Shaw Brothers
I'm back on the Shaw Brothers' films again. Recently watched Dragon Inn (1967) and The New One-Armed Swordsman A.K.A Triple Irons (1971) and they both ended up being two of my favourites from the studio. The first feels like it has some of the best cinematography of all SB films I've seen so far with some really great blocking and beautiful establishing shots. I saw a few small clips when I watched Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) a few months ago, and it made me want to seek it out. Also, The New One-Armed Swordsman might have the best score of the SB films I've watched. I couldn't find out who composed the music but at times it sounded like a synthesised Western and Lei Li's theme had a motif that reminded me of this track from Battle of the Planets. It also has some really interesting camera movements and slow motion sequences that looked cool and added to the atmosphere. Both films had great choreography and the body count in The New One-Armed Swordsman was the highest by far with some really brutal sequences that somehow managed to stay emotionally resonant. The latter film made me want to have a go at writing a short, revenge fuelled story with an emphasis on character. The stories of the SB films are generally simple but manage to tie together several elements and character motivations that make them feel bigger than their core premises'. Its something I'm inspired to adopt when considering my own writing. If I had to choose my top five Shaw Brothers films, based on the ones I've seen so far, I'd probably say:
1. Cripple Avengers A.K.A The Return of The Five Deadly Venoms (1978) 2. Come Drink With Me (1966)
3. Dragon Inn (1967)
4. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) 5. The New One-Armed Swordsman A.K.A Triple Irons (1971)
Although Super Inframan (1975) is definitely a close sixth...
The Biologic Show
Recently finished Al Columbia's The Biologic Show #0 and #1 and loved them both. It really made me rethink story conventions and short comic structures. It is horrible but its also great at illustrating anxieties and fears and was a genuine experience when reading. One segment was an illustrated poem or song, finished in a single page and is something I'd like to attempt myself. The art is also great throughout and enhances every story and segment. Both comics were really cool and managed to captured a lot of the aspects I like about my favourite books and films. It reminded to be more experimental in my own writing. I need to get into more alternative and underground comics as I similarly enjoyed Prison Pit and Squeak the Mouse, though they were a bit more light-hearted than The Biologic Show. I also read Mr. Lightbulb by Wojtek Wawszczyk this week which I only picked up based on the cover and thought might have a similar Al Columbia energy. It was definitely surreal but not necessarily in the same way, and was a pretty sad read throughout. Though it was really well written and I still enjoyed it a lot.
Word Association
I recently came across this website. Its a search engine that generates words and phrases associated with your searched topics. Its been useful when mind-mapping ideas for comics and for discovering associated words related to things I'm currently thinking about. I've found it fun to type in random things and see what comes up. This list was generated by typing in 'Nebula'.
Supernova, Orion, Hugo, Novella, Locus, Constellation, Crab, Galaxy, Sturgeon, Astronomer, Cluster, Eta, Telescope, Emission, Sf, Nominee, Comet, Condensation, Meteorite, Sn, Helix, Barnard, Catalogue, Helium, Asteroid, Fantasy, Saturn, Perseus, Crap, Finalist, Fiction, Wr, M1, Astronomy, Caldwell, Remnant, Omega, Brightness, Spiral, Magnitude, Cloud, Pelican, Planet, Dust, Poll, Star, Observatory, Hydrogen, Lagoon, Brat, Kant, Lyra, Corona, Jupiter, Voyager, Progenitor, Award, Harlow, Catalog, Neptune, Prometheus, Bram, Neutron, Disk, Reflection, Gauntlet, Gas
Head Over Heels
Been interested in the ZX Spectrum 3D isometric puzzle adventure games from Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond recently. I played a bit of Monster Max on the Gameboy a few years ago and really enjoyed it but there's something about the colour palette of the Spectrum that makes them specifically endearing. Both Batman and Head Over Heels were really fun, its just a shame that the controls are so unwieldly. I could never work out to how properly map the controls and have movement make sense. Still the Zelda-like dungeon crawling was cool and the visual perspective feels really unique. It was fun collecting Batman's gadgets in a monster ridden Batcave and returning to previously impassable rooms with the new super jump boots or jetpack. The palette of the ZX Spectrum reminds of the Space Riders comic by artist Alexis Ziritt that I read a few years go. Its a really cool and unique visual style that makes a lot of these games stand out even when gameplay is clunky and slow. I thought about adopting some of the aesthetics into some of my visual projects. I also played The Hobbit text adventure that, despite being a bit confusing and difficult was a fun and new experience. I loved that the game included time-based actions with a day and night cycle that impacted the game and that it was open ended with multiple locations and ways to perish. I was inspired to think about adapting one of my scripts into a text adventure type game with similarly branching paths and different endings. I would like to look again at writing and making my own videogame. I also want to get into more Spectrum games in general and have had Elite, The Great Escape and Fantasy World Dizzy on my list for a while now.
You can play the ZX Spectrum Batman game here. And this person does a walkthrough for The Hobbit which was helpful on my own playthrough:
One-Page Comic Challenge
Signed up to the Storytelling Collective's Comics Challenge 8 day course last week and managed to write and illustrate a one-page comic in time for the deadline. The course offered a lot useful resources such as Outside the Panels, a blog dedicated to comic scripts, and Blambot, a lettering and design site with tutorials and downloadable fonts. It was fun to focus on a single idea and boil it down to the essentials. I saw someone else's submission on the Discord server who had used edited stock photos to tell their story. I thought this was a great idea and I'm going to have a go at something similar when illustrating some of my shorter and smaller comic ideas.
DriveThru Comics are apparently anthologising people's submissions and offering them for download on their site during Free Comic Book Day on May 7th, so it'd be really cool to potentially see my work on a legitimate site and available for download.
The Colossus Needs to See Your Papers
Obsessed with this gameplay trailer for the upcoming Militsioner game. It reminded me of the original Siren Head video by Trevor Henderson which I remember thinking was pretty cool. I love Kaiju and Godzilla and adding a Kafkaesque slant on the concept by making it an omnipresent authority figure and giving it a Lynchian disembodied ghost face that screams accusations at you just makes it more interesting. I read in the forward to Hellboy: Vampire of Prague about the existence of Kafka Puppets and after trying to find a picture of one online, I came across a review for a stage play of The Trail staring puppets. The judge of the story was played by a giant disembodied three piece suit which, as a concept, I thought was really cool. The Militsioner trailer reminded me of this phantom suit, a giant faceless and omnipresent authority figure watching from above. I also thought of Goya's The Colossus and the Scarecrow sequence from Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Playlist - Sea & Sky by Stomu Yamash'ta
Really wanted Yamash'ta's Freedom is Frightening as this week's playlist but it's not on Spotify, and neither is Raindog. Anyway, Sea & Sky is great too and I've been listening to these albums a lot this last week
https://open.spotify.com/album/2a5H5K5fHuTdjzWYzytLYL?si=luylEppkQeO4cpbQ6wZGMA
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