The Week – 18 October 2019

Oct18
by on 18 October 2019

WATCHING:

Source: DC/Warner Bros.
  • Joker, directed by Todd Phillips, starring Joaquin Phoenix.

Joker has gone through a series of news cycles unlike most movies, much less a movie using a comic book property. There was the initial reaction when the character’s makeup was revealed that followed the usual hyperbolic dividing line between those who loved it and those who hated it, and thus decided at that moment that the movie would be bad or good.

Then there was the festival circuit the movie went through. News of standing ovations and awards evened out a lot of fears that comic book apologists and the studio probably had.

Then, in the weeks leading up to release, as final trailers dropped, the narrative developed about the story in the film being a glorification of the views and behavior of the growing despondency of angry incel marginalized white boys. These are the people going online and threatening violence and rape against women who voice their love for comics and video games, the people who attempt to arrange boycotts of comic book movies with female lead characters, to even the kind of person who is so upset at not getting a date that he arms himself and goes on a stabbing and shooting rampage.

Detractors said that––without having seen the movie––the story of this type of person is not worth telling, that it has no value or place in the comic book movie discourse, especially if it ends up fueling the very people that have been harming the medium.

Image: DC/Warner Bros.

This discourse was not aided when the United States Army released a memo to its service members to be prepared for violence around the release of Joker.

Despite this breadth of attention, the movie opened to good numbers and seems to be on its way to profitable box office returns especially in the face of its incredibly small $55 million budget (even more impressive for being an R-rated movie).

I tend to prefer character over plot; hell, I advertise Long John as a character study rather than an epic western that a lot people expect or want. Joker is a breathtaking modern tragedy. I mean tragedy in the classical sense––a sad ending made inevitable by the context of the story and the flaws of the protagonist––and like many tragedies, it is as fascinating as it is uncomfortable to watch. And Joker is uncomfortable to watch.

Comic book movies are becoming a genre rather than just a subset of “films adapted from other media” and as that develops then the scope of movies that meet that classification needs to broaden, too. We got our bold first steps into the genre with X-Men and Spider-Man in the early aughts. We got the gritty realism of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy before we got the blockbuster popcorn breakouts with the Avengers‘ line of films from Marvel.

Fox then broadened the field with a risky R-rated comedy in Deadpool before going fierce and dark with Logan.

Image: DC/Warner Bros.

It only makes sense that something like Joker would come through. More importantly, it should come through. I kept all of the controversies in mind as I watched, and while any story can be misinterpreted and abused, I found the film itself to be sober, thoughtful, artful, and nuanced, all built around a gripping performance from Joaquin Phoenix.

If I were to alleviate anybody’s fears––be it cranky comic book fans who are mad that a filmmaker gave the nebulous Joker an origin story or those who fear it will give bad people further motive to be bad––my soundbite is this: Joker is not the origin story of Joker; if anything it’s a story of how someone can become the Joker, which I think is a noble service the movie provides as a true cautionary tale.

Be nice to people.

CHAPTER 4 UPDATE:

  • Chapter 4 is drawn

Thirty pages are drawn and inked and scanned. While that should feel like an accomplishment, I still have coloring and lettering ahead of me, which is often a tedious process. However, both are already in progress, so I’m not starting from the beginning once every page is scanned in. While I’m not placing any bets on it, I am hoping to have the book available by the end of the year.

With this book (and not counting the Hellrider Jackie short story), this means I’ve drawn 131 pages of Long John to this point, which actually makes me stop and reflect. Long periods of time stretch between each book, and we just passed the five year mark since the site went live. At times, it feels like I’ve done little in that scope of time, but when you consider the page count, it makes me step back and give a slight nod out of pride and accomplishment.

Over the next month or so, expect announcements about the chapter’s title, the cover reveal, and details about the book (there is some good stuff that is going to be in it!). Though there’s still a lot of work to do, I’m incredibly excited for the rest of the process.

  • D. Bethel Draws… Long John #15

If you want a sneak peek at a page near the end of the chapter, I made a new video inking a few panels. In the video I talk about bringing in aspects of animation to making comics, drawing eyes, and the inkers whose videos I watch on Instagram and YouTube.

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The Week – 11 October 2019

Oct11
by on 11 October 2019

WATCHING:

Source: Oxygen
  • The Disappearance of Susan Cox Powell (2019)

Not to bring it back to True Crime as representations of the genre are everywhere in every medium right now, but there is a fascinating division––a feeling that only grows as a person grows older––between the crime stories that happened before you were born and the stories you actually remember happening. To have professional documentaries and investigative books released that cover these stories pushes them from simply being weird news you followed for a week to being placed among the monolithic True Crime Stories you grew up hearing about.

I think the most blatant example of this (for me) was the first season of FX’s American Crime Story, titled The People vs. OJ Simpson, when they hired award-winning actors using real scripts to dramatize things I remember seeing on tv in high school. However, without fail, I keep getting older and the major cultural events I experienced as a youth are becoming history, so it’s something I need to start accepting and expecting.

I remember the 2009 disappearance of Susan Cox Powell in broad strokes more than anything. Something something Mormonism; something something someone knows something; something something no evidence. Honestly, until hearing about this documentary I had all but forgotten it. Experiencing it as it happened, it was never anything more than short stories or meandering interview segments on news programs. Any sinister or malevolent timbre to the story desaturates when put behind the gauzy, sterile lens of televised news.

