May 20, 2007
Africa, Avril and Conan - Newsletter Time!
Hello Compatriots, Peers, Employers, Benefactors, Lovers, Haters, Friends, Galactic Interlopers, International Spies, Government Search Algorithm Robots and, lastly but not leastly, Readers...
I'm here to tell you that you don't need Mecca, you don't need money, you don't even need a hallucinatory fever dream to grant you celestial visions, earthly pleasures or spiritual solace. No, ladies and germs, you can find all those things, plus a funk ass beat, right here in this newsletter!
(warning, you will find none of those things in this newsletter - Legal Department)
I'M GOING TO AFRICA!
Tomorrow I board a plane that will take me from Los Angeles to London, then another that will wing me from London to Dubai and finally a third that will take me from Dubai to a tarmac in Ethiopia where I'll spend on hour doing a whole lot of nothing, then finally on to Entebbe, Uganda!
I will spend three weeks in Uganda researching a currently unannounced project. While there I'll be visiting an HIV clinic for teens in Kampala (I'm super excited to meet the kids, I've seen pictures of them and read letters that they've written and they seem absolutely amazing). I'll spend some time interviewing several physicians and locals, and then I will head North of Murchison falls to Gulu and (hopefully - though I've yet to establish contact with the appropriate people - still trying) get to talk to youth groups and catch a ride out to the Beppo Internally Displaced Persons camp, where tens of thousands of Acholi people wait to see if the ceasefire between President Museveni's UPDF and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army will hold.
As of this writing people have begun to clear out of the camps and return home. This is profoundly historic. This conflict has been raging since 1986 and has displaced more than 1.9 million human beings. Over 25,000 children have been kidnapped and forced to either act as soldiers or sex slaves. It's my desire to document in some small way the hopes and dreams of the people as this conflict finally begins to wind down.
I'll be return to the states on June 16, after seeing as much as I possibly can. All communication will be extremely limited until my return.
To learn more about the single greatest, unreported humanitarian crises in our lifetime... check out these links...
displaced people starting to return home
You can watch the film INVISIBLE CHILDREN... about the Night Commuters (thousands of children that travel up to 9 miles a day to sleep in a safe place from rebel abduction).
To donate "light" to Africa go here...
The fact that this has remained out of the global mainstream press for almost the full duration of the conflict suggests nothing short of Global Racism.
Here's hoping the Juba Peace Talks hold.
***
On a much more serious note, my turn as a corporate whore has garnered some extremely favorable reviews and enormous sales all over the world. Random House/Del Rey, the publishers, reported going to a second printing in just four days. FOUR DAYS! Jesus Christ! What is wrong with the value system of this planet?! Well, I have every intention of cashing the checks. Welcome, my son, to the age of hypocrisy. At least they can buy me another trip to Africa after Jan.
Anyway, I'm proud of the story. I think it's good. Camilla d'Errico is an amazing artist who I intend on working with again very soon and everyone at House of Parlance is just plain dope.
I know that I said in other interviews that I would be doing another project with Avril, but I have since changed my tune and realized that life is too short to use one's powers of creativity to promote mediocrity and useless, shallow pop-rock culture. Better to sell less and mean more.
Still, as I said, the reviews are phenomenal, and everyone seems to be shocked that the thing doesn't just totally suck. Which is what we were going for... as little suckage as possible.
Some Reviews...
