall The Beatles' Yellow Submarine cartoon, while the sparse landscapes and wavering, skeletal trees evoke the haunted locales of The Moomins (the terrfying stop-motion classic rather than the pastel anime abomination). Did you have any specific influences in mind when you made the film?
I agree about The Moomins, the stop motion series is so beautiful and eerie. I had more traditional art in mind when I was creating the aesthetics of the film, artists like Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Gustav Dore, Aubrey Beardsley. I recently watched the fantastic French animation 'Le Planet Sauvage' and noticed that my film shares some sensibilities with it, although I’d never seen it when I made Whatnot.
In a wider sense, which animators and artists do you admire, and are there any you particularly aim to emulate?
I hopefully emulate no one on purpose, but the greats to me are people like Franz Kafka, David Cronenberg, Adam Curtis, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Francis Bacon, Powell & Pressburger, Max Fleischer, Jean Cocteau. I particularly love Victorian art and design. Anything with lots of curlicues.
Obviously, a linear plot is hardly a requirement to appear on the Doubtless Wonder site, but is there a preferred reading for Whatnot?
Not at all. My intention was to make something which expresses both my hatred for and the general detrimental nature of bureaucracy and its stifling effects on creativity, but I accept that due to the ‘automatic drawing’ manner in which I made the images this is not so clear cut. I prefer people to tell me what they see in it. That’s not a lazy way out or an excuse for wilfully perverse pretentiousness - it gives me great pleasure to hear people’s own readings. After all, there’s little point in creating things and keeping them to yourself.
Having said all that, some of the characters like the sleeping king and the sacrificial diver seem like they should have quite elaborate back stories. Do you have any ideas in that direction, or is there any one else in the film who you think has more to offer?
Not as such, but I’ve noticed that the Lightbulb and the Dunce Duck at the end are quite popular! I’d like one day to show more of this world but with perhaps with more of a Public Information Film bent to it. I had it in the back of my mind when I was making this film that it was going to be a sort of surrealist anti-establishment propaganda film, which in a way it is, but it’s not so obvious. So perhaps I’ll make one.
Being a silent piece, the music has to carry a lot of weight and convey a lot of the plot, which it does brilliantly. You're an accomplished musician yourself (the driving force behind every incarnation of Lovecraft, a solo artist and sometime member of Zombina And The Skeletones) - What made you hand over the musical responsibilities to Jon Hering?
Jon is a real musical innovator and craftsman and I wanted someone who could offer their own perspective. If I had done the score myself the film would all be very one sided whereas Jon came up with things I would never in a million years have thought of. Also, he’s a very good friend of mine so it wasn’t like I was handing the project over to a stranger - there was plenty of room for talking and collaboration. The same is true of the music’s producer, Barny Riley. The three of us have known each other for some time and have worked together on lots of different things, so it’s more like play than work.
Tell us a little about Jon's background - Is he another Pondlife regular or is he a recent discovery?
I was in Zombina And The Skeletones with Jon for a few years, he plays in my own band Lovecraft and also in a fantastic avant garde renaissance band called a.P.A.t.T. for whom I’ve done visuals, so we’ve known each other through these various avenues and of course as friends. He’s a talented actor too and has appeared in a few things I’ve made. It’s the same with most people I know - they all end up getting roped into something I’m doing eventually!
So how did the collaboration actually work? Did Jon write to the finished film or did you animate to the music?
Because the animation took so long to complete, I’d give Jon versions of the film to compose to at home. As the film got nearer to being completed he’d play me his ideas and we’d discuss them, then I’d give him another updated version of the film to write to. This meant that the visuals and the music were in sync with one another throughout their creation for the most part! Eventually we went into Barny’s studio and recorded the sound bit by bit, which was quite gruelling at times but ultimately very rewarding and fun.
You always seem to have half a dozen projects at various stages of development; What's next, and will there be more animation in the near future?
If I’m not spinning plates, I’m not happy! I’m currently finishing a film I shot last year called ‘The Gauntlet’ about a man who murders his gay lover and goes home to his wife as if nothing really happened. Then there’s a horror film I’m writing with a friend called ‘Bill Is Dead’ which explores the notion that seeing a ghost changes one forever and is in part a homage to ‘Whistle And I’ll Come To You’, Jonathan Miller’s excellent short film from the sixties. I’m also in the process of reviving my beloved pop band Lovecraft and shooting an untitled post apocalyptic art film, so plenty of plates but no animation in the near future!
Thanks for that Craig, I'm sure we've taken up enought of your precious time already, but do you have any advice for budding filmmakers?
Here's my film making manifesto:
The Alchemist Film-maker's Manifesto:
1. To ignore even a fleeting abstraction is sinful.
2. Characterisation before plot progression.
3. No long shot is too long, no close up too close.
4. A measured openness to chance is admirable.
5. Improvisation is grand when the obvious is avoided.
6. Illusions nourish the mind's eye - effects starve it.
7. Film more than you need.
8. Natural light is a cruel mistress, beautiful and beguiling but fickle.
9. Fear no refusal, refusal can be a catalyst for progress.
10. Know your location as surely as you know yourself.
Thursday 17 September 2009
Saturday 12 September 2009
Annotations - Dead Souls
Wherein we pick up with Mark a couple of years before his first appearance and we find out why his mum abandoned him to the Ghost Town. It's a Thursday night in 1981 or thereabouts, a couple of years before Ghost Town, and Mark is doing everything he can to be grown up and responsible. I like the way that this piece dovetails with Mark's later (chronological) appearance. In both pieces, you get the impression that Mark is struggling to become something more than he is. Here he's tring to be one of the older, cooler kids, to meet his mum's expectations, to be more than his father, to keep his sister safe and to figure out what to do with all these strange new urges. There's no way he's going to manage all of that, and this story exists at the moment when it all falls down. If there's a central tragedy to DW then it's this: Mark only ever wanted to be good.
I also like that it's almost a direct parallel of The Word Is - Two stories about semi - abandoned children who retreat into music at every opportunity,drift into dreams about nuclear wastelands and silver stars, then wake to find that something has been taken from them. Again, there are certain recurring plot threads and symbols throughout the whole of DW.
Other than those thoughts, there isn't a lot to say about this one. The title is a track by Joy Division, later covered by Nine Inch Nails for the soundtrack to The Crow, a goth superhero movie. Here it refers to the whole Wilson family, living out their squalid little lives as if they were already dead, the ghosts in Mark's dream, the M.A.D. global wipeout and of course, Messrs Peel and Curtis who appear in the first paragraphs. This is Peel's first published appearance in DW, although he also crops up in an unfinished Sarah piece set in the heyday of pirate radio boats.
