The New Magnificent Seven

Apr28
by on 28 April 2016

For vocational legitimacy, I do feel a strange obligation to keep up-to-date with any westerns that broach the popular market. Films like Bone Tomahawk and Jane’s Got a Gun escaped my viewing (though not my notice), and I have heard good things about both original entries into the genre.

One that kind of blindsided me was an apparent re-make of The Magnificent Seven, originally a 1960 film directed by John Sturges and starring Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen (and Eli Wallach and Yul Brynner).  I’m sure I had heard about the remake at some point, but I dismissed it because, it seems, every cultural tentpole seems to have an announced remake in the works (I’m surprised that a Bullitt remake hasn’t been announced). But an official teaser trailer––or as I like to call it, a trailer, because semantics are exhausting––has been dropped on us that convincingly declares that this remake that is indeed happening.

I must disclose that, in the case of movies, I am not a curmudgeon. Though I have movies that mean a lot to me, I don’t hold them sacred. A remake doesn’t, through some weird retroactive cultural osmosis, “ruin” the original or, at the very least, compromise it. Don’t forget that I am a Transformers fan, and I accept that there exists the Michael Bay movies alongside the original cartoons that I love so much. One has not been erased nor invalidated by the more recent entries (though the definition of Transformers may be changing, which disheartens me). There are the movies as well as the cartoons, and I live happily in the in-between. Such is the case with any adaptation. Especially as a person who identifies as a nerdy individual, I have grown tired of pre-judging––and post-judging––media which has been adapted from previous iterations or other media.

Truth be told, I haven’t seen the original The Magnificent Seven. Perhaps that’s a sin from a guy who is making a western comic. Part of what mediates, perhaps, my aghast heresy of this trailer is that I am quite familiar with the film The Magnificent Seven was adapted from, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai from 1954. Similarly, my declared and subjective “favorite film of all time” is Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which was, of course, adapted (illegally, as it turns out) into Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. So, I hold no particular awe nor reverence toward the John Sturges film if only because I have seen the original it was adapted from. Perspective is a key ingredient in the consumption of popular culture and it took me awhile to realize it.

What I do like about the trailer is that it adheres to the spirit of Seven Samurai (which, if you have about three hours to kill, give it a shot––it holds up pretty well for being a black and white samurai film in Japanese) in that the seven are very diverse in terms of character, speciality, and focus. In a way, it feels a little bit like a cartoon or video game where there is no overlap between characters; each one fills a narrative or, at the very least, thematic need as well as having something cool and unique about them. Surely, by the time this movie is released we’ll be talking about the “machine gun guy” or the “indian guy” or the “upstart kid” or the “moral high-ground leader.” It’s what made that original Japanese movie so important in addition to being what makes it most outdated in a modern setting. I’m not saying that it created that idea where each character not only has a unique thematic purpose but also has a unique, marketable quality (in terms of merchandising; a bad but equitable example of this can be seen in the historically atrocious film, King Arthur, led by Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, not that King Arthur has any historical validity in the first place, but still), that makes the group seem less like a gathering of inscrutable gunslingers and more like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There is no doubt that Seven Samurai is, at least, an early example of it.

A drawing I did while re-watching Seven Samurai back in '01 or '02, based on the moral high-ground leader of the group.

A drawing I did while re-watching Seven Samurai back in ’01 or ’02, based on the character, Kambei Shimada, the moral high-ground leader of the group.

No matter what, I’m intrigued. I like Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt and I would like to see them both in a western. Lucky for me, they get to be in the same one––it’s like Silverado all over again. I also like––or would like to like––a number of the other cast in the movie. However, it is a story we’ve seen before, whether in the original context or the dozens of interpretations and dilutions we’ve seen since then. And this will just be another one of them, for better or for worse. At the very least––and this is increasingly become the most important criterion for my movie-going experience––it looks fun.

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Sketch Fridays #22 – Photoshop Madness

Apr15
by on 15 April 2016
Sketch Fridays #22 - Photoshop Madness

Sketch Fridays #22 – Photoshop Madness.

Language is a clever creature. First, we must recognize that language is alive; a thing that eats and sleeps, makes refuse and narrows decisions wholly on its own logic for survival. I’m not versed enough in other languages to make bold declarations about English within that scope, but it is definitely known for being amorphous and progressive, especially at times when it needs to be the inverse of both.

One major tick English has is the ability to transpose––like the philosopher’s stone––words from one state into another. I wanted to write “to verbize,” which is an example of what I’m talking about, where I shifted a word from a noun to a verb. The users of English are like scavengers in a post-civilized wasteland, scrounging out artifacts and assigning new tasks to them. The thing with English is that such a trick can be done. There are few single-use words in English, which makes it fascinating and dangerous.

I speak a lot about this type of jargonistic behavior in my writing classes, but, as people working together to accomplish shared goals as efficiently and effectively as possible, finding ways to say and write things in fewer words is a key component of a community working well. To illustrate, we created the verb, “to google.” The lineage of the word is pretty obvious, but linguistically it is simply jargon on a large scale (rather than being jargon used by a very select few). We have boiled down to a single verb what used to be said as “look something up on the internet.” Efficiency. Efficacy. We happened to borrow the skin from a major corporate entity.

This isn’t new in the English-speaking world. We did the same with Xerox, Kleenex, Aspirin, Laundromat, Band-Aid, Frisbee, Tupperware and many others. One such frequently used neologism in the world of popular media and art (such as webcomics) is Photoshop.

