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A. Heathen

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    Kevin O'Neill

    in Hall of memory

    Posted

    For once these days Alan Moore knows the score

     

    From Scott Dunbier.

    Last week when Kevin O'Neill tragically died, George Gustines (writer for the New York Times) and I were speaking about Kev and the obituary he was writing. I offered to see if Alan Moore would be interested in doing a quote. I have not spoken to Alan in years but I emailed his daughter Leah to see if she would forward the request to her dad. A couple of days later the following arrived in my inbox from Leah. Alan wrote more than the paper could print, and he said to feel free to use excerpts from his text. The following is the full text that Alan wrote, and also the obituary by George Gustines.
    "Kevin was born into the poverty and rubble of post-war London, with its bomb-site playgrounds, and most of its teatime treats only available on ration. He grew up in those brick-dust latitudes, on streets with all imaginative fantasy blitzed out of them, and all the bright pulp culture then erupting from the city’s scorched earth as his one escape-hatch; his sole nourishment.
    There was an uproarious richness in his upbringing, south of the river – a paternal grandfather, a blacksmith, who’d once punched out a particularly annoying horse; a beloved elder sibling who’d resprayed a stolen car for the Kray-rivalling Richardson brothers to a Spode-like lustre and earned the enduring nickname ‘Spoge’ from the mal-appropriate gangsters – and it all soaked into his drawing-hand along with the silvery monochrome of the period’s TV and cinema, the blazing primary colours of its paperback covers and its comics.
    A committed autodidact who was done with education even earlier than myself, at sixteen Kevin flung himself into a comics field which he would come to greatly dignify with his astounding contributions. Working as an editorial assistant on the British juvenile weeklies that were then going through a golden age of innovative energy, he quickly learned both the industry’s glories and its brutalities, studying the line-work and the shading effects of the masterly artists whose signatures he was being employed to remove from their work with white-out.
    What made him unique amongst his generation of comic creators was the breadth of his influences and experience. While most of his contemporaries were modelling their styles solely upon the incoming wave of great American talent, Kevin was assimilating the angular transatlantic elegance of, say, Spiderman creator Steve Ditko, without abandoning his love for the manic cartoon grotesquery of England’s Ken Reid. The result was an astonishingly flexible ability to shift from the bold designs of the Edwardian illustrators he had a passion for, to the deranged absurdities of the British children’s fare that he’d been absorbed in since infancy.
    Nobody drew like Kevin O’Neill. As a result of one of our more innocuous collaborations, Kevin received the supreme compliment of having his entire artistic style – whether he was drawing a table-leg or a baby carriage – ruled unacceptable by the American industry’s then-extant Comics Code Authority. When I was putting together my formative ideas for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the lead-out groove of the last century, I quickly realised that nobody save Kevin was qualified to present such a dizzying range of characters, periods, situations and styles with the vitality and ingenuity that the narrative – a ridiculous mash-up of all human fiction since classical antiquity – seemed to demand. Thus began what I think was perhaps the longest, happiest and most productive partnership of either of our careers.
    Working with him was an honour, a pleasure, and an education. His knowledge of the culture we were mining was easily as extensive as my own, and in most instances was marvellously complementary. Some of the best ideas in the series originated in Kevin’s idle mentions of, for example, the rather one-sided literary spat between George Orwell and Billy Bunter creator Frank Richardson, which provided much of the storyline for our elaborate sourcebook, The Black Dossier.
    Not only a working relationship, the connection with Kevin was one of the most important friendships of my life. As well as being one of the medium’s most individual and exciting draftsmen, he was also exceptional in being one of the very few working-class creators working in a trashy, gutter art-form that was originally intended only for the poor and supposedly illiterate, since become a gentrified middle-class district with graphic novels in the stead of studio loft-apartments. Of all my mainstream collaborators, Kevin was the only one who stood solidly beside me in our difficulties with the comic-book publishing industry, and whose commitment was always to the work, like my own, rather than to the financial inducements and bullying of the companies; the manufacturers.
    He was also one of the warmest, funniest, most erudite and most courageous people that I’ve ever met. During what we both suspected was our final telephone conversation, we got to say goodbye properly, and take pride in what we’d accomplished with perhaps the only ongoing work in comics history to be deliberately brought to a satisfying ending by its creators, rather than being run into the ground or abruptly discontinued by its publishers. At one point in our heavily-weighted dialogue, I remarked that in over twenty years of working together we had never had a cross word or a disagreement. Kevin agreed, pointing out that we’d never had sex either, and that he was immensely grateful for both these things. I am going to miss him like I’d miss sunsets.
    In the words of English music-hall legend Max Miller, ‘Take a good look, missus. You’ll never see another one.’
    Alan Moore,
    Northampton,
    November 9th, 2022"

    • Like 1

    No matter who we vote for, Governments always fuck it up.

    in Bring the Noise

    Posted

    On 10/10/2022 at 6:49 AM, Avaunt said:

    🙂

     

    Our City just changed hands, into the power of a long time "public servant" right wing ideologue who has played fast and loose with the rules in every position he has occupied, with the intent of harming the lives of the working class he had in his power, and rewarding the scum who "consult"  and  "conspire".

     

    So NMWWVF,GAFIU as per usual.