Chronologically, we're all over the place with this one. Curtis died in 1980 but Bucks Fizz didn't get to number one until April the following year. The only Joy Division track likely to get a play on Top Of The Pops is Love Will Tear Us Apart, which was released posthumously, although Peel appears to introduce the band live in the studio. Oh, and Peel didn't start presenting Top Of The Pops until 1981 and probably never introduced a band by predicting the aquatic demise of the human race. But I like to think that if Curtis had lived, if Joy Division had appeared on the same episode of Top Of The Pops as Bucks Fizz and that if John Peel had introduced Dead Souls to a shellshocked nation, those are precisely the terms he would have used.
In a similar vein, bonkon and spaz are hardly the most PC of terms these days, but both were in common playground parlance back then. You may not agree with their usage here, but it's true to the character and the time.
The man with the guitar by his knees is Peter Hook. And he does look cool. There will be no argument with this.
Going Underground by The Jam fits nicely with the ideas of reinvention and a counter culture that run through a lot of DW, while the Visage song is probably going to be Fade To Grey, both because of the scenes which follow in Mark's dream and because it's the only song of there's that anyone remembers...
I also like that it's almost a direct parallel of The Word Is - Two stories about semi - abandoned children who retreat into music at every opportunity,drift into dreams about nuclear wastelands and silver stars, then wake to find that something has been taken from them. Again, there are certain recurring plot threads and symbols throughout the whole of DW.
Other than those thoughts, there isn't a lot to say about this one. The title is a track by Joy Division, later covered by Nine Inch Nails for the soundtrack to The Crow, a goth superhero movie. Here it refers to the whole Wilson family, living out their squalid little lives as if they were already dead, the ghosts in Mark's dream, the M.A.D. global wipeout and of course, Messrs Peel and Curtis who appear in the first paragraphs. This is Peel's first published appearance in DW, although he also crops up in an unfinished Sarah piece set in the heyday of pirate radio boats.
Chronologically, we're all over the place with this one. Curtis died in 1980 but Bucks Fizz didn't get to number one until April the following year. The only Joy Division track likely to get a play on Top Of The Pops is Love Will Tear Us Apart, which was released posthumously, although Peel appears to introduce the band live in the studio. Oh, and Peel didn't start presenting Top Of The Pops until 1981 and probably never introduced a band by predicting the aquatic demise of the human race. But I like to think that if Curtis had lived, if Joy Division had appeared on the same episode of Top Of The Pops as Bucks Fizz and that if John Peel had introduced Dead Souls to a shellshocked nation, those are precisely the terms he would have used.
In a similar vein, bonkon and spaz are hardly the most PC of terms these days, but both were in common playground parlance back then. You may not agree with their usage here, but it's true to the character and the time.
The man with the guitar by his knees is Peter Hook. And he does look cool. There will be no argument with this.
Going Underground by The Jam fits nicely with the ideas of reinvention and a counter culture that run through a lot of DW, while the Visage song is probably going to be Fade To Grey, both because of the scenes which follow in Mark's dream and because it's the only song of there's that anyone remembers...
Friday 11 September 2009
And nothing has changed, but nothing's the same
Okay, a mad flurry of activity and we're back up to date on the annotations, and I've also made some very small changes to the main site to make reading easier.
Firstly, at the end of each piece, there's a link called Notes which takes you straight to the annotations for the piece. Now, if you're desperate to know where a title came from or what liberties we've taken with recognised history, geography or cosmology, click Notes and you will be transported directly to the relevant back matter over on the notes site.
Secondly, and more importantly, I've overhauled the labels on the main site. It should be fairly clear now that there are a number of different plot threads running though DW. Some of them appear to cross over with the others, some seem (at the moment) to exist in their own little pocket universe. There's no set running order for the pieces and no right or wrong way to read it, and Phil and I both feel that potential readers should have the opportunity to remix the chapters to form any sort of meaning they can find (and let us know what it is when you find it. Please?). The labels now list the characters and locations featured in a specific piece. That way, if all you want to read is stories about Monk Blue then click his name in the labels at the end of the latest piece and you'll be shownn all of his earlier appearances. The same goes for each of the characters, so you can just read Sarah's story, or Mark's, or whichever character you choose to follow. The labels will expand as more characters and locations are featured, but we've got a good start.
That should do for now. Back tomorrow with the latest chapter.
Firstly, at the end of each piece, there's a link called Notes which takes you straight to the annotations for the piece. Now, if you're desperate to know where a title came from or what liberties we've taken with recognised history, geography or cosmology, click Notes and you will be transported directly to the relevant back matter over on the notes site.
Secondly, and more importantly, I've overhauled the labels on the main site. It should be fairly clear now that there are a number of different plot threads running though DW. Some of them appear to cross over with the others, some seem (at the moment) to exist in their own little pocket universe. There's no set running order for the pieces and no right or wrong way to read it, and Phil and I both feel that potential readers should have the opportunity to remix the chapters to form any sort of meaning they can find (and let us know what it is when you find it. Please?). The labels now list the characters and locations featured in a specific piece. That way, if all you want to read is stories about Monk Blue then click his name in the labels at the end of the latest piece and you'll be shownn all of his earlier appearances. The same goes for each of the characters, so you can just read Sarah's story, or Mark's, or whichever character you choose to follow. The labels will expand as more characters and locations are featured, but we've got a good start.
That should do for now. Back tomorrow with the latest chapter.
Annotations - Absolute Beginners Part 3 : Let's Go
No major references for the most part. Let's Go is a translation of the Indian word "Hokahe" which crops up later.
I don't know how well it comes over, but I wanted to evoke a changed reality for most of this piece, hence the change in prose style and tense, from past (he did) to present (he does). I also loosened the mind a little bit and threw in some stream of consciousness business which I then tried to make sense of in the following paragraphs. It's meant to suggest a concertina effect to time - The fight takes place over eight hours, but all takes place in the time it takes Blue to fall down and stand up again.
Eyes as dead as John Wayne's... Just goes nicely with the later cancer cowboy. The original line was Eyes as dead as John Waye's left lung, but I've just checked and it was stomach cancer that got the Duke, so that's changed.
Believe it or not, Zzyzx is NOT another sigil word - It's a real place in the Mojave desert, keeping us in the same place as the Manson/Bradys reference in part 2. There was a natural mineral spring spa at Zzyzx (pronounced zeye-zacs) which the owner never had permission for as it's all federal property. He was eventually arrested for using the land and also for allegedly breaking drug and food laws (whatever they might be) and the land was confiscated in that foul year of our lord 1974. I think that might be where the training camp from part 1 now stands...
