Here’s what I’ve been consuming as of late in the worlds of comics. film, books and television.
Comics
Fell by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith
Fell is a renowned gem from 2005, treated with awe by all comic book fans and I am pleased to say it lived up to its reputation.
The artwork by Ben Templesmith strays from graphic novel tradition, hazy and muddy in style it brings to mind imagined storyboards from David Fincher’s Se7en, capturing the atmosphere of a cesspit like city of sin. Or as the locals call it, ‘Snowtown.’
Detective Richard Fell has been transferred to Snowtown from across the bridge, where we assume things are more green and leafy, and we follow his journey as he tries to enforce his own brand of morality and justice onto a derelict world filled with shadows and complete psychos.
Apart from this one girl…
It’s gripping, funny, dark, twisted and apparently coming back soon as Ellis lost the last issue when his computer died. Which is why we always back up kids.
Todd: The Ugliest Kid on Earth by MK Perker and Ken Kristensen
Todd: The Ugliest Kid on Earth published by Image combines morbid black humour and surrealist situations to become the most innovative and brave comic I have read in a while.
Todd is an extremely misfortunate child who has been mistakenly convicted of murder and is forced by his nutjob hillbilly family to wear a bag on his head due to his unappealing face.
Read it because it has the best first issue premise ever: Todd wants desperately to make friends, but every kid he approaches winds up decapitated.
Or worse.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
A collection of updated fairy tales with a focus on the empowerment of the typically downtrodden woman, these short stories are gripping, ever so slightly sensual and wonderfully poetic.
The language flows off the page in rapturous paragraphs dripping into your brain like honey with its mix of brutality and fantasy.
Attempting Normal by Marc Maron
Despite his notoriety as a former drug addled comic and incredibly successful podcaster Maron is, more then anything for me, an extremely talented writer. I have barely listened to his podcast WTF, in which he concocts extremely personal interview with famous entertainers, and came to this book blind.
It is an autobiography of sorts, covering his difficult marriages, experiences with hookers (in the chapter entitled 2 Prostitutes) descent into drugs and the painful hilarity of growing up with a bi polar dad.
Maron’s ability to cut right to the heart of the most psychologically difficult situations is enthralling, and his sentences contain agonizing grains of truth which will resonate with anyone who has ever acted human.
He is not afraid to show his weaknesses and comes clean about the pettiest of his insecurities, which if nothing else will make you feel better for having the same ones.
I particular enjoyed his take on his first marriage:
“I married her for the wrong reason – because it was safe. I believed at that time that people got married when they had that moment, when they’re looking at themselves in the mirror and say, ‘Holy shit. I’m going to compromise my dreams, get fat, sick, old, and died. I kind of want to have someone around for that.” You don’t want to be sixty, fat, sick, and alone saying to your reflection, “Look at me. I’m a fat failure.” No, you kind of want someone around to say, “It’s okay baby. You look great. Let’s go get some Tasi D-Lite, cowboy.” You’re thinking, “I’m not a cowboy. I missed that window. Ah, Mexico.”
TV
Hannibal
Look, I have only watched one episode, and I know you thinking ‘but I’m on the 9th one and where the fuck were you.”
Well I was here, in England, being distracted by life, and also thinking ‘another show. SERIOUSLY. ANOTHER ONE TO WATCH.”
But then Game of Thrones is finishing so… what you gonna do.?
One episode in and I love it. It’s all weird and dark and uncomfortable and homoerotic and sick and excellent and David Slade is involved. He made the best Twilight movie.
I am in this for the long haul. I hope. Unless this is another show which falls flat after the first episode. I suspect not.
Films
Byzantium
Neil Jordan of Interview with a Vampire fame has made another vampire film, except this time it’s based on a play and they are called succrients not vampires, thank you very much.
Which seems accurate as the immortal mother and daughter immortal (Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan respectively) use a protracted thumbnail to kill and don’t have super strength or speed. They simply drink blood and live forever.
They live on the outskirts of society, with Arterton making money through immoral means, whilst Ronan looks on purely longing for a connection.
The film weaves between the present day, flashbacking between the seaside town they settle in as they hide from other mysterious immortals, and their origin story. The film feels like it has a duality in terms of vision and pace, but it combines the poetry and beauty of the sensitive daughter and the seedy underbelly of the ever-dangerous mother well to form a romping great yarn of a film.