“To Photoshop” is (according to Merriam-Webster) “to alter (a digital image) with Photoshop software or other image-editing software especially in a way that distorts reality (as for deliberately deceptive purposes).” I think the last part is a little harsh, but I would agree with it being the shorthand for saying we want an image digitally altered.

The problem with this word is that to make a word into a verb makes it into, ostensibly, a singular action. However, to alter images in image-editing software is a process (something else I talk a lot about in my classes) that can often take hours and a plethora of tools, techniques, and talent. However, as popular culture likes to point out––and digital artists as well––there is no “photoshop button” that instantly figures out what you want to do to an image and does it for you (though, admittedly, Photoshop does give users the ability to program automated processes––called “Actions”––that allow you to do a series of steps with the press of a single button, but they are more for time saving than producing finished works).

Despite the growing roster of competent and advanced photo-editing/digital art programs available now, I use Photoshop because it’s what I learned back in 1999. Over that time, and iterations of the software, I have garnered my share of aptitude within the program (though I’m sure I am using a way over-powered program for the actual stuff I do), the least of which is photo editing.

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Where it all started. Photos by Anita Scharf

Where it all started. Photos by Anita Scarf.

At CSU, Sacramento, I share my office with three lecturers who are all wonderfully creative people. Catherine Fraga is a poet, Shelley Blanton-Stroud is a writer, and Anita Scharf is a photographer.

One recent weekend, Anita brought her cats into the office as important things were happening toward the sale of her house. Her cats are problematically photogenic and, being a photographer, Anita eases their burden by taking their photographs often. Such was the case that weekend. One of her creatures, Fabiana, was looking out the window at birds flying between the trees whose leaves shuddered with the warming breeze that’s blowing this time of year. She propped herself on to the esoteric lounge we have in the office, creating yet another perfect photographic opportunity, as is her wont, to improve her field of view.

Anita captured the moment and distributed it around social media and we were all aghast at yet another perfect picture of Fabiana (when will the terror of her beauty be granted repose?!). When I arrived to the office on Monday, I greeted Anita by replicating the pose, citing that I wanted to approximate what being beautiful felt like. My attempt must have been evocative because it compelled her to photograph the moment.

To prove that I nearly touched the sublime, I put the two photographs side by side since I had my wife’s laptop with me that day. I shared it around and we laughed for a good long while.

But something twisted in my creative recesses, a compulsion similar to the one Anita must feel when her cats hit those perfect poses.

Anita left to make copies and I hit my Photoshop button––focusing and cutting and pasting and slyly erasing and committing every idea to trial and error, resulting in what could best be described as an abomination. But I was proud of my work. In hindsight, I had effectively rendered into imagery not only a good joke, but exactly what the nebulous English language amalgam looks like: a little weird and uncomfortable, but worth it.

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Sketch Fridays #21 – Eben & Jessica Commission

Mar18
by on 18 March 2016
Sketch Fridays #21 - Eben & Jessica Commission

Sketch Fridays #21 – Eben & Jessica Commission

To date, I am pretty sure I have only officially accepted two commissions. I’m not counting the pro-bono theme music I wrote for a podcast, either. I’m not talking about sketches done at a show or something like that, but a process-based approach to a publishable final product. I don’t like commissions because I don’t like working for other people, as I’ve discussed before. Part of it may be arrogance, no doubt, but a more likely reasoning (though just as flawed) is that I don’t like the idea that I could let people who are about to pay money to me down with a subpar product. But I have been making strides to be more confident; however, that doesn’t mean I have started taking random commissions, it means that to my closest friends, I might start saying yes.

I have issues with anxiety. I don’t think it’s the same anxiety you see people writing about on the internet. Ironically, introverts  are some of the loudest people on the internet with regard to bold declarations of introvert-pride and catenated lists of “how to treat” introverts. A lot of those lists revolve around social anxiety, that if in a crowd for too long they just start to freak out. As an introvert, I think I have that to some degree, but I’ve been able to mitigate it over the years to the point where being among groups and crowds don’t bother me; they just don’t energize me. The anxiety that plagues me is usually related to an imposter syndrome I’ve dealt with since starting graduate school and has continued into my career.

An example of my previous commission––a storybook rendering of Napoleon Bonaparte's career.

An example of a previous commission––a storybook rendering of Napoleon Bonaparte’s career.

With regard to commissions, one of the most stressful things for me is likenesses. I remember early in Eben07‘s run, we had a table at a local event and we thought it would be a good idea to sell sketches. Of course, I hadn’t prepared for the inevitable couple to come up to the table, hand over five dollars, and asked if I could draw them. I burst into a flop sweat, looking down at the blank sketch card and back up at the pair, silently wondering how the hell I was going to make some cartoony drawings look like the two strangers before me. I took cues from hairstyles and clothing, hanging them on fairly generic figures I could quickly get onto the page. They smiled, thanked me and walked away, ecstatic that the ordeal was done, but worried that they would come back after a second look, offended and demanding recourse for such a travesty. With luck, they never returned.

Recently, I was asked by good friends, Eben and Jessica, to make a drawing of them for their upcoming wedding. Of course I agreed; who wouldn’t? Even though I am quite a bit more confident in my abilities, I was still a bit nervous at attempting their likenesses. I wanted to have a balance between what they actually look like against my cartoony style––especially as it was during Eben07. It was fun to put together, an amalgam of my own style and various photographic reference, I shaped and molded the figures before I put down the final lines. The final image is in full color, but in keeping with the tone of the other Sketch Fridays, I figured I’d post the line art and shading instead (save the full color image for the wedding itself). Surprisingly, I’m very happy with the result (as are they, thankfully).

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