The Stink of Flesh

Alright, there is a little background to cover with this one. Please hang in there. I promise it will be worth it.

A few years ago I worked at an art supply store in Boulder, Colorado. One of our favorite pastimes at the store was to write our "Top Ten " or Top Five" lists. Yeah, we had all seen High Fidelity and we happened to be like minded individuals. I was the second oldest, next to a forty-something intellectual who happened to be a walking encyclopedia of punk rock and horror film knowledge. Needless to say, conversations were interesting, heated and this may have been one of the best moments of my life working in this environment.

ANYWAY...one day this guy walks in and buys some kinda crap on my day off. While the forty year old future version of myself is ringing him up, this guy is very amused by all of our top tens which at this point we had placed under Plexiglas at the register. He looks over our "top ten Zombie films" and speaks up, " I just worked on/produced a Zombie movie. I'll give you a copy if you want to see it"

Who this man was I can't tell you. Like I said, it was my day off. But the next week was my birthday, and this film was what my coworkers gave me, not escaping my attention that it was free.

This film was "The Stink of Flesh" and was by far the best birthday present I have ever received.

Now I am not one that needs to be converted to the "Zombie Film" genre. In fact, you're speaking to the choir. So if you're not one for this sort of thing, this film is not about converting you. But if you are already there, do yourself the favor. One thing, NEVER addressed in any apocalyptic setting is the fact that we can't control who lives and who dies. Sometimes the people making do with what they have are not the stereotypical versions we have been spoon fed for the past few decades of film making. In fact, sometimes they are far from what we could ever expect. But, that's just the way it is. And these fringe characters can be even more interesting than those films that show cardboard images of what we know and are comfortable with. Oddly enough, that fact is half the entertainment of this film.

The writer/director, Scott Phillips, found a really good "IN" for this script. A starting point that most who consider themselves writers never would have come up with. I find myself wanting to quote instances from the film but I am terrified of giving ANYTHING away. What has to be brought to your attention is the fact that he made this movie for nothing. Last I heard, "Clerks" cost a total of 25,000 with a lot of maxed out credit cards at the end of filming. That is a micro budget. "The Stink of Flesh" can only be called a Nano-budget by comparison. I have heard between 2-3 thousand. We throw the word genius around a lot in film making, but even Woody Allen gets tens of millions to shoot celluloid these days. Who the hell makes a GOOD movie for a few grand? Well, Scott Phillips does.

Currently Scott has a few more projects in the works, a mini series comic that Tim Seeley from "Hack/Slash" is illustrating and a short story comic illustrated by Andy Khun. He also happens to be one of the staff writters for Kamen Rider Dragon Knight airing Saturdays on the CW network. I believe the next two episodes specifically are writen by Scott. I am also terriby excited that his new film "Gimme Skelter" has become available and in a short time I will have a copy to review. Stay tuned to this guy. Be happy these sort of filmmakers exist, and be a bit sad there aren't more of them.

Click on the image above to order a copy of The Stink of Flesh

The Night Projectionist

I received word recently that Robert Heske has outdone himself and his comic book "The Night Projectionist" published by Studio 407 and illustrated by Diego Yapur has been picked up by Myriad pictures for film rights.

For all of you independents out there this is great news. It proves to you that hard work does indeed pay off and to keep your nose to the grindstone. No stopping, no giving in. It may take a year, it may take a decade. Less whining, more working.

One thing I would I would like to point out beyond the obviously accomplished writing is the ultra professional artwork, worthy of being emulated by whomever gets the directors chair. His work has created a detailed , scratchy world where imperfections blend into highly representational line work Visually, the concept art for the film would do well to start there.

As far as Heske is concerned, I don't think there's any stopping this guy. In five years I am betting there will be a new film studio or some such entity with the name HESKE emblazoned on the top of a skyscraper. To pick up more of his comics go to coldblooded chillers.com and view one of his recent creations. Do it now because once this movie is out these books are going to sell out quickly.

Cold Blooded Chillers

This comic series has an obvious personal investment. I actually drew the story "Her First Day Alone" in the second issue of the series. Having admitted my personal bias I have a strong recommendation for all comic readers, pick up this series as soon as you possibly can. The writer of the series is a Mister Robert Heske and while not only being one of the best publishing experiences I've had he is one of the hardest working men in this business. His work is breaking into the mainstream in a big way that I will reveal in my next couple of postings. Point being, one would be wise to get on the Heske bandwagon now.

Remember how superior you felt when you were the first of your friends to listen to The Stooges or The Misfits, its going to be a similar feeling.

The cover art in this images was created by Jay Fife

As if you needed more reason:

"psychological suspense at it's best" USAToday

click the cover art to go to coldbloodedchillers.com

Check Out COMICBOOKMOVIE.COM

In case anyone is wondering my source for the vast majority of info I write about, 90% of my research is done on comicbookmovie.com. Not to mention I have exchanged emails with their man Jim, (give him a raise) and he couldn't be a nicer guy. For other sites out there, no matter what your genre, you would do well to be this good and this personable with your readers.

Keep up the good work.

More Self Promotion

I had some requests to post a few pages that I have yet to place on my blog. These are all from stories I have illustrated in the last year or so. Hope you enjoy what yous ee here and let me know if there are further requests.

The Flash

As a kid The Flash was another favorite of mine. I can't really say why, There are cooler characters out there, but in elementary school, if I had a red shirt on I was the Flash during recess. So should The Flash be essentially a kids movie that retains the charm I saw in it as a child or should it make the same leap as a lot of other comics and present itself to an adult audience? Most often studios seek to compromise and make a movie somewhere between adult and child. Too often this leads to mediocrity . It is a priority for the producers and director to be on the same page about this and decide what kind of movie they want to make.

I prefer the Bartholomew "Barry" Allen days, but I am admittedly nostalgic. This would require an origin rewrite because I don't see anyone buying the lightning bolt striking a bunch of chemicals on a shelf crap. But I have already had an idea that would be a better substitute. For those of you who may not know, Barry Allen stores his costume in a ring he wears. Once he opens the ring and the costume fibers are exposed to air the costume expands to normal, wearable size. So Barry is a chemist by trade, in my version of the origin he is working on a protective suit for soldiers encountering different environments. The suit is actually a series of nanobots stored in a ring