"If he moves, kill him" obviously, paraphrasing the great line from William Holden's Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (Which I think I even mentioned at one point as a subtitle for part 3?). A Pike-monster now appears to take down the Nagual in standard action movie style, smothering him inside and out with tumours birthed from Blue's throat (and yet everyone in this episode seems to be smoking constantly - Will they never learn?).
Before we reach the end and our big guest appearance, there's one more thing to point out, another interloper who has snuck in from someplace very different:
"Bishop..."
Pike smiled.
Read together, that's Bishop Pike smiled. No big deal, but I like it as Bishop James Pike was a good friend of PKD and the basis for Timothy Archer in The Transmigration Of... Transmigration, of course, is the idea of the soul or psyche's movement from one body to another, whether through reincarnation or possession of a pre-existing body. Could that also appear here at some point? Hmmm...
And finally, ladies and gentlemen, a drum roll please for our latest star: Midge! If Fliss is Felicity and Ari is Arihaily, could Midge really be anything other than our old friend Imogen Dangerfield?
I don't know how well it comes over, but I wanted to evoke a changed reality for most of this piece, hence the change in prose style and tense, from past (he did) to present (he does). I also loosened the mind a little bit and threw in some stream of consciousness business which I then tried to make sense of in the following paragraphs. It's meant to suggest a concertina effect to time - The fight takes place over eight hours, but all takes place in the time it takes Blue to fall down and stand up again.
Eyes as dead as John Wayne's... Just goes nicely with the later cancer cowboy. The original line was Eyes as dead as John Waye's left lung, but I've just checked and it was stomach cancer that got the Duke, so that's changed.
Believe it or not, Zzyzx is NOT another sigil word - It's a real place in the Mojave desert, keeping us in the same place as the Manson/Bradys reference in part 2. There was a natural mineral spring spa at Zzyzx (pronounced zeye-zacs) which the owner never had permission for as it's all federal property. He was eventually arrested for using the land and also for allegedly breaking drug and food laws (whatever they might be) and the land was confiscated in that foul year of our lord 1974. I think that might be where the training camp from part 1 now stands...
"If he moves, kill him" obviously, paraphrasing the great line from William Holden's Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (Which I think I even mentioned at one point as a subtitle for part 3?). A Pike-monster now appears to take down the Nagual in standard action movie style, smothering him inside and out with tumours birthed from Blue's throat (and yet everyone in this episode seems to be smoking constantly - Will they never learn?).
Before we reach the end and our big guest appearance, there's one more thing to point out, another interloper who has snuck in from someplace very different:
"Bishop..."
Pike smiled.
Read together, that's Bishop Pike smiled. No big deal, but I like it as Bishop James Pike was a good friend of PKD and the basis for Timothy Archer in The Transmigration Of... Transmigration, of course, is the idea of the soul or psyche's movement from one body to another, whether through reincarnation or possession of a pre-existing body. Could that also appear here at some point? Hmmm...
And finally, ladies and gentlemen, a drum roll please for our latest star: Midge! If Fliss is Felicity and Ari is Arihaily, could Midge really be anything other than our old friend Imogen Dangerfield?
Annotations - Absolute Beginners Part 2 : A Night On The Town
Named, of course, for the Gene Kelly musical about sailors in New York. Or maybe not - I just like having that as a title, then skipping the whole Night On The Town bit to join our heroes on their way home...
Fewer references this time -
"This same lonely desert..." paraphrases HST in Fear & Loathing, talking about the Manson Family. That pretty much fixes us in the Mojave Desert, demonises those little blonde fuckers the Bradys and allows us an opening for the Pope himself at some later point...
Pretty much reference free then, until we hit the endless guitar solo of Freebird by Lynrd Skynrd. I like the fact that it's on for over an hour, as it's famous for being one of the most overblown, cliched 70's rock stormers. It ties in once again with Monk's preference for that era's music, I also include it just because I like it, and have recently been battering their albums whilst writing.
Fewer references this time -
"This same lonely desert..." paraphrases HST in Fear & Loathing, talking about the Manson Family. That pretty much fixes us in the Mojave Desert, demonises those little blonde fuckers the Bradys and allows us an opening for the Pope himself at some later point...
Pretty much reference free then, until we hit the endless guitar solo of Freebird by Lynrd Skynrd. I like the fact that it's on for over an hour, as it's famous for being one of the most overblown, cliched 70's rock stormers. It ties in once again with Monk's preference for that era's music, I also include it just because I like it, and have recently been battering their albums whilst writing.
Monday 7 September 2009
Annotations - Absolute Beginners 1: Soldier Girl
Another reference-heavy piece here, so here's the annotated version:
The titles are taken from 2 songs, by Bowie and the Polyphonic Spree respectively. I especially like the fact that for their third album, the PS are ditching the robes in favour of army fatigues, a fact I only discovered while preparing to write part 2. And I figure that Blue will eventually come to Absolutely love Fliss. I've taken the liberty of having her blonde in this piece, but that can change from chapter to chapter as easily as, well, ANY woman can change her hair colour... For now though, think Patsy Kensit in the movie of the same name, Twiggy in 1967 and Claire Danes in the Mod Squad movie, dressed in Israeli army cast offs.
"We can swim like the dolphins, be kings and queens, or even be ourselves, for eternity." This is a VERY loose paraphrasing of the lyrics to Bowie's Heroes. I think the concept fits well with the overall idea of this trilogy of bits - We all have massive untapped potential. Fliss, Monk and Ari just figure out how to use theirs.
Matus: Don Juan Matus, the (allegedly fake) Nagual who coached Carlos Castaneda in various esoteric Mayan magics. Nagual (pronounced Na'wal) can be taken to mean both teacher and the totality of existence. Tonal, used in a couple of paragraphs, means both student and the single closed reality in which the uninitiated are bound to spend their lives. This man may or may not be the same Matus from the Castaneda books, but as there are questions as to whether he ever actually existed, I think we can leave it hanging and get away with it; It's never really pointed out anyway. There's also another meaning for Nagual - An evil shapeshifter, like a Mayan werewolf.
...slapped him harshly between the shoulder blades: The creed taught to Castaneda states that we are beings of lumious energy fibres which extend from a point between our shoulders to about an arm's length behind us, anchoring us to this Tonal/reality. By displacing it, we can refix our point of reference wherever we wish, inhabiting other minds and bodies in this realm or any others (which seems to explain a lot of the weird stuff in Donnie Darko, now that I think about it).
