I love these pages, they really deliver on the promises the cover makes. I will write more, but wanted to leave you with this before you take off on vacation.
WORD! p.s. Yeah, I know Sedaris but not that book, I love his interviews but have been frustrated his writing until picking up his latest book--I was very impressed. Glad you liked the Chris Ware compare-o-son. I don't know him intimately. OH, also: MIGNOLA: I didn't drop the hammer on him, he was just standing around at his booth which was practically next to the Watts booth, so on my way to the can, seeing there was no crowd, I went over and began flipping thru his art and we began to chat—I'm not a big enough fan to have in-depth conversations about his stuff, but I did tell him I liked the stuff. Some fan came up and was complimenting him on the movie, and since the subject was out there, I told him—pointedly, I think—that the Kirby-style cover was the best thing in the movie—he wasn't defensive, but he felt the movie was good, and I was kind of appalled hearing him talk it up, and I began lamenting the non-Hellboy-ness of it, very diplomatically—I said something like, "I love the quietness of the comics, the creeping dread, the clean design that makes the books sort of visually quiet—I missed that in the movie." So I was definitely not in his face, saying it sucked. At the same time, a new fan appeared and began praising the movie heavily, emphasizing how it was so true to the comic (egad!), and it was a funny scene, because he was defending the movie to me, and simultaneously just taking in all the praise from the fan with a sort of hollow happiness, like he was worried about believing the praise too much. He seemed a little skeptical. Whether this was because he felt deep down that the movie did his work an injustice, or because he was still worried that the critics of the flick were right, I don't know. But his praise for the film started and ended with how well it did (and I was thinking, "Did it?!"), and how well the fans liked it. He could see I was not sold, and I kept politely questioning some of the claims, like how good the creature was in the film. So he started to make excuses for the film, "Well, it's not a comic book, it's a major Hollywood film, so there had to be changes..." We talked a little about making it. Then we started really talking about the Kirby style cover, to get off a subject that was kinda awkward. And the funniest thing was after we were talking for a couple minutes about doing the Kirby cover (he told me it was a complete rip-off of a Thor cover, I forget which one--I think he had forgotten the number, too), and other small talk (how he liked living in NY, etc.), we began talking with a real comfortableness—then he realized he'd kind of let down his guard--we'd been talking no more than fifteen minutes--and he looked down at my badge to check if he still had to treat me like an equal (which, let's face it, is what he's thinking when he scans people at these sort of things--just like we do), and his tone changed and he visibly stiffened and looked worried that he'd invested too much of himself in this conversation—it was just a small grey cloud that came over his face, really, which I took as my cue to graciously wish him the best and take off for the can. WHY I EVEN CARED: I had written a review of the Hellboy movie for my film criticism blog just before the Con. You'll love it! IT'S HERE FOR YOU Uh, I guess I should have just written about YOUR art. Sorry.
Oh yes, did I ever tell you that Mignola and I went to the same art college? The California College of the Arts in Oakland, but he's much younger than me. I talked to him a little bit about that at one Con. We both had some of the same teachers.
TOMMY,
ReplyDeleteI love these pages, they really deliver on the promises the cover makes. I will write more, but wanted to leave you with this before you take off on vacation.
WORD!
p.s. Yeah, I know Sedaris but not that book, I love his interviews but have been frustrated his writing until picking up his latest book--I was very impressed. Glad you liked the Chris Ware compare-o-son. I don't know him intimately.
OH, also: MIGNOLA: I didn't drop the hammer on him, he was just standing around at his booth which was practically next to the Watts booth, so on my way to the can, seeing there was no crowd, I went over and began flipping thru his art and we began to chat—I'm not a big enough fan to have in-depth conversations about his stuff, but I did tell him I liked the stuff. Some fan came up and was complimenting him on the movie, and since the subject was out there, I told him—pointedly, I think—that the Kirby-style cover was the best thing in the movie—he wasn't defensive, but he felt the movie was good, and I was kind of appalled hearing him talk it up, and I began lamenting the non-Hellboy-ness of it, very diplomatically—I said something like, "I love the quietness of the comics, the creeping dread, the clean design that makes the books sort of visually quiet—I missed that in the movie." So I was definitely not in his face, saying it sucked. At the same time, a new fan appeared and began praising the movie heavily, emphasizing how it was so true to the comic (egad!), and it was a funny scene, because he was defending the movie to me, and simultaneously just taking in all the praise from the fan with a sort of hollow happiness, like he was worried about believing the praise too much. He seemed a little skeptical. Whether this was because he felt deep down that the movie did his work an injustice, or because he was still worried that the critics of the flick were right, I don't know. But his praise for the film started and ended with how well it did (and I was thinking, "Did it?!"), and how well the fans liked it. He could see I was not sold, and I kept politely questioning some of the claims, like how good the creature was in the film. So he started to make excuses for the film, "Well, it's not a comic book, it's a major Hollywood film, so there had to be changes..." We talked a little about making it. Then we started really talking about the Kirby style cover, to get off a subject that was kinda awkward. And the funniest thing was after we were talking for a couple minutes about doing the Kirby cover (he told me it was a complete rip-off of a Thor cover, I forget which one--I think he had forgotten the number, too), and other small talk (how he liked living in NY, etc.), we began talking with a real comfortableness—then he realized he'd kind of let down his guard--we'd been talking no more than fifteen minutes--and he looked down at my badge to check if he still had to treat me like an equal (which, let's face it, is what he's thinking when he scans people at these sort of things--just like we do), and his tone changed and he visibly stiffened and looked worried that he'd invested too much of himself in this conversation—it was just a small grey cloud that came over his face, really, which I took as my cue to graciously wish him the best and take off for the can.
WHY I EVEN CARED: I had written a review of the Hellboy movie for my film criticism blog just before the Con. You'll love it! IT'S HERE FOR YOU
Uh, I guess I should have just written about YOUR art. Sorry.
Oh yes, did I ever tell you that Mignola and I went to the same art college? The California College of the Arts in Oakland, but he's much younger than me. I talked to him a little bit about that at one Con. We both had some of the same teachers.
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