JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

Here’s another pachyderm scribble… a rough of an illustration for a book of elephant limericks that I am illustrating for my Dad.

I’ve also posted some OTHER pix from the same project before in this blog. You can see them here and here.

Here are some images from OPEN SEASON, the upcoming (September 2006) animated film, which will be the first CG cartoon from Sony. There will be a rash of talking critter pix coming out over the next year, but I am looking forward to this one (in part) because of the goofy character design.

The film is being directed by Jill Culton (ex-Pixar) and Tony Stacchi (ex-Colossal Pictures), The head of story is Dave Feiss (Mr Cow and Chicken no less) and the characters were designed by Carter Goodrich (concept guy on every animated movie… ever).

I am friends with some of the people working on the film so perhaps my sense of anticipation is somewhat heightened… but even so I think these screen captures from the movie (not photoshop touch-ups) show that the look and tone of the film is definately going to be a lot of fun.

There are even more screen captures from Open Season on the JOBLO website, and you can also see the hilarious teaser trailer HERE. Animals hunting the hunters? Sounds like a pretty good story-arc to me…

I had a busy weekend. Saturday was a time to say goodbye to Mike Murnane who is moving to Portland, and a time to celebrate a birthday for my pal Lon Huber. Sunday I went to see RHODE MONTIJO’s mural which is part of the “Calivera: Days of the Dead Altars Remixed” art show at at the Oakland Museum of California. The exhibit runs ’till December 4th so please go take a look-see. Mark Fiorenza took some pictures of the mural that you can see online here. Speaking of Mark, please drop in on his newly relaunched website which he has re-built as something he’d prefer not to call a “blog” but that is basically what it is just the same…. but a funny one.

Here is an excerpt from a recent review of Rocket Rabbit #1, written by Steve Saville of Silver Bullet comics:

James Baker [comic creator guy] has very kindly included the following comment with the edition of Rocket Rabbit he submitted for review:

“it’s not deep, it’s firmly in silly territory.”

If there is anything “silly” about Rocket Rabbit it is the somewhat unimaginative title, I mean it is hardly inspirational. Bit of a shame really because the contents are delightful. Thirty- nine very busy pages of delighfulness to be precise. Baker has created a very active and fast paced comic, full of movement. There is no wasted space here, each and every frame is a well constructed entity on its own and, at the same time, well integrated with those that surround it. What we have is two stand alone stories of a rabbit robot with twin outboard nukes for propulsion [in other words he uses rocket powered ears to fly] and his beautiful human ‘partner,’ the Professor doing battle with the villains laying siege to San Fiasco [yes the pun is in heavy use here].

The artistic style is reminiscent of the better animation that features in the Saturday morning cartoon slots on television with Baker showing a genuine ability in drawing the female form [the professor is really quite hot and as for newsreader Epiffany Binge…] Another strong artistic feature is Baker’s effective use of tone. As a result every page looks damn good and draws the reader in. This is a very accessible comic with very tight art.

If this comic looks good then it is matched by the large doses of witty dialogue and genuine humour present. Most of this is directed at the American fan culture. In the fair city of San Fiasco Rocket Rabbit is a big hero yet many of his fans would rather play video games featuring their hero than drag themselves over to the window to see him in real life, and when they do venture out their obsessive devotion borders on the disturbed. Unfortunately it is not too far from reality. Other aspects of American society are given a gentle working over as well. The mayor is a glove puppet, the grinning anchor man is the appropriately named Flip Remarque. The gender tension between the Professor and Rocket Rabbit is a wonderful sub plot. Never more so than when the Professor’s fascination with remodelling Rabbit comes out into the open. Rocket Rabbit feels used despite the Professor’s promise not to “touch his mind.” These witty conversations are a feature of this comic.

The other high point is the villains [and so often this proves to be the case]. A schizophrenic donkey features in the first tale and a bunch of geographically challenged apes maraud through the second tale, titled ‘Apes of Wrath’ [I warned you about the puns].

This is a nice package, funny yes, entertaining yes, well produced yes, silly no.
In a Word: Tight

I just spent a very enjoyable weekend in Chicago, attending the wedding of Heather McClenahan (now Heather Deyo) who I have known since she was 2 years old (when I became pals with her Dad Jon, at Hanna Barbera in Sydney). Being at the wedding of someone who was a baby when I met them as an adult is making me feel pretty old…

I’ve always liked Chicago but I’ve never seen it in the Autumn before and it was beautiful to be downtown, seeing the fall colours crisply contrasted with a bright blue sky. Oh by the way, before heading downtown to check out the CLOUD GATE (see pic at right) in Millenium Park, I took some copies of Rocket Rabbit #1 into QUIMBY’s bookstore, just especially for all you comics-loving Chicagolanders.

It is wonderful to see some European graphic novels being distributed in major bookstores in the US. I hope that they sell well enough to prompt more of the same in future… I mentioned Epileptic and Gemma Bovary earlier, and here are two more that are worthy of both your time and your money:

ISAAC THE PIRATE has come out in (so far) two English editions by NBM. Entitled Isaac the Pirate: To Exotic Lands and Isaac the Pirate: the Capital, both are written and illustrated by CHRISTOPHE BLAIN. Contrary to what is implied by the title, Isaac is in fact an artist. He has a lot going for him on land, namely a beautiful girlfriend, but nevertheless becomes restless and goes adventuring with a sketchbook under his arm. He goes to sea but once out of port he discovers that the ship’s captain is a pirate. In volume two Isaac finally gets back on shore, but once again gets involved with some shady characters; this time being some pick-pockets.