...his legs twitching like a dreaming dog... This echoes the scene in Ghost Town and uses the same phrasing, hopefully suggesting that what happens to Mark in that piece is more than just a mind rape - He actually sees the past as another reality.
...there are many dark actors playing games : A phrase used by Dr David Kelly in one of his final emails on the day of his alleged suicide, which has been seen as a key piece of evidence for foul play. Using it here prefigures some later developments, as well as suggesting that one of our characters killed the Doc...
...A humble Earthworm: I'm not sure there's even a connection here myself, but after I'd written this, I realised that in Dr Bloodmoney, the consciousness of the psychic foetus Bill is temporarily trapped in a worm, and I think Hoppy Harrington winds up in there permanently at the end of the book. No big reference, just an interesting aside.
This one will always have trouble with his appetite : Obviously, with his prodigious drug-taking in later days...
cihuapilli: The Nahuatl word for Princess. I think there may be more history with Matus and Fliss than we may ever get to see. Or not - It might just be an old lecher's term of affection.
Wax on, wax off : Please tell me I don't have to annotate that?
Christa Paffgen : Another icy blonde bombshell, better known to most of the world as Nico, of Velvet Underground and Chelsea Girl fame.
Fata Morgana : Another name for Morgan Le Fay, half-sister to, sometime nemesis and occasional ally of King Arthur Pendragon, star pupil of Merlin and latterly taken as a feminist icon for her role in the Grail legends. No real reason for Ari taking that particular pseudonym, but a handy reference to drop now in case we ever choose to hit the Grail cycle for other resonances.
The titles are taken from 2 songs, by Bowie and the Polyphonic Spree respectively. I especially like the fact that for their third album, the PS are ditching the robes in favour of army fatigues, a fact I only discovered while preparing to write part 2. And I figure that Blue will eventually come to Absolutely love Fliss. I've taken the liberty of having her blonde in this piece, but that can change from chapter to chapter as easily as, well, ANY woman can change her hair colour... For now though, think Patsy Kensit in the movie of the same name, Twiggy in 1967 and Claire Danes in the Mod Squad movie, dressed in Israeli army cast offs.
"We can swim like the dolphins, be kings and queens, or even be ourselves, for eternity." This is a VERY loose paraphrasing of the lyrics to Bowie's Heroes. I think the concept fits well with the overall idea of this trilogy of bits - We all have massive untapped potential. Fliss, Monk and Ari just figure out how to use theirs.
Matus: Don Juan Matus, the (allegedly fake) Nagual who coached Carlos Castaneda in various esoteric Mayan magics. Nagual (pronounced Na'wal) can be taken to mean both teacher and the totality of existence. Tonal, used in a couple of paragraphs, means both student and the single closed reality in which the uninitiated are bound to spend their lives. This man may or may not be the same Matus from the Castaneda books, but as there are questions as to whether he ever actually existed, I think we can leave it hanging and get away with it; It's never really pointed out anyway. There's also another meaning for Nagual - An evil shapeshifter, like a Mayan werewolf.
...slapped him harshly between the shoulder blades: The creed taught to Castaneda states that we are beings of lumious energy fibres which extend from a point between our shoulders to about an arm's length behind us, anchoring us to this Tonal/reality. By displacing it, we can refix our point of reference wherever we wish, inhabiting other minds and bodies in this realm or any others (which seems to explain a lot of the weird stuff in Donnie Darko, now that I think about it).
...his legs twitching like a dreaming dog... This echoes the scene in Ghost Town and uses the same phrasing, hopefully suggesting that what happens to Mark in that piece is more than just a mind rape - He actually sees the past as another reality.
...there are many dark actors playing games : A phrase used by Dr David Kelly in one of his final emails on the day of his alleged suicide, which has been seen as a key piece of evidence for foul play. Using it here prefigures some later developments, as well as suggesting that one of our characters killed the Doc...
...A humble Earthworm: I'm not sure there's even a connection here myself, but after I'd written this, I realised that in Dr Bloodmoney, the consciousness of the psychic foetus Bill is temporarily trapped in a worm, and I think Hoppy Harrington winds up in there permanently at the end of the book. No big reference, just an interesting aside.
This one will always have trouble with his appetite : Obviously, with his prodigious drug-taking in later days...
cihuapilli: The Nahuatl word for Princess. I think there may be more history with Matus and Fliss than we may ever get to see. Or not - It might just be an old lecher's term of affection.
Wax on, wax off : Please tell me I don't have to annotate that?
Christa Paffgen : Another icy blonde bombshell, better known to most of the world as Nico, of Velvet Underground and Chelsea Girl fame.
Fata Morgana : Another name for Morgan Le Fay, half-sister to, sometime nemesis and occasional ally of King Arthur Pendragon, star pupil of Merlin and latterly taken as a feminist icon for her role in the Grail legends. No real reason for Ari taking that particular pseudonym, but a handy reference to drop now in case we ever choose to hit the Grail cycle for other resonances.
Annotations - The Girl On The Factory Wall
Finally, after almost 20 years, Marg Cornell lives and breathes the rarified air of Doubtless Wonder. Marg was the original star of the show, created by Phil in a late 80s/early 90s maths lesson, in between discussions about the meaning of Twin Peaks, arguments about the relative merits of A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 and 3 and attempts to sing the songs of JRR Tolkien without being beaten up every single day of our school lives.
Lots of references, both real world and DW. Obviously, music plays a huge part in Marg's life, so plenty of bands named here, with the chemical plant referred to as a Factory right at the head of the page to start things off.
"Cool As" ...Fuck - The slogan of Clint Boon's stoner cartoon cow (I always wanted an Inspiral Carpets tee shirt but didn't think I'd get away with it. Marg clearly has a rather more relaxed mother than I do...)
Lovecraft - The original incarnation who wrote the songs Bow Down and Lady Fliss.
Floyd, Morrison, Marley and the Sex Pistols, through to "the current crop of Madchester bands." So we're in mid 1990, when baggy ruled the world, George Dubbya's daddy had his finger on the button and the poll tax rioters decimated Trafalgar Square and huge chunks of Brixton.
Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Northside. Good God, Northside! Shall we take a trip?
