Beautiful

One of my absolute favourite artists is James Jean - the illustrator who provides the stunning, beautiful covers to Fables - a series I don't like whatsoever (over-written).
So I was very excited to get my grubby little hands on a beautiful new book today, which collects the first 75 of his Fables covers (plus the equally gorgeous trade collections). It comes with sketches, details, and it looks like it has only got commentaries for the trade covers, which is a shame, as I'd love to know more. Books like this are great - I really loved the Sandman dust covers book and also the Preachers book (can you believe Glenn Fabry never uses photo reference!).
So anyway, if you love good comic cover art, I really recommend this book. You can check out the covers here:
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/fables
But I've pasted a couple of my favourites here too - a lovely sexy cover, and then a beautifully designed cover - I love the way the woman is reclining - and i actually didn't even spot the image in the mirror for a while! Oh and there's also the cover to the latest issue - quite scary and grotesque, but stunning.

Cast shot

Been working on this for a while. I really wanted to do it all in a weekend but it proved to be a bit trickier (especially when I accidentally saved it as a jpeg and had to recolour it all from scratch) – so on the whole it took about 3 or 4 weeks (but that’s like maybe half an hour a day). It’s actually an updated version of a really early O Men cast shot I did maybe 10 years ago. I’ve put both versions up – I think the version of Blackie is pretty much pasted from the original as I really liked it.
If I ever did the ‘Complete Volume One of O Men’ collection, this would be the cover (but I probably won’t do it as it’d be an 800-page brick).

What if

Have you noticed how the new What If comics are missing the point? It shouldn’t be ‘What If starring Captain America/Iron Man’ etc, it should be ‘What if...(insert cool alternate universe storyline idea here)’. Bloody comics.

The Sword

Is anyone reading The Sword? I love the Luna Bros, but they’re really testing my patience with this one. It seems like a step down from their previous work. I’m gonna stop buying the monthlies after issue 12 – hopefully it’ll read better that way.

Madame Xanadu

I thought the new Madame Xanadu Vertigo series might be worth checking out – she’s quite cool in the DCU. Jesus what is that?! It’s all about pixies and elves (as far as I can tell). Yet another Vertigo disappointment :-(

Beowulf

Finally caught Beowulf at the weekend. Not really a film I was that bothered about seeing – but it was cool! Really good – if a bit long. The ending was really gripping, what with all the scary dragon action.
Two bug-bears though – did they really not realise that a naked/fighting Beowulf would look a bit ...silly.
And at one point, Angelina Jolie’s demon character is wearing magic-created high heels! C’mon...this is 507AD!

Quantum of...

Well I just saw the new Bond...
It's all very slick, it's all quite entertaining, Daniel Craig is cool (he makes Pearce Brosnan look like Norris from Coronation Street)...
But I think they're missing a trick, really. I love Bond to bits. I mean, I've kinda seen each Bond film about 10 times over various bank holidays (I say 'kinda' because I've probably never really watched one all the way through - if you know what I mean - they're so bitty - you can just dip in and out). You see, I don't think Bond movies are about the stories - they're about the cool villains - and the even cooler sidekicks - and the set pieces. Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds are Forever... Oddjob... Jaws... Mr Wint and Mr Kidd... We haven't had anything like that for AGES.
Quantum of Solace didn't give us anything like that really, sadly. A toootally forgettable villain - possibly the weakest villain yet - and his sidekick was just a bloke in a dodgy wig. The Bond girl was lovely - really cool - but she reminded me, facially, of Maria off Coronation Street, so that kinda diminished that a bit. And the theme tunes just aren't classic any more are they. They do the job...but they're no Shirley Bassey are they.
Another thing that annoyed me - too much M and too much government stuff. The scenes between M and Bond just seem by the numbers. it's as if the writers think they're really important scenes, but they might as well but cliches down on post-it notes and pick them out randomly. And Judi Dench looked like a hunchbacked gnome in this movie.
Oh yeah, and one other thing - please - no more parkour in the next movie! I'm so bored of watching it. You could just so easily substitute the parkour thing in Casino Royale with the parkour in Italy in this one. Bond is about many things, but it sure ain't parkour.
So all in all...I do miss the Roger Moore era...