The artwork in these books is simple but deceptively so; the characters have a “cartoony” design but the linework is done with a more energetic and characterful brush line than you might expect. There is a fair bit of hatching and brushwork to give the drawings some volume and sometimes the dry brush is deftly used to show lighting. The story telling is done with an un-fussy panel layout of 12 to a page. I notice that French comics artists don’t get into the super crazy panel layouts that are popular in American comics or Manga. Even though I like the adventurous approach when it works, it often becomes distracting, unlike the straightforward page layouts and clear storytelling in these books.

THE RABBI’s CAT is a 150 page full colour graphic novel, published by Pantheon (which is an imprint of RANDOM HOUSE) and collects in English the three albums originally published in French. It is written and illustrated by by JOANN SFAR, another one of the newly influential artists connected to the French publishing house called “l’Association” (David B and Lewis Trondheim being two other notable examples). I had heard about Joann SFAR from Sam Hiti who told me that if I like ISAAC THE PIRATE by Christophe Blain (and I do) that I might like SFAR. I bought this beautiful hardcover book on the strength of that recommendation.

The plot is mostly about the Rabbi and his daughter but that story is told from the point of view of the titular cat, who eats a talkative parrot and aquires the gift of speech. Before too long the cat is telling tall tales, asking difficult questions and engaging in metaphysical debates with his master the Rabbi. The musings of the cat are often funny, sometimes wicked, occasionally touching, and always engaging. His personality is the thread that we follow through the narrative in and around the Jewish community in 1930’s Algeria, where most of the story takes place.

The artwork is wonderfully loose; some panels have preserved the quick gestural quality of thumbnail sketches, and the drawings of the cat in particular are very expressive. The colour has been applied in flat swatches that make the panels clear and easy to read. This gives the artwork a pleasant balance between looseness and specificity, detail and clarity that I found exhilerating. Sfar seems to have pulled off that elusive goal of many comics artists: keeping the energy of the thumbnails in the final artwork.

Thanks to a tip-off from HERVAL I just heard the best news of the week; there is now a DENIS BODART blog.

I first became familiar with Bodart’s work when I lived in Paris (about 15 years ago) and I stumbled upon his books in one of those wonderful comics shops that they have in France. Since I no longer live over there, it has been hard for me to keep up with his output. It seems that he rarely comes out with a book these days…

(I have written about him in my blog before. You can read those posts here and here).

So, I am happy about the fact that he has a presence on the web where, hopefully, we can get a look at what he is doing as he does it.

This sketch below (when coloured) will be in a book I am collaborating on with my Dad (written by him illustrated by me) and it illustrates not only the page it was intended for but the urgency being applied to me to finish off the job!

When not storyboarding away in the East Bay, I am trying to finish the sketches for ALL the illustrations for a book of limericks about elephants written by my Dad a few years back. I got roughly half of them done back at that time but then ran out of steam… However I am building up steam again now. Dad put a fire under my arse by finding a REAL publisher for the book, and they want placeholder sketches for all the pics by this December, and final colour illustrations by next February. If all goes well the book will be published next August by EXISLE PRESS of New Zealand.

UPDATE: The final colour artwork, based on the above sketches can be seen HERE.

After being told about them for years, I recently “discovered” the AUBREY/MATURIN novels by Patrick O’Brian. 10 years ago a group of co-workers became obsessed with them and since then other friends and my Dad sang their praises, yet I resisted all the urging to read the books. What could be so gripping about reading 20 books set on a boring old sailing boat during the boring old Napoleonic wars? After all, they weren’t set in outer space or anywhere “cool” like that. So much for my good judgment… Thankfully, my pal Tony, who is always reading 10 things at the same time, thrust the first three books into my arms as I was getting ready to board a plane last month, and now I am well and truly on the hook.

With the help of an indespensible companion volume (that decodes some of the naval jargon and gives truly fascinating political and historical background detail) I read those first three novels in under two weeks. I actually looked forward to my commuting train ride so that I could read, and then when I got home I would bolt down a perfunctory meal so that I could read until I passed out in the wee hours of the morning. I’m now almost at the end of the eighth book THE IONIAN MISSION.

The last time I enjoyed a series of books this much was the HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy but sadly there were only 3 of those… whereas the AUBREY/MATURIN series has 20 novels to get through, so once you get the wheels on your obsession engine spinning you have some places to go driving it. So in that sense, the best comparison for me is my memory of hungrily reading BIGGLES or the WILLIAM books when I was a little kid… except now I get to do that in a GROWN UP kind of way.

The Aubrey/Maturin stories deal with the bond that grows between Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin, two very different men, who nevertheless become inseperable friends throughout their intertwining naval careers. Their relationship is very complex as they couldn’t be more different in temperament or even their philosophies, but that is what gives the books a lot of their richness. And of course there is also the issue of the Napleonic wars, the war of 1812 and the life aboard ship to add a lot of excitemenet and adventure.

So if you are, like I was, somewhat skeptical about the nautical, give these books a try and you may be surprised how little TV you will be watching over the next few months…