Hawkwind, Doctor and The Medics, Velvet Underground and Primal Scream; All have their places on the DW soundtrack, and I'm pleased with their inclusion here. The connections? Besides covering Spirit In The Sky, D&TMs also covered Hawkwind's Silver Machine (while Hawkwind themselves frequently collaborated with SF's beardiest wierdy, Michael Moorcock, on tracks inspired by his Eternal Champion stories). Meanwhile, the Velvet Underground (the original Factory band) had an album called Loaded, which was the title of Primal Scream's biggest single from 1991's Screamadelica (but released over 18 months ahead of the album, in March 1990).
A worn out husk full of brittle glass and rusty nails that squealed and scraped as it fought to stay alive - Somehow, Sarah goes from the bright young thing of Another Girl to this broken down robot. The description echoes PKDs ersatz human psychotic and the animatronic creatures which appear in Little Boy Blue.
With her weekend job in Woollies, Marg earned enough to bring home two or three new albums every week - If we ever decide on a fixed running order then this will be the opening story, meaning that this would prefigure the similar description of a young Sarah in Another Girl, rushing home with her LPs stuffed under her coat so old man Schnitzler won't find them. Again, music is massive in the lives of these women.
And a big shout out for Simms Cross Curios where, in 1990/91, I bought my first ever Neil Young LPs.
Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
And here's the Inspiral Carpets tee shirt.
And then there are a couple of boy geniuses, wandering aimlessly round the post industrial wasteland, discussing the possible meaning of Gandalf's horse appearing in Laura Palmer's bedroom and sniffing solvents from a shirtcuff. Well, if Hitchcock can have a walk-on role in his movies then why can't we?
Lots of references, both real world and DW. Obviously, music plays a huge part in Marg's life, so plenty of bands named here, with the chemical plant referred to as a Factory right at the head of the page to start things off.
"Cool As" ...Fuck - The slogan of Clint Boon's stoner cartoon cow (I always wanted an Inspiral Carpets tee shirt but didn't think I'd get away with it. Marg clearly has a rather more relaxed mother than I do...)
Lovecraft - The original incarnation who wrote the songs Bow Down and Lady Fliss.
Floyd, Morrison, Marley and the Sex Pistols, through to "the current crop of Madchester bands." So we're in mid 1990, when baggy ruled the world, George Dubbya's daddy had his finger on the button and the poll tax rioters decimated Trafalgar Square and huge chunks of Brixton.
Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Northside. Good God, Northside! Shall we take a trip?
Hawkwind, Doctor and The Medics, Velvet Underground and Primal Scream; All have their places on the DW soundtrack, and I'm pleased with their inclusion here. The connections? Besides covering Spirit In The Sky, D&TMs also covered Hawkwind's Silver Machine (while Hawkwind themselves frequently collaborated with SF's beardiest wierdy, Michael Moorcock, on tracks inspired by his Eternal Champion stories). Meanwhile, the Velvet Underground (the original Factory band) had an album called Loaded, which was the title of Primal Scream's biggest single from 1991's Screamadelica (but released over 18 months ahead of the album, in March 1990).
A worn out husk full of brittle glass and rusty nails that squealed and scraped as it fought to stay alive - Somehow, Sarah goes from the bright young thing of Another Girl to this broken down robot. The description echoes PKDs ersatz human psychotic and the animatronic creatures which appear in Little Boy Blue.
With her weekend job in Woollies, Marg earned enough to bring home two or three new albums every week - If we ever decide on a fixed running order then this will be the opening story, meaning that this would prefigure the similar description of a young Sarah in Another Girl, rushing home with her LPs stuffed under her coat so old man Schnitzler won't find them. Again, music is massive in the lives of these women.
And a big shout out for Simms Cross Curios where, in 1990/91, I bought my first ever Neil Young LPs.
Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
And here's the Inspiral Carpets tee shirt.
And then there are a couple of boy geniuses, wandering aimlessly round the post industrial wasteland, discussing the possible meaning of Gandalf's horse appearing in Laura Palmer's bedroom and sniffing solvents from a shirtcuff. Well, if Hitchcock can have a walk-on role in his movies then why can't we?
Annotations - The Word Is...
...Love, according to the Beatles track. Basically placing Sarah little more than three months on from last time we saw her. Again, not vital to an understanding of the story, but hopefully, the burgeoning counter culture will tie in with the development of our little Sarah as she loses her dad and joins a succession of less than helpful cults and churches. I guess she's my way of squeezing some theological and spiritual concerns into DW, on top of the already existing ideas.
I wanted to try and draw some correlation between Sarah and her father, so that when we finally get into the possible familial links with Fliss, there's an existing lineage of slightly odd spiritual/magical/revolutionary figures stretching out behind her. I now see her as the final manifestation of the line, the perfect distillation of all that went before, meaning that she didn't enter DW so much as bring it into being here on Earth (or in the realm next door at least).
Running late... that's a private joke, because this was once again supposed to be Sarah meeting George King and the Aetherians (who are now called Arthur Pendleton and The Order Of Intergalactic Angels. They WILL turn up eventually. But not tonight.)
No specific reference, but I like the idea of Sarah being particularly susceptible to the shamanistic power of music, the drum beat of The Word helping her to reach a transcendent state. That's why she drifts so much into her own thoughts both here and in Another Girl. Felicity's mum lives right on the border betwen our world and hers.
Lamplight on the bridge... The corpus callosum is the link between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and a malfunction of that link is often characterized by visual halucinations, particularly random flashes of colour and light, like PKDs pink laser beam. Just to completely contradict everything in that last paragraph, we could play up this aspect and have it seem that Sarah is experiencing halucinations and hemispheric cross-chatter due to a mental imbalance, which would just make Fliss a third generation schizophrenic thrown into full-blown episodes by the ingestion of the DW substance. Maybe.
Everything from Deep in thought... to ....the higher realms is a fairly straight description of Astral projection techniques AND the standard hypnagogic/sleep paralysis state. This is when the body goes into lockdown to prevent sleepers from thrashing too wildly in their dreams. In some cases it can occur before you're asleep, leading to a wide variety of folklore and strangeness. PKD claims that most of his VALIS visions occurred in this state. The Mara is a German witch creature which is said to sit upon the chest of a sleeper and bring nightmares. Again, this reinforces Sarah's Tuetonic roots and ties in with the sleep paralysis.
A silver star - Notes deleted.
The red forest, the zone of alienation - These are the names given to the area directly surrounding and a dead wood adjacent to Chernobyl. Sarah is seeing the future here. We might make it back to Chernobyl at some point in the near future.
An earnest young man - Notes deleted.
I wanted to try and draw some correlation between Sarah and her father, so that when we finally get into the possible familial links with Fliss, there's an existing lineage of slightly odd spiritual/magical/revolutionary figures stretching out behind her. I now see her as the final manifestation of the line, the perfect distillation of all that went before, meaning that she didn't enter DW so much as bring it into being here on Earth (or in the realm next door at least).