"As an accomplished and well-constructed story, Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes may wind up being the most attractive silk purse woven from a sow's ear in 2007." - Comics Journal
"A surprisingly profound animated manga fantasy. Whatever your thoughts on Lavigne, it's compelling reading." - The Gaurdian Unlimited
"Make 5 Wishes is a disturbingly well-constructed comic with a current spin on a classic story, the Monkey's Paw specifically. Powerful metaphors and fascinating character gradations make "Make 5 Wishes" by far the most compelling work that grafts a popular name from North American media onto the style of anime or manga."- Aint It Cool News
***
Marches on. Issue three is in stores and four is coming at you in June. The ultimate alpha male fights lizard women, cackling witches, sea monkeys (that's right, sea monkeys, bitch!) and mad sorcerers in his quest to avenge the death of his heir, get at the heart of the mysterious political motivations behind Stygia's thrust at power and defeat a rising God who last showed his face before the "dawn of the world". Kicking ass, sword in hand, till there just ain't no more ass to kick! Two more issues to go! And the Trade hits in October! Will Conrad's pencils are amazing and Juan Ferreyra colors are an emotional experience.
Some reviews...
"This is epic storytelling at its best, with plenty of sword-and-sorcery action - combined with a real-world allegory about the evils of going to war for less-than-honorable reasons - to keep any barbarian lover riveted to the page." - Wizard
"Joshua Dysart mimics Robert E. Howard's language deftly, and weaves a tapestry of the juicy elements that made Conan stories fun to read: monsters, sorcerers, swordplay, and an emphasis on the conflict between civilization and barbarism. Conan fans everywhere should hope that Dysart is given plenty more chances to bring the Cimmerian adventurer to life. Worth the money? Absolutely."- The Comic Book Bin
"To my surprise, I found what might be the beginnings of the best Conan story I've ever read. " - EYE ON COMICS
***
BUREAU FOR PARANORMAL RESEARCH AND DEFENSE: 1946
It's coming! I've been co-writing this awesome series with Mike Mignola and Paul Azaceta has been tearing it up on pencils and inks. This will tell the tale of Harry S. Truman's handpicked occult expert, Trevor Bruttenholm, and his first field mission to Berlin just months after the Reichstag has fallen to the Russians. What follows is a race against the Soviets to uncover the occult discoveries made during Hitler's reign of madness. This is nothing short of a story about the birth of the Occult War that followed in the footsteps of WWII and it also ties heavily into the history of the HELLBOY universe. This is probably the most fun I've had writing a comic book since the early days of Violent Messiahs. I can't wait for everyone to see it.
***
HELLBOY: THOSE THAT GO DOWN IN SHIPS
Included in the coming HELLBOY KONAMI VIDEO GAME will be an original HELLBOY one-shot written by Mike Mignola and myself that takes place during Hellboy's time with the BPRD and is wonderfully illustrated by Jason Alexander. Wait till you see it. It's gonna be mad, mad fun. I can't tell you how much of a blast it is to write comics with Mike. He squeezes all my pretentious bullshit out and makes me write stuff that just brings a smile to the reader's face... and mine.
***
And don't forget my other collected trades that're out there, in the comic book pound, wagging thier little tales, just waiting for a home...
Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril!
"Writer Joshua Dysart evokes Golden Age Hollywood at the dawn of World War II through compelling period details, while launching the characters into a story that mixes action-adventure tropes of the day with a more post-modern sense of realism. Captain Gravity pushes the same buttons as other inspired-by-serials stories, but Dysart tells a much deeper, more graceful story than any of those works have managed."
-The Las Vegas Weekly
Swamp Thing: Love in Vain
"Dysart's writing is among the best in contemporary comics. He balances old-fashioned, EC style monster stories with the intense conceptual explorations for which the Vertigo imprint is known. It is both a thrilling read and a moving reflection on some of the core elements of human existence, loneliness and love, delusion and faith. In fact, the greatest horror doesn't come from the revulsion of monstrous sexual intercourse or vicious violence; it comes from the realization that love and faith may fail, leaving us abandoned and forlorn in loneliness." - Silver Bullet Comics
Swamp Thing: Healing the Breach
Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job.
Violent Messiahs was an Eisner Nominee, A Wizard Fan Award Nominee and a Harvey Award Nominee...
And the ego soars!
***
See you in June!!
May 07, 2007
The Comics Journal Reviews "Make 5 Wishes"!
