Platypus of Truth

Works of Art endure for a reason. Even when aspects of them become out outdated, (say as in the case of the Iliad, composition-in-performance goes out of fashion) the power of the story shines through. That's a rare thing for a genre that is as dependent on up-to-date technology as a Science Fiction Film. The story, the message, has to be uniquely powerful to endure once the future becomes the present or special effects take another leap forward. I spent some time this week on a sci-fi film that has endured, even though 1997 has come and gone: Terminator 2: Judgement Day . My reasons for picking T2 were three-fold: 1. I hadn't seen it in over ten years, 2. It's a James Cameron film that fits in with my Save the Cat homework, 3. the film had a powerful impact on me when I was a teenager and I wanted to see how it held up. The edition of the film I viewed was the extended cut. While I get the impression that Cameron prefers the theatrical version for aesthetic reasons, I...

My Save the Cat  homework continues, this time branching out into films within the broader horror genre. Where I began with Alien , a 70s horror classic, I decided to move on to the late 90s with The Blair Witch Project . My first introduction to The Blair Witch Project,  appropriately enough, was a student film advertising Biola University's Saddie Hawkins week: The Babs Witch Project.  I particularly liked the on campus tie-ins in the spirit of the original: hanging stick figures outside the cafeteria. Anyhow, I regret to say that in spite of spending six years hanging out with film majors, I never saw the original. So here I am now, yet again, a day late and a dollar short. It's a happy coincidence however, since I now know more about Film and legend tripping . Preface aside, there are three things about The Blair Witch Project  that I appreciated and think helped to sell this rather unorthodox film: 1. Nostalgia -The film is set in 1994 and was released in ...

This summer has been a film summer as much as it has been anything else. That is due in large part to kicking things off with a read through the unofficial screenplay bible  Save the Cat . While I was casting about for a means to better digest its principles, I noticed that another Alien  prequel had landed and so my Save the Cat  homework for the next few months was set. In order to prepare for Alien Covenant , I would work through three other movies in the franchise and an assortment of related films. You can find my assessment of Prometheus  here . In anticipation of Alien Covenant , I chose to work through the films according to the mythos' chronology. That meant beginning with the most recent of the three, Prometheus . I then moved on to the core of the franchise with Ridley Scott's Alien  and Jame Cameron's distinctly different sequel Aliens . Each of the core films is very much the product of the decade that produced it. Alien  is a horror pic th...

Pastel is the right medium for The Silmarillion  even if I haven't figured out how to properly scan it. I suppose that's ok given that Tolkien himself could never settle on the right medium for his massive corpus of myths and legends. Following his father's will, Christopher Tolkien attempted to codify the stories of the Elder Days into a definitive version -a sort of "elven bible" -the published Silmarillion . Over the next forty years, however, Christopher developed his own ideas regarding the presentation of his father's work. As a scholar himself, he chose to bring out groups of fragments as they stood contextualized by a mass of critical apparatus. As a consequence, The History of Middle Earth, and the stand-alone volumes that followed it have garnered many scholarly readers and very few lay ones. For good or ill, it is the choice Christopher has made and his long work is now complete with the final volume: Beren and Luthien . Beren and Luthien  present...

In preparation for this summer's Alien Covenant , I went back and did something I should have done a while ago, watched Ridley Scott's Prometheus . The film marked Scott's return to the franchise after being there at its creation in 1979 when he directed Alien . The Alien  franchise is a bit of a mish-mash, which each film in the series having its own unique director who exercised considerable freedom. Scott's  Alien  is a simple yet elegant "monster in the house" horror film. James Cameron's Aliens blends "monster in the house" with Ellen Ripley as the "dude with a problem" who must willingly confront and destroy the monstrosity from which she originally fled. As opposed to the original movies limited cast and claustrophobic feel, Cameron gives us an action flick with plenty of "red shirts", a "boss bad guy" complete with an evil lair, varied locations, and cool sci-fi gadgets galore. David Fincher's Alien 3  ...

As part of my Save the Cat  homework, I'm working my way through the Alien  series. It also has the added benefit of getting me ready for a viewing of Alien Covenant , whenever that happens. In addition to all the Alien  material, I've also been taking a closer look at some of my favorite comic book artists. Mike Mignola and his team have been right at the forefront with Helllboy: Into the Silent Sea and Hellboy: The Midnight Circus  along with Witchfinder  volumes I-IV. On a very different end of the spectrum, I've also been looking back through Doug TenNapel's old black and whites. My eye is specifically on the use of shadow and highlights and last weeks Alien -inspired mini-comic reflects that. This week again merges my two fields of study into my ongoing quest to become a better artist. The above picture is a refinement of my first Alien  homage refined with Prismacolor markers and colored pencils (no computer editing). The second is a new piece co...

This summer, I'm spending some dedicated time with my art markers and copy of Clip Art Studio. As part of this artistic endeavor, I've put together a rudimentary comic inspired by Ridley Scott's Prometheus  and Alien Covenant . My goal was to try illustrating in simple black and white under the influence of Doug TenNapel's early work and Mike Mignola's Hellboy . So here we go...