“Foot Fetishist Frank Miller”: This Independent article profling Frank Miller and his history with Hollywood is the sort of story you’ve probably read a few score of already by now, but the accompanying piece is actually pretty fascinating. Under “Why Frank Miller gets a kick out of Converse,” there are about four paragraphs regarding Miller’s affection for Converse All-Stars. I like the part where he talks about how amazing the foot is, saying “Most people think of the foot as being the end of an ‘L’, whereas in fact the foot is as complicated as the hand and almost as dexterous.” Particularly in light of how so many big-name comics artists seem to go to such incredible lengths to never have to draw a human foot. The headline above is the one Miller joking suggested would be used as the headline for the Independent article, after he talked about how cool feet are to draw.
Newspaper publishes article about comics that doesn’t make me sigh: This Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece by Kristopher Collins reviewing a trio of comics anthologies—Breakdowns, The Best American Comics 2008, and the Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories—is a remarkably astute one for a mainstream newspaper peice of this nature. Collins even prefaces the article by noting such articles’ tendencies to talk about how comics have finally grown up and aren’t just for kids any more. Unfortunately, the headline—”The genre finally gets what it deserves in three new anthologies”—confuses genre with medium, but we can blame that on the page editor, not Collins, who gets genre and medium right in the piece. (It also says comics finally gets what it deserves; I hope I never live to see the day that comics actually gets what it deserves, because I like comics and, let’s face it, what it deserves is going to be pretty horrible to watch).
Galactus’ helmet has grown to enjoy its work: Halo and Sprocket creator Kerry Callen takes a closer look at The Big G’s headgear, and how it’s changed over the years. For the happier.
The next best thing to Frank Miller’s Mary Worth?: The other day I mentioned an old Jules Feiffer essay in which he compares Will Eisner’s The Spirit character to Mary Worth, and wondered aloud what Frank Miller’s Mary Worth movie might look like. Reader Johnny Dale wrote in to inform me of something not dissimilar. A group of actors performed 30 days worth of Mary Worth strips, replicating the stiff dialogue and strange mis en scene and “camera” angles of the strips exactly. It’s…well, it’s really something you’ve gotta see for yourself. Check it out here.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Being a Converse All-Star afficionado myself, I’ve always loved that Frank’s characters consistently wear Chucks!
January 7th, 2009 at 1:52 am
To be pedantic, as an English major I have heard “genre” used for things like novel v. short story and poetry v. prose- it’s becoming outdated but it may have been the proper use at some point.