Comics Journal online, published by Fantagraphics, is, to my mind, the single most respectable publication in our industry. Many of my colleagues would go so far as to call it pretentious, but since I, myself, am a pretentious prick, I find the magazine delightful, and, on occasion, actually relevant. So it is with great joy that I report that I have cracked it. It's a little odd that it took the Avril Lavigne project to do so, but nonetheless. Comics Journal, wearing the face of critic Dirk Deppey, has stood up and taken notice and believe it or not, it/he has given us a positive review.
It opens with the line...
"I'm probably not the first critic to note that the most amazing thing about this book is the fact that it doesn't suck, and I most certainly won't be the last."
Jolly good! Or at least, good enough for me!
The review ends up being the smartest, most well written, critical examination of the work to date. The reviewer knows that we weren't trying to reinvent the wheel and takes that into account. He's also the first and only one to mention this element of the story...
"Anyone who's ever read W.W. Jacobs' short story "The Monkey's Paw" can tell you what will happen next, and by the time the first volume closes out, we already know that the demon is going to give Hana several harsh lessons in unintended consequences - but it's going to do more than that. As the story progresses, it also begins destroying Hana's fantasy world."
Yes! Finally someone has mentioned that the dismantling of Hana's inability to access the world around her is a major part of the demon's motivations and purpose. Everyone catches that it's a riff on THE MONKEY'S PAW, that's obvious, nobody else has mentioned that what is happening here is the deconstruction of Hana's childhood. I can't tell you how appreciative I was to find a deeper reading of our silly little piece of pap. God knows I need the validation.
Other wonderful bits from the classiest comics rag around include...
"Dysart and d'Errico's story works because they have a fairly keen understanding both of the adult world's various complications and the inability of most teenagers to comprehend them."
And...
"Camilla d'Errico's art, a style somewhere between manga standard and Sam Kieth's bittersweet cartoon linework creates a world that looks eerily like Margaret Keane characters trapped in an Ingmar Bergman film."
Hot damn! Camilla's work got compared to a Bergman film! I know that doesn't mean fuck all to Camilla, I'd bet serious cash she's never seen a Bergman film, but I happen to have more than half of Bergman's work on DVD and the fact that my name and Bergman's just got mentioned in the same review, and I didn't even write that review... well, that is dope indeed my friends. Dope indeed.
The whole thing ends with a sentiment that's really all one could possibly ask for in a review of a commercial (read "sell-out") product like this...
"As an accomplished and well-constructed story, Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes may wind up being the most attractive silk purse woven from a sow's ear in 2007."
Words of praise indeed. Words of praise indeed.
Here's the Link!
May 02, 2007
Great Comics blog
"Variety", of all publications, has a great comics blog up and running written by Tom McLean. Bookmark Bags And Boards next to Heidi MacDonald's awesome The Beat and you're set for comic news.
Todd Goldman, Plagiarist.
I meant to post this sometime back when my friend Jack first brought it to my attention. But life got in the way. Now the accusations are really catching some traction.
Todd Goldman is a pop-culture artist who has had quite a bit of success in the art world. But that's coming to end, turns out he's a fraud.
On the left is Dave Kelly's (Shmorky's) Purple Pussy comic from September 19, 2001. On the right is a painting by Todd Goldman, as seen in a Los Angeles art gallery.
And that's just the tip of the ice berg. For the full extent of Todd's plagiarism, the museums who are dropping him, and the legal action his lawyers are taking to try and shut down the internet storm that's risen around him, go here.
Plaster Cast of an Ant Mound.
This is a plaster cast of a large Pogonomyrmex badius nest (ant mound). This nest consisted of 135 chambers and 12 meters of vertical shafts. The top-heavy distribution of chamber area and spacing is typical for the species, as are the helical shafts and the decrease of chamber size with depth.
This is an amazing link!
Marjoe Gortner the Pentecostal child preacher
More Child Preacher videos here