Saturday, July 09, 2005
Comic Art
This weekend is, of course dedicated to:
THE FANTASTIC FOUR.
They started out with this most memorable of covers by the fabulous and outstanding Jack Kirby. Kirby is the master of FF art and the image below is one of my favs. The duration of, if not the dynamics of, Reed and Sue's marriage is an uncommon example in media, and comics in particular where divorce and infidelity make for wonderful dramatic tension.
Regarding the movie: I loved it! I wish I could objectively tell you that it was a "good" movie, but I cannot. It suffers from mediocre acting in a number of roles, and the development of the bad guy is pretty weak -- deviating way too far, and unnecessarily, from the comic. That said; however, Michael Chilkis as Ben Grimm is outstanding , and that character, one of the most compelling in Marvel history, is very well done -- which in my opinion outweighs the negatives enough to give the movie a recommendation. It has all the sense of fun and "gol-ly" that I missed in this summer's Batman offering. Go, turn your brain off and enjoy, cause it's fun.
Thanks to the gentlemen at Fraters Libertas, I encountered this post at "The Freedom Dogs" about comics propoganda role in WWII. It's good stuff and I wish comics would do more of that today.
In testament to manga - it seems a movie based on one such Japanese comic is beating the pants off Star Wars in asian theaters. Not surprizing given Star Wars quality. (For reference FF, despite it's weaknesses, is better that SWIII.)
Finally, be sure and check out Expert Witness at Evangelical Outpost this weekend. I hear it's extra good.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR.
They started out with this most memorable of covers by the fabulous and outstanding Jack Kirby. Kirby is the master of FF art and the image below is one of my favs. The duration of, if not the dynamics of, Reed and Sue's marriage is an uncommon example in media, and comics in particular where divorce and infidelity make for wonderful dramatic tension.
Regarding the movie: I loved it! I wish I could objectively tell you that it was a "good" movie, but I cannot. It suffers from mediocre acting in a number of roles, and the development of the bad guy is pretty weak -- deviating way too far, and unnecessarily, from the comic. That said; however, Michael Chilkis as Ben Grimm is outstanding , and that character, one of the most compelling in Marvel history, is very well done -- which in my opinion outweighs the negatives enough to give the movie a recommendation. It has all the sense of fun and "gol-ly" that I missed in this summer's Batman offering. Go, turn your brain off and enjoy, cause it's fun.
Thanks to the gentlemen at Fraters Libertas, I encountered this post at "The Freedom Dogs" about comics propoganda role in WWII. It's good stuff and I wish comics would do more of that today.
In testament to manga - it seems a movie based on one such Japanese comic is beating the pants off Star Wars in asian theaters. Not surprizing given Star Wars quality. (For reference FF, despite it's weaknesses, is better that SWIII.)
Finally, be sure and check out Expert Witness at Evangelical Outpost this weekend. I hear it's extra good.
