O-kay, so I get to have a day off sometimes, and then some asshole comes along and says: "No, no, you should feel less godly about that," completely proving my point.
Idiots.
Omigosh, you just made my day, crafty. !
We've talked about art before, meh, eh!
(fellow artists talking about art, lol)
No no…we had it fixed for centuries
I really don't understand you there.
No, in fact the very founding of the USA was arguably done primarily so that the ruling class could disregard the respectful boundaries that the English imposed to avoid strife with Native Americans and other colonial powers, which incidentally tended to curb our exploiting the land willy-nilly as we've shamelessly done since. It also locked out women and slave voters, preserving a classist system.
Since then there's been various periods of little / negligible useful social policies, as well as periods in which the ultra-wealthy and common capitalists were UNCHECKED in their ability to thoroughly exploit people and form monopolies, etc etc. Seriously, if the Roosevelts hadn't come along, those things might have progressed scarily unchecked.
So, no-- I certainly don't see evidence that our form of democracy was 'fixed for centuries.' No, the fact is it's been a shaky, wild, perilous ride from the day one.
...the 1964 presidential campaign, as that’s the markings of the first ever attack ad.
Maybe in terms of TV, but TV is just a natural extension of media, and media in the States has been used since... at least the early 1800's? to completely slag-off or outright attack enemy candidates. Indeed, it's been a perfect blood-bath of disinformation at times, which doesn't even address all the nasty, vile tricks used to disenfranchise, or outright turn away undesirable voters at the polls. Which yes-- includes outright violence against undesirable voters across centuries in the States.
So, yeah... that all happened.
Altho I DO agree with you that somewhere between 50-70yrs back, the USA has been outright under attack by right-wingers, paving the way for fascism. Basically attacking most of the progress made under FDR and even Republican presidents like Ike.
People glom onto the only entity bothering to do benchmarks/reviews/ratings/whatever, or at least the only popular one, even if the system is totally bogus.
I don't get any of this, really. MetaCritic and IMDB are also huge, and use alternate weighting systems, I believe. You can also just google the movie and underneath the 'big three reviewers,' there'll be a bunch more quality review sites, like NYT, The Guardian, Ebert's site and so forth.
So for anyone who wants to get a spectrum of opinions, it's really not that hard. Not unlike how one should get reliable news.
Thanks for checking that out! On my end, I found this version of "spank": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spanking#Etymology_1
Which of course is different from the other meaning, to "punish by swatting."
As for an example, from Tintin's Secret of the Unicorn:
https://i.imgur.com/6BguONT.jpeg
Wow, I've made some decent paper pixelations before, but they took forever, and are simply not as good as this.
Formidable!
Question, if I may: in some sailing / pirate works I've read, a ship has been said to be making a "spanking pace."
Any relation with that back sail there?
I was just thinking that Sean Astin did a lovely job with Sam, but then I had the thought that pretty much *everyone* in the Fellowship was really strong. Some of the secondary actors maybe not so much, but then... not such a big deal since they're secondary roles.
"It still only counts as one!" Oh, and the dwarf-tossing thing.
So you think Gimli was portrayed a little farcically? I guess he did seem a little 'caricature-ish' at times, and maybe not as grim and deadly as he should have been as a great dwarf warrior. OTOH I think everything I've ever seen John Rhys-Davies in has been a little tongue-in-cheek, not unlike Brian Blessed.
his orks look like fucking zombies
LOL, I never thought of that, but I guess its true.
to me they are completely void of the fairytale-like magic the books have.
I tend to agree with that. So many of these Hollywood movies are utterly caught up with visuals & sound, building tension and manipulating audience reaction. Me, I'd love to see a BBC-made series adaptation if a budget could be found. One that could pay a little more attention to details and cover more of the text, such as including the Bombadil section, a proper return to Hobbiton, and the true coverage of Saruman's demise.
Another annoying thing for me is that some critical sections of the movie were shot but not included in the regular film, so you could only see these in the extended versions. For example, somewhere in the search below you can find:
- the FULL council of Elrond scene, in which Gandalf speaks the ring's inscription, the sky turns black, and even the elves quake in fear
- Saruman and Wormtongue meet their doom, even if it's not accurate to the books
- the amazing/hilarious appearance of the "Mouth of Sauron" before the final battle
- hmm, am I missing anything..?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lotr+extra+scenes
That said, I'm still kind of impressed by the movies given that Jackson and his little team were seemingly writing the adaptation on the fly, often finishing pages literally hours before they were shot. Really poor move by the studio IMO, which later wound up turning The Hobbit in to a total mess. Not that they likely cared due to money being their bottom line.