    Welcome to England.

    Frightfest is Back

    in Bring the Noise

    Posted

    A mid-range frightfest day today.

    Dario Argento's Black Glasses.
    An enjoyable entry into his oeuvre
    Notcearth shattering, but like when a long standing musical star introduces a new song heavily redolent of their best.
    One reviewer criticised "heavily eroticised death scenes" one wonders if Mr Freud should talk to them. (They are closely watched by the camera. Splatter not porn.)

    She Came From The Woods is an 80s pastiche like a gory Stranger Things. But made by two brothers not old enough to remember being too young to watch films like this. Not the snappiest dialogue but decent homage and a cast and crew who love the sub genre "camp site teens"
    Also: three Kim Wilde songs

     

    Huesera is the most 100% real world film we saw this year.
    Set in Mexico where a former hardcore punk settles down to give her family what they appear to want. She gets pregnant, but then perinatal psychology (or is it?) causes her to fall apart, and those around her to have their prejudices confirmed.
    It's spooky and scary and very real.
    Karen was interested to know of that impact was different for men.


    New Religion, an incredibly low budget from Keishi Kondo.
    Friends and acquaintances chipped in with technical gear and know-how. Abul Mogard let him us a track for free. People with no prior acting ability did acting.
    Yet he delivers the metaphysical and philosophical weight of more famous directors. A woman loses her daughter, mourns then gradually engages with the list child through the intervention of a creepy client (she's a call girl, he just wants to photograph her).
    There's an interesting analogy with social media, and cameras stealing one's soul.

    Burial is not the war film that my generation was brought up on. But its a taut battle as the big WWII ends, over an important detail of how post war propaganda will end for the Russians and the Nazis. Very thoughtful and historical, while alluding to fantasy horror elements.

    Barbarian
    Two people inadvertently (?) end up at the same Air bnb in the run down part of Detroit. She's got a job interview tomorrow, he's trying a bit too hard not to be creepy. One thinks you can see where it's going, then suddenly it's like a Russian doll of a tale that skirts (lol) around #metoo vs #notallmen without being written by a woman. And delivers one of only two films that we saw this weekend that I'd say were your stereotype horror genre films.

    Top 5 probably 

    Night Sky

    Huesera

    New Religion

    Next Exit

    Barbarian 

     

    But all if my choices turned out fine

    Frightfest is Back

    in Bring the Noise

    Posted

    On 8/27/2022 at 10:17 PM, Pooka said:

    What did you think of the new Benson and Moorhead film? 
     

    I’ve liked what I’ve seen by them and they seem adorable. 

    They are adorable 

    My review
    Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhouse have made 2 of my favourite Sci fi / Horror type films. This two-hander made in covid times is more like resolution in it's sometimes hard work. But like a puzzle i want to see it more times to work it out.

     

    Frightfest is Back

    in Bring the Noise

    Posted

    Frightfest 2022

    Five films yesterday.
    Ended with a packed Prince Charles Cinema for Liam Regan's second film, Eating Miss Campbell (My Bloody Banjo was 7 yrs ago) . The End of the F***ing World level of fourth wall, knowing teen angst. Not for everyone themes (considers Paedophilia, metoo themes and death, but in a funny and gruesome manner) but hey it's a Troma movie set in a Britush high school with loads of Americanisms.
    When one of the school staff gets his "come-uppance" he is told "pray to your Weinstein Gods".

    My first film of the day Next Exit had a similar core theme, but was beautifully understated. Science proves that ghosts are real, therefore people are able to volunteer to die for research purposes. Two of these people are thrust together on a road trip from New York to San Francisco. Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli play this pair who explore reasons for and against their choice as they meet people on the journey. You might put it in a triple bill with Wristcutters A Love Story and Skeleton Twins, for three great films that explore suicidal thinking in sensitive but not for everyone manner. Hopeful. Its a great road movie too.

    Daughter
    Begins with that modern trope of woman kidnapped and forced into a family role by her captor(s). It was written 3 to 4 years ago and completed filming before the lockdowns began. But it serves as a covid analogy, as the family brlievevtheres a deadly virus in the outside world. We see reflections of the pandemic with four very different methods of coping with lockdown.
    This is an artful psychological horror, something of a mystery- why is this happening and where will it end?


    A Wounded Fawn
    Starts as a mythological serial killer tale, Act 2 deals with him reaping his desserts (and the film shifts into a pastiche of many colours, mostly RED with ladles of Evil Dead 2). Could have been pretentious but it's really a fun revenge splattered romp.

    My favourite of the day (and high on my list of Frightfest Faves) is another road trip (LA to New Mexico via Zion, Utah) Night Sky
    AJ Bowen, Brea Grant and Scott Poythress play fugitives and their pursuer. The latter is after the former because of an unspecified criminal debt. Brea Grant helps the fugitive in return for a favour.
    She cannot drive and needs to get to New Mexico.
    Their journey brings them together.
    The reason for their pursuit appears to become a psychopath looking for a challenge.
    When the film ends on a new question, we've seen some interesting perspectives on humanity. Not in a philosophical ponderous manner, just how people react to someone asking for help.
    The cast... I want to see more of their work now.
    The scenery is beautiful.

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