Running late... that's a private joke, because this was once again supposed to be Sarah meeting George King and the Aetherians (who are now called Arthur Pendleton and The Order Of Intergalactic Angels. They WILL turn up eventually. But not tonight.)
No specific reference, but I like the idea of Sarah being particularly susceptible to the shamanistic power of music, the drum beat of The Word helping her to reach a transcendent state. That's why she drifts so much into her own thoughts both here and in Another Girl. Felicity's mum lives right on the border betwen our world and hers.
Lamplight on the bridge... The corpus callosum is the link between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and a malfunction of that link is often characterized by visual halucinations, particularly random flashes of colour and light, like PKDs pink laser beam. Just to completely contradict everything in that last paragraph, we could play up this aspect and have it seem that Sarah is experiencing halucinations and hemispheric cross-chatter due to a mental imbalance, which would just make Fliss a third generation schizophrenic thrown into full-blown episodes by the ingestion of the DW substance. Maybe.
Everything from Deep in thought... to ....the higher realms is a fairly straight description of Astral projection techniques AND the standard hypnagogic/sleep paralysis state. This is when the body goes into lockdown to prevent sleepers from thrashing too wildly in their dreams. In some cases it can occur before you're asleep, leading to a wide variety of folklore and strangeness. PKD claims that most of his VALIS visions occurred in this state. The Mara is a German witch creature which is said to sit upon the chest of a sleeper and bring nightmares. Again, this reinforces Sarah's Tuetonic roots and ties in with the sleep paralysis.
A silver star - Notes deleted.
The red forest, the zone of alienation - These are the names given to the area directly surrounding and a dead wood adjacent to Chernobyl. Sarah is seeing the future here. We might make it back to Chernobyl at some point in the near future.
An earnest young man - Notes deleted.
Annotations - Ghost Town
This has the rare distinction of being the only 'lost' DW chapter. Somehow, both Phil and I managed to delete the original and I had to rewrite it from memory. It wound up twice as long as theoriginal, with extra homosexual activity and a completely different ending. In honour of that, I've also rewritten a lot of the notes on the piece.
This is the second appearance of The Imperial, after the mid-60s version gets a mention in Another Girl. Here we are again, some 20 years on. The shop names and ESB tee-shirt should place us in the early 80s, along with the title which, of course, comes from that Thatcher/Early 80s/Brixton & Toxteth Riot-era classic by The Specials.
We've also seen Mark's mum before, I think. Compare:
...the stain on Cynthia's blouse, the clumsily re-applied lipstick and the cigarette burn on her far too short skirt, (Cyn in Another Girl).
He saw her work clothes, the stained blouse and the skirt with the cigarette burn... (Mark's mum in Ghost Town).
Yeah, it surprised me too, but the town bike is more than she seems, and there's a whole lot of pain in her life before she stands at the gates and waves goodbye to her son...
I've nicked a couple of place names from Widnes, again tying in with Another Girl, but beyond that, there's nothing too deep. Humbug Billy was a genuine sweet-seller who inadvertently caused the great Bradford sweet poisoning of 1854, selling around 200 bags of arsenic-laced sweets, but no-one really needs to know that, it's just a dumb joke for my own personal edification.
However.... Things take on a very different hue if you look at that description of the boys in the attic and their concerns about Humbug. They armed him, set him off, and now they want to beat him down before he gets too big for his boots. That sounds a bit like America and Iraq. And Mark gets pimped out to keep him occupied, then holds him down as he dies - Blair's Britain? So the house is the UN, with us getting royally screwed by the US, then waving our big dick at the smaller EU boys. That would then mean that the riot stricken town is a metaphor for the modern world,with all its violence and bloodshed and brutalized children, and the reason for it all? That crazy old whore Thatcher gave up on us and left us to fend for ourselves all those years ago. Sure, we miss her now that we've forgotten how bad she really was, and in a lot of ways, we're a lot like her, but when the smiling man (who isn't Jesus...) comes around, we're going to have the veils lifted from our eyes and we will see what we're doing to the world, and we'll have to decide, lying there on the Imperial steps (or beyond the Empire, to put it a different way...) whether we really want to grow up and do something right for a change.
Probably completely overblown, and maybe I'm the only one who can see it, but it makes sense to me, and I think it works well either way, so what the hell.
This is the second appearance of The Imperial, after the mid-60s version gets a mention in Another Girl. Here we are again, some 20 years on. The shop names and ESB tee-shirt should place us in the early 80s, along with the title which, of course, comes from that Thatcher/Early 80s/Brixton & Toxteth Riot-era classic by The Specials.
We've also seen Mark's mum before, I think. Compare:
...the stain on Cynthia's blouse, the clumsily re-applied lipstick and the cigarette burn on her far too short skirt, (Cyn in Another Girl).
He saw her work clothes, the stained blouse and the skirt with the cigarette burn... (Mark's mum in Ghost Town).
Yeah, it surprised me too, but the town bike is more than she seems, and there's a whole lot of pain in her life before she stands at the gates and waves goodbye to her son...
I've nicked a couple of place names from Widnes, again tying in with Another Girl, but beyond that, there's nothing too deep. Humbug Billy was a genuine sweet-seller who inadvertently caused the great Bradford sweet poisoning of 1854, selling around 200 bags of arsenic-laced sweets, but no-one really needs to know that, it's just a dumb joke for my own personal edification.
However.... Things take on a very different hue if you look at that description of the boys in the attic and their concerns about Humbug. They armed him, set him off, and now they want to beat him down before he gets too big for his boots. That sounds a bit like America and Iraq. And Mark gets pimped out to keep him occupied, then holds him down as he dies - Blair's Britain? So the house is the UN, with us getting royally screwed by the US, then waving our big dick at the smaller EU boys. That would then mean that the riot stricken town is a metaphor for the modern world,with all its violence and bloodshed and brutalized children, and the reason for it all? That crazy old whore Thatcher gave up on us and left us to fend for ourselves all those years ago. Sure, we miss her now that we've forgotten how bad she really was, and in a lot of ways, we're a lot like her, but when the smiling man (who isn't Jesus...) comes around, we're going to have the veils lifted from our eyes and we will see what we're doing to the world, and we'll have to decide, lying there on the Imperial steps (or beyond the Empire, to put it a different way...) whether we really want to grow up and do something right for a change.