Btw, I do consider the extended 'making of LotR' movies to be significantly better films than LotR itself.
I pretty much agree with that. Somehow they got 'locked in' to cultural consciousness, which is cool in some ways, but deleterious in others IMO.
It's different for me though, since I'm a middle-aged guy who's been seeing various adaptations of The Hobbit & LotR for years, even if it's just fan-art stuff. Frodo does not necessarily look like Elijah Wood. Frodo looks like Frodo!
Another problem I had with the films (despite their quality) is that there were a few too many cheesy moments for me. For example when the cave troll speared Frodo, it was as if time stopped. Everyone in the party telepathically "knew," and swiveled their heads to look over in shock & horror, and of course the orcs all started moving in slow motion. Just show the damn event and follow-up with the aftermath, please. This isn't The Matrix, featuring "bullet-time," lol.
I don't know anything about this lovely work, but it surely comes from one of Moeby's art books.
I chose a name that made some sense, and upscaled the art a bit so that the lines popped out more. Hope someone enjoys. ^^
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These come from the sixth volume Le Noyé à deux têtes (the "Two-Headed Drowned Man," I believe). The series is by Jacques Tardi, as collected by Casterman. It ran from the ~70's to the 2000's.
I haven't read too much of this series myself, but really liked the color scheme, panel flow, and overall action/noirish aspects of these two pages.
Tardi is one of the most important, versatile and influential French comic artists of all time. He invented an influential variation of Hergé's "Ligne Claire," but is first and foremost hailed as one of the masters of adult comics.
Recurring themes in his productive oeuvre are the early 20th century - particularly World War I -, steampunk, detective stories, and the underworld of the city. His signature series 'Les Extraordinaires Aventures d'Adèle Blanc-Sec' follows a feisty female private investigator in 1910-20s Paris. --Lambiek
Sisters Jeanne & Cécile appeared in Jean-Pierre Gibrat's Le Vol du Courbeau ("The Raven's Flight") & Le Sursis ("The Reprieve"), respectively.
These two connected series, each comprised of two volumes, are some of my most cherished graphic novels of all, representing just about the purest form of "BD" in my mind, being both whimsical and fraught with tension... delights & dangers all around. They're both set during WWII, and focus almost exclusively on the civilian side of things. Here's a brief intro to both characters:
Jeanne (the gal pictured above) is sitting in a police cell, denounced by unknown parties as a French resistance-fighter, when a smooth-talking scoundrel and petty thief is added to the cell. Her fate looks terribly uncertain; that is to say-- likely headed for humiliation, rape and abuse. But then, she and her new 'friend' manage to escape, and from then on are on the run, sharing a bunch of minor & major adventures along the way. The series also features one of the greatest 'twist reveals' I've ever seen. Sweetness becomes pain and vice-versa, and as a reader I'm left totally wanting more story, please.
Now Cécile... dear Cécile-- she still lives in the sisters' home village, helping to run a small café. A local friend of hers ("Julien") has been declared dead due to war events, but after the village goes through their grieving & a funeral, it turns out that he's in fact still alive, and has returned to the village! (albeit hiding at his aunt's place)
The duo reconnect stealthily with Julien's aunt's help, and things seem to reach a sort of normalcy. Cécile et Julien become easy lovers after some difficulties, but then the local collaborators pry in to affairs, and now everything's all topsy-turvy. The series finishes up with another incredible, tragic twist-ending, and note: this series (Le Sursis) was the original.
Remarkably, these two masterpiece series were Gibrat's very first foray in to being sole author(!) In fact I'm quite sure they'd make for some superb movie scripts.
15
Anybody know some notable East-Asian characters that appear in Euro comics? --eh.. Super-Grover know! :D
(i.imgur.com)
Oolala, I really liked this cool topic from our [~big brother/~sister] sub, r/bandesessinee, so I've done a small tribute, listing all titles in order, filling in [settings] and (creators), and adding clickable samplers... all presented by Super-Grover!
Please enjoy. ^^
Credits: u/ILEAATD and the responders for the suggestions, and Alex Ross for the lovely art.