Though the two-part 2019 Oxygen documentary has some presentational stumbles and quirks that don’t do it any favors, the Susan Cox Powell story is an astonishing story that proves how giving stories the time to settle actually allows for a more thorough, thoughtful, and, perhaps, productive investigation than trying to find the culprit when all the dust is in the air and everybody’s screaming.

If anything, it shows that what seemed like just another “whodunit” moment from the news at the time is actually as interesting, complex, and horrifying as any of the stories I grew up hearing about (again, thanks Mom).

LISTENING:

Source: EMI/Elektra
  • Queen, News of the World (1977)

Since the beginning of summer, I tasked myself with a challenge. I always considered myself a fan of the band Queen, but (after being throttled a bit by harsh comments from a friend of mine on the internet) I realized my knowledge of them was really only based around their soundtrack to Highlander and their greatest hits compilations (and I grew up with one live album that I didn’t listen to as much as I should have).

So, in the face of ignorance, I decided that I would buy one Queen album a month, taking in the songs and sequencing on their own merit rather than just skip through for the hits.

Breaking my rules from the get-go, I skipped their first album and started with Queen II…and was unimpressed. It’s a very progressive rock style of album with a lot of good ideas but the songs seemed to be trying too hard and many outstayed their welcome (in my opinion). But, it was only one album and surely they would get better as we progressed.

In my research, the next album, Sheer Heart Attack, was one where people said the band really found their ’70s identity, so I was excited when I picked it up.

But, again, I didn’t like it.

At least Sheer Heart Attack had some good songs on it like “Killer Queen” and “Stone Cold Crazy”, but those were just the hits and the oft-covered tracks. The deep cuts didn’t really do anything for me. I started to get worried.

The next album was their big ’70s album, A Night at the Opera, with cuts such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Love of My Life.” But, based on my experience so far, those could be the only two interesting songs on the thing. So, under the auspice that if I didn’t like A Night at the Opera then I would end my experiment, I picked it up.

And it is rad.

So, I eagerly picked up A Day at the Races the following month and, this month, I picked up News of the World. With each album, they’ve successively stepped away from their progressive song structures while keeping the aural experimentation alive––sometimes it’s successful (like in the aggressive stomping “White Man” on A Day at the Races) while sometimes it’s annoying (like the digital detritus that infests the middle of News of the World‘s “Sheer Heart Attack”)––and their songwriting has gotten tighter and undeniably more pop.

News of the World is most notable for hosting “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” as its opening tracks, but the entire album holds together as a testament to the talent of the four members of Queen that I frankly find inspiring. This experiment has shown me––in abbreviated time––the thing I love most about following the career of a band: growth. So far, Queen’s catalogue is an exercise in finding a voice, which is difficult when there are four distinct voices, all with distinct and varied things to say. For me, to say I can’t wait for next month is an understatement.

LONG JOHN, CHAPTER 4 UPDATE:

Long John is as shocked as anybody that Chapter 4 is almost done.

I’m almost done drawing the chapter. These last few pages have proven challenging in that they’re mostly visual storytelling without any dialogue, but stretching those muscles again have been fun, actually. So, I can’t wait to wrap up the drawing so I can get to the more mundane––but faster paced––part of coloring and lettering.

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Chapter 4 Update

Oct04
by on 4 October 2019

I figured enough time has passed to throw some details and information at you with regard to the eagerly anticipated next chapter in Long John’s story.

However, some things I won’t reveal quite yet are the release date, the chapter title, nor the cover––those are worth a post on their own at this point and will likely be posted before the year is done.

Chapter 4 is in production…and is making a mess.

What I can tell you is that, in terms of drawing the thing, Chapter 4 is nearly done. I have about five pages left to draw and ink. After that, it’s all about coloring, lettering, and compiling the book as a whole before sending it off to the printer. I’ve got a good headway on the coloring––I’ve been throwing down colors when I’m away from my table but still have down time and access to a laptop––but there’s still a bit of road ahead of me for that. However, once all the pages are drawn and inked, coloring is not nearly as taxing (though still quite a process) and will likely go relatively quickly.

I can also tell you that this chapter is a bit of a standalone chapter in addition to ostensibly starting the second “book” or “act” of the story; so it’s a bit of a new beginning albeit clearly building off of what happened before, especially in Chapter 3. Though the plot thickens and some new characters are introduced (some of whom have been revealed already on this very site), it’s mostly a study in the psychology of Long John himself as he gets put (or puts himself?) through an even tighter ringer than what he has been through already.

Making effects have been fun this trying out new things in this chapter. Oh, and there is a bit of violence as Long John plummets deeper into the darkness that’s been chasing him.

Continuing what started in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 has seen me pushing myself even more artistically, playing with tools in ways I’d only dabbled in before. Specifically, I’ve become more acquainted with the correction pen in a manner more than just using to fix errors I make on the page (the physical equivalent of the beloved Ctrl+z aka “undo” of digital art), instead using it to create effects that elevate the tone and focus of a panel and page. And it’s a lot of fun to make a mess.

Like I said, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the correction pen (and hatching with regular pens.

So, I am continuing to get this book done with a release––with hope––before the end of the year. If not, then it will easily be available at the beginning of 2020. But, as the guy that puts this thing together, I am only writing this post because the end is feeling very close at this point and I’m excited to get Chapter 4 to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience and continued interest. To keep up-to-date with my artistic experiments, be sure to follow me on Instagram where a lot of art is posted.

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