Probably completely overblown, and maybe I'm the only one who can see it, but it makes sense to me, and I think it works well either way, so what the hell.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
It's The End Of The World As We Know It...
So I've had about 24 hours to digest the news that Disney has bought Marvel and I've come to the conclusion that this is a good thing - For DC Comics.
Opinion has been fairly mixed across the comics blogosphere, with die-hard fanboys weeping into their Spider-Man comforters and Stan The Man (currently on an exclusive first-look deal with the House Of Mouse) claiming, unsurprisingly, that it's great.
Arguments put forward by supporters of the deal include:
Disney own Miramax (producers of Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction etc) so clearly don't mind their subsidiaries producing adult-oriented content.
The financial security will allow Marvel to publish critically acclaimed but low-selling titles without worrying about the bottom line.
The deal gives Marvel a ready made pipeline to Pixar, making a CGI X-Men movie a strong possibility.
And so on...
But there are some very strong counter-arguments for each of those ideas.
Firstly, why would Pixar want to make an X-Men movie? The Incredibles already showed that you don't need 40 years of continuity baggage and (questionable) brand recognition to produce a great, family friendly superhero movie.
Secondly, the idea of Marvel continuing to publish loss-making titles is based on the assumption that Disney will operate the same way Time Warner does with it's subsidiary DC Comics, but that's not necessarily the case. Disney have bought Marvel at a time when there are literally dozens of comic book movies in production and countless more being pitched all the time. Warner bought DC in 1969, when the closest thing to a multi-media superhero crossover was the Adam West Batman series which had been cancelled three years earlier. Looked at from that angle, it's highly unlikely that Disney have bought Marvel because they want to expand into comic book publishing (they already have an existing deal with Boom Studios for that) - The House of Ideas is about to become The Factory Of Ideas, churning out comics which are little more than illustrated spec scripts. The recognised, iconic characters will be packaged and pitched as potential movies. Follow that up with action figures, lunch boxes, branded babygrows and a thousand other merchandising opportunities, then ask yourself - Who wants a Captain Britain Happy Meal? Fool Killer underpants? Nextwave flavoured vitamins?
(okay, I'd probably go for that last one, but I don't think I'm Disney's target demographic...)
At the end of the day, Warner bought DC and let them get on with it for 9 years before they finally made Superman The Movie. For every Dark Knight there's at least two Schumacher abominations, a Quest For Peace for every Watchmen. Warners have no clue what to do with the characters and have let countless opportunities slip through their fingers over the years (anyone remember when Clint Eastwood was rumoured for The Dark Knight Returns?), right up to Whedon's amazing disappearing Wonder Woman. By now, DC is so autonomous that Warners probably forget they even own them. Disney will be a completely different kettle of worms though. You don't pay $4bn for Alias and Kabucki, and every new title will be seen as a dry run for the eventual movie. If it can't even pull in the fan boys for $3.99 a month then it will never be a worthwhile investment for the big screen. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. If anything, lower tier titles will probably get canned quicker than ever.
And finally, The Tarantino Defence. My favourite of the bunch, and the reason I think we'll soon see a whole bunch of creators heading to the Distinguished Competition. And it all boils down to one thing - The Disney Store.
Yes, Disney owns Miramax and was therefore behind the distribution of Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, Heavenly Creatures and a host of other movies about matricidal lesbians, transvestite terrorists and smacked up hitmen. They also (allegedly) bought foreign films to keep them off the market, forced cuts on Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Michael Moore for political and moral reasons and practically buried Dead Man when Jim Jarmusch refused to make the cuts requested.
Leaving all of that aside though, the one thing all of those films had in common - Reservoir Dogs, Dogma, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the rest - is that not one of them had a cuddly doll sold through the Disney Store. There was never any chance of Little Johnny buying a Chuck Heston NRA Forever duvet cover and going on to see the film, or of Cindy Lou wanting to snort heroin because her Mia Wallace Styling Head looks so great with a ruptured septum. But over at Marvel, things are not so clear cut. Every month, they produce a range of all ages titles, wherein Wolverine goes to a theme park with Thor, Captain America and MODOK open a pet store and Doctor Doom's latest scheme revolves around making Ben Grimm the perfect birthday cake. Those cute and cuddly characters will be stacked high in every Disney Store worldwide.
And then every month, those same characters appear in the other Marvel comics. The ones where Wolverine castrates rapists, Thor pounds his enemies to a bloody paste with his hammer and Captain America demonstrates the best way to beat up a semi-comatose post-Hulkout Bruce Banner is with a kick to the head.
These books appear in the same format, often alongside each other on the comic shop shelves, and if Sweetpea wants to read about the X-Men then there's a fifty - fifty chance that he'll pick up the wrong one (hell, at 8 I would have flicked through them both and gone for the one with the highest booby count, so it's probably more like eighty - twenty). You can't have characters on sale in plush form at the Disney Store discussing genocide, much less commitiing it in the name of truth and decency. The first time that happens, the balloon will go up, there'll be screaming headlines about Disney corrupting the young and a massive public outcry. Disney can't afford that (remember how scared they were by the rumours of a naked Jessica Rabbit?), so they will be drawing up a list of proscribed phrases, scenes, situations and poses right alongside that exclusive merchandising rights deal. Let's face it, on a slow news day, a flash of MJ's side-boob will get headlines. Once the mouse gets involved, it will be massively overblown.
So, Marvel will be de-fanged, effectively neutered by the mouse, before they see a penny of that fat movie cheque. And that will have a massive knock-on effect for DC. Previously, for both of the major companies, the biggest names have pretty much all followed this route; Take a second or third string character who is either out of print or on the verge of cancellation, turn the book around and gradually push the edges of what is acceptable as you build up a small but vocal fan base and a strong critical reaction, then take on something bigger, better and more adult that will make your name. That's Miller with Daredevil, Morrison with Doom Patrol, Ennis on The Demon, even Moore on Swamp Thing (about to be cancelled for the third time when he took it on, remember). With no room for poorly performing books, those new creators wil have to jump straight to the major leagues, with little or no time to develope and grow. Anyone who does find themselves riding a wave of success will soon find themselves stifled by editorial interference ("No Grant, you can't annihilate Genosha." "Frank, we can't show sais in the book. What about some sort of rubber sap for knocking people out?").
So with no opportunity to do stretching, adult work like that, the brain drain will soon begin, and DC / Vertigo is the obvious place to go. We'll lose the edgier superhero books that Marvel does so well, but we could get the next Sandman, Preacher or Transmetropolitan, so on balance, I think I'm glad that Disney bought Marvel, and the sooner they drive them into the ground the better.