Aire Libre : Le voyage en Italie [Vietnam, other] (Cosey)
Brelan de dames [?] (Dufaux, Vernal)
By the Numbers [French Indochina] (Laurent Rullier)
Chinaman [China, hah] (Taduc & Le Tendre)
Delisle's Burma, Pyongyang & Shenzen [respective] (Guy Delisle)
Dieter Lumpen [East Asia, various] (Zentner & Pellejero)
Hibakusha [Japan] (Barboni & Cinna)
Innommables, Les [China, Hong Kong] (Yann & Conrad)
Japan As Viewed by 17 Creators [Japan, hah] (various)
Pema Ling [Tibet] (George Bess)
Saigon-Hanoi [Vietnam] (Cosey)
Tengu carré, Le [Japan] (David B)
Toppi's Library, volume six [Japan] (Toppi)
Under Two Suns, from Broussaille #4 [Japan & Africa] (Frank Pé)
Voyages d'He Pao, Les [Vietnam, other] (Vinh)
Yoko Tsuno [Japan] (Roger Leloup)
White Lama, The [Tibet, other] (Bess & Jodorowsky)
White Tigress, The [China, Hong Kong] (Wilbur & Conrad)
Corrections and additions welcome! 🙏
24
And YOU, mister Phil Perfect, qu'est-ce que tu faisais, ce jour-là? [Serge Clerc] (see context)
(i.imgur.com)
Returning from the newspaper late at night, Phil Perfect had the habit of strolling around the outskirts of the "Royal Palace."
Well, I just kinda liked the arrangement and energy of this piece,
and bonus pts for being set in winter.
Serge Clerc is a creator I don't believe we've gotten to meet yet on this sub. Artistically, he seems to share much in common with Yves Chaland, yet there are of course notable differences.
IMO Phil Perfect the detective isn't all that noteworthy of a character (Clerc quickly moved on from him), but for sure, one day we'll need a good Clerc breakdown, a pretty versatile, rather ingenious creator as he was.
As an Elvis fan and singer this one hurt, but it was just too funny not to share. 😅
Pieter De Poortere is a Belgian comic artist, children's book illustrator, graphic artist and animator, most famous for his internationally succesful pantomime comic "Boerke," about the mishaps of a generally unlucky moustached farmer. The series combines an innocent-looking graphic style with pitch black comedy. De Poortere is also known for his large crowd paintings. He is part of the new wave of the Flemish humorists, together with Kim Duchateau (see the EGN+ index for samples of Esther Verkest), Jeroom, Bart Schoofs and Nix. --Lambiek, with Johnny's edits
What's also nice is that his comics are largely wordless, so the original Dutch / Flemish collections are usually fine no matter the reader's native tongue(s).
Lots more de Poortere info and comics samples here:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/d/de-poortere-pieter.htm
12
José Domingo: mad genius of isometric realities; cheerful tour-guide to the weird & wonderful (a small tribute)
(i.imgur.com)
José is from Spain, and what first blew me out of the water was his ingenious, hugely inventive, isometric, stream-of-consciousness book, Adventures of a Salaryman. Here's the French title & cover:
It's about a Japanese "salaryman" ('career office worker,' essentially) simply trying to make his way home after a long day pointlessly wasting overtime hours in order to mildly impress his bosses (i.e. the usual salaryman thing).
Basically-- he just wants to get home and go to sleep, and is certainly not looking forward to anything new and/or unexpected. This dude, even if he wanted sex from his wife? That almost certainly wasn't going to fly. So he really, really just wants to throw down his head upon yon pillow(!)
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) absolutely everything unexpected, weird & wild happens to him from that point on, with flippin' bells hangin' off bells, a bit of an ol' Brit expression? :P
Anyway-- SAMPLES
TBH? I don't know that much about his other work.
Still, from what I do understand, this matey has his finger in many pies, such as animation, movies, cartoons, and et cet.
So then, here's some samples I liked in particular:
Not sure if that's meant to be Grubert...?
25
Another recent, random American discovery, and IIRC the first little collection of pixel art here, one of my favorite styles based on growing up in the 8-bit PC & gaming age.
"Mich-spich" had me at the "Prague" piece, so I'm just gonna roll with it, blush a little, and promise to get back to pure Euro stuff in my next post. 😅
Nightlife in Prague
Astoria Column
Lake View
Nature's Eruption
Blue Lotus
Oregon Coast
Koi Pond
Omg-- Burning Tower !
Michelle is inspired by scenery of the Pacific Northwest, and seemingly much more, such as fantasy worlds and anime / manga. In fact she works in multiple types of media, and is regularly looking to expand and refine her craft. Her site is below, in which there's much more art to look at. She also takes commissions.
(note: I don't know her personally, and this is not a plug)
(just wanted to share the work of another artist I liked)
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Hopefully, eventually we get more contributors here, and if I may say so, it's part of why @[email protected] and I have worked hard to get things rolling, share content, be good hosts, and welcome you all. I.e., we want to create a pleasant place for people to share Euro-style comics content, talk about such & them, and enjoy.
Jump in as you like. ^^
ART CREDIT: Blazing Blue Remastered, by The_Good_Guy_Two.
Wow.