Rob Williams

We interrupt the blog’s random babbling about things I liked in 2008 to actually talk comics for a second. I was just about to flag up that Indiana Jones And The Tomb Of The Gods #4 was due for release on February 18th when it came to my attention that it’s now been pushed back to March 18th. No, I’m not entirely sure why either.

Nice cover though, this time by Steve Scott. I particularly like the depiction of Indy with the whip at the bottom of the page. That’s spot on.

While I’m discussing Tomb, it seems that the graphic novel collection has a release date too. June 24th, barring freakish act of god. And no delays between issues, here!

Oop. So much for one a day and discipline.

The story I’m currently writing for 2000AD, The Grievous Journey Of Ichabod Azreal (And The Dead Left In His Wake), is, as I’ve previously mentioned, a supernatural western, and its inspiration came from me loving three things in 2008. One is The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (long ungainly titles rule and piss off sub and art editors on magazines no end, heh), which is a beautiful, poetic, gloriousy cinematic slow-moving movie and one of the best films I’ve seen in years.  OK, so it came out in ’07 but I saw it in ’08. Watched it on the projector one Sunday night, and I’m glad I did, because it’s one of those movies that really needs to be shown on as wide a screen as possible. Lovely Terence Malick-like long shots of clouds pasing over fields. Slow paced. Gorgeous to look at. I loved the ambiguous sense of fate of this movie, that the characters seem to know they’re stuck on a set path and can’t get off it. And superb performances by all concerned, particulary Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt and the always great, underrated Sam Rockwell.

Which led me to the beautiful Nick Cave and Warren Ellis soundtrack – Song For Bob is just one of the most moving, sad, uplifting pieces of music. I’ve been listening to Cave’s work throughout writing Ichabod. The far more sparse soundtrack for The Proposition, again written with Ellis, an awful lot of the balladic Nocturama (which allmusic.com thinks is one of his worst albums but I love. Go figure). Cave’s dark, biblical themes and occasinal sense of romance fit this type of material perfectly, I think.

And the final inspiration was the work of Daniel Woodrell, an astonishingly good Missouri-based writer. He’s largely concentrated on crime fiction in the past. I read Winter’s Bone first – the story of a poor teenager trying to find out what’s happened to her father before the police take her house away in a guarded community of backwoods drug dealers. It’s a stunning, sparse thriller and Woodrell writes like a dream. Then I immediately picke up his Civil War-era story, Woe To Live On (how’s that for an ‘up’ title? It was turned into a movie by Ang Lee a few years back and someone, possibly interested in getting people to actually go see this, decided to change the title to Ride With The Devil) and it was even better. Just masterful writing. Gloriously lyrical in his language, great memorable characters and Woodrell finds hope and light in some horribly dark scenarios. Woe To Live On really inspired me to try writing the 19th century prose that the narrator of Ichabod speaks – for better or for worse. I’ve just picked up two more of his novels off ebay. This is the most excited I’ve been about a novelist in years.

Verrrrry late with this. I apologise. I meant to write it prior to New Year, and it does seem a little redundant now, but it’s been bugging me that I said I’d do it and I’ve kept meaning to do it. So…

No particular rhyme or reason to this. No set genres, or templates. Just bits and pieces of culture that got me enthusiastic in ’08.

And since it’ll take me hours to write a full top ten list, and so it’ll be November before I finally complete it, maybe I’ll do one a day.  Learn me some discipline…

1) Kung-Fu Panda

This was lost amidst the WALL-E media love that seems to now be de rigueur with any Pixar release which is a shame as it’s the better film. I know, that sounds like heresy doesn’t it? Pixar being the modern storytelling holy grail and all. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Pixar, but WALL-E left me somewhat flat, especially it’s second half. Kung-Fu Panda, however, I completely dismissed on its cinema release. “Ah, Jack Black as an overweight panda who can’t do kung-fu”. And hilarity ensues. Avoid. But Trev Hairsine gave me a copy on DVD and insisted I watch it, and he knows his movies (he should do, he’s got a Blu-Ray projector that costs more than I earn in a year). And it had me laughing from the opening line. I really enjoyed it. Fun little film, I thought.

A week later I watched it again with my son as I thought he might like it. Enjoyed it some more. Watched it a third time and found myself involuntarily saying out loud at certain moments “this is a great movie.” And then the penny dropped and I stopped being a cultural snob towards it being Jack Black as a comedy panda, it being Dreamworks animation and not Pixar etc. and started appreciating it for what it is – it’s got a fantastic script, the best I probably saw from a movie this year, in fact. Funny, moving, great characters, fabulous moments, a wonderful theme about the potential of each individual no matter how awkward they appear to be. The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is glorious and full of gravitas. The animation’s superb – the facial performances of each ‘actor’ are hilarious. And it has the BEST action set-pieces.

Forget that this is talking animals we’re dealing with. Tai Lung’s escape from prison, his battle with the Five on the rope bridge, Po and Shifu’s fight over dumplings, Oogway’s beautiful departure beneath the blossom tree? These are extraordinarily good *movie* scenes. Forget that it’s animation, forget that it focusses on an overweight comedy panda. Kung-Fu Panda is a GREAT movie.