Opinion has been fairly mixed across the comics blogosphere, with die-hard fanboys weeping into their Spider-Man comforters and Stan The Man (currently on an exclusive first-look deal with the House Of Mouse) claiming, unsurprisingly, that it's great.
Arguments put forward by supporters of the deal include:
Disney own Miramax (producers of Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction etc) so clearly don't mind their subsidiaries producing adult-oriented content.
The financial security will allow Marvel to publish critically acclaimed but low-selling titles without worrying about the bottom line.
The deal gives Marvel a ready made pipeline to Pixar, making a CGI X-Men movie a strong possibility.
And so on...
But there are some very strong counter-arguments for each of those ideas.
Firstly, why would Pixar want to make an X-Men movie? The Incredibles already showed that you don't need 40 years of continuity baggage and (questionable) brand recognition to produce a great, family friendly superhero movie.
Secondly, the idea of Marvel continuing to publish loss-making titles is based on the assumption that Disney will operate the same way Time Warner does with it's subsidiary DC Comics, but that's not necessarily the case. Disney have bought Marvel at a time when there are literally dozens of comic book movies in production and countless more being pitched all the time. Warner bought DC in 1969, when the closest thing to a multi-media superhero crossover was the Adam West Batman series which had been cancelled three years earlier. Looked at from that angle, it's highly unlikely that Disney have bought Marvel because they want to expand into comic book publishing (they already have an existing deal with Boom Studios for that) - The House of Ideas is about to become The Factory Of Ideas, churning out comics which are little more than illustrated spec scripts. The recognised, iconic characters will be packaged and pitched as potential movies. Follow that up with action figures, lunch boxes, branded babygrows and a thousand other merchandising opportunities, then ask yourself - Who wants a Captain Britain Happy Meal? Fool Killer underpants? Nextwave flavoured vitamins?
(okay, I'd probably go for that last one, but I don't think I'm Disney's target demographic...)
At the end of the day, Warner bought DC and let them get on with it for 9 years before they finally made Superman The Movie. For every Dark Knight there's at least two Schumacher abominations, a Quest For Peace for every Watchmen. Warners have no clue what to do with the characters and have let countless opportunities slip through their fingers over the years (anyone remember when Clint Eastwood was rumoured for The Dark Knight Returns?), right up to Whedon's amazing disappearing Wonder Woman. By now, DC is so autonomous that Warners probably forget they even own them. Disney will be a completely different kettle of worms though. You don't pay $4bn for Alias and Kabucki, and every new title will be seen as a dry run for the eventual movie. If it can't even pull in the fan boys for $3.99 a month then it will never be a worthwhile investment for the big screen. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. If anything, lower tier titles will probably get canned quicker than ever.
And finally, The Tarantino Defence. My favourite of the bunch, and the reason I think we'll soon see a whole bunch of creators heading to the Distinguished Competition. And it all boils down to one thing - The Disney Store.
Yes, Disney owns Miramax and was therefore behind the distribution of Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, Heavenly Creatures and a host of other movies about matricidal lesbians, transvestite terrorists and smacked up hitmen. They also (allegedly) bought foreign films to keep them off the market, forced cuts on Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Michael Moore for political and moral reasons and practically buried Dead Man when Jim Jarmusch refused to make the cuts requested.
Leaving all of that aside though, the one thing all of those films had in common - Reservoir Dogs, Dogma, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the rest - is that not one of them had a cuddly doll sold through the Disney Store. There was never any chance of Little Johnny buying a Chuck Heston NRA Forever duvet cover and going on to see the film, or of Cindy Lou wanting to snort heroin because her Mia Wallace Styling Head looks so great with a ruptured septum. But over at Marvel, things are not so clear cut. Every month, they produce a range of all ages titles, wherein Wolverine goes to a theme park with Thor, Captain America and MODOK open a pet store and Doctor Doom's latest scheme revolves around making Ben Grimm the perfect birthday cake. Those cute and cuddly characters will be stacked high in every Disney Store worldwide.
And then every month, those same characters appear in the other Marvel comics. The ones where Wolverine castrates rapists, Thor pounds his enemies to a bloody paste with his hammer and Captain America demonstrates the best way to beat up a semi-comatose post-Hulkout Bruce Banner is with a kick to the head.
These books appear in the same format, often alongside each other on the comic shop shelves, and if Sweetpea wants to read about the X-Men then there's a fifty - fifty chance that he'll pick up the wrong one (hell, at 8 I would have flicked through them both and gone for the one with the highest booby count, so it's probably more like eighty - twenty). You can't have characters on sale in plush form at the Disney Store discussing genocide, much less commitiing it in the name of truth and decency. The first time that happens, the balloon will go up, there'll be screaming headlines about Disney corrupting the young and a massive public outcry. Disney can't afford that (remember how scared they were by the rumours of a naked Jessica Rabbit?), so they will be drawing up a list of proscribed phrases, scenes, situations and poses right alongside that exclusive merchandising rights deal. Let's face it, on a slow news day, a flash of MJ's side-boob will get headlines. Once the mouse gets involved, it will be massively overblown.
So, Marvel will be de-fanged, effectively neutered by the mouse, before they see a penny of that fat movie cheque. And that will have a massive knock-on effect for DC. Previously, for both of the major companies, the biggest names have pretty much all followed this route; Take a second or third string character who is either out of print or on the verge of cancellation, turn the book around and gradually push the edges of what is acceptable as you build up a small but vocal fan base and a strong critical reaction, then take on something bigger, better and more adult that will make your name. That's Miller with Daredevil, Morrison with Doom Patrol, Ennis on The Demon, even Moore on Swamp Thing (about to be cancelled for the third time when he took it on, remember). With no room for poorly performing books, those new creators wil have to jump straight to the major leagues, with little or no time to develope and grow. Anyone who does find themselves riding a wave of success will soon find themselves stifled by editorial interference ("No Grant, you can't annihilate Genosha." "Frank, we can't show sais in the book. What about some sort of rubber sap for knocking people out?").
So with no opportunity to do stretching, adult work like that, the brain drain will soon begin, and DC / Vertigo is the obvious place to go. We'll lose the edgier superhero books that Marvel does so well, but we could get the next Sandman, Preacher or Transmetropolitan, so on balance, I think I'm glad that Disney bought Marvel, and the sooner they drive them into the ground the better.
The Dark Prince Strikes Again
And the Dark Prince strikes again as he rapes and plunders the cosy Marvel Universe!!
Disney to buy Marvel in $4bn Deal
Disney to buy Marvel in $4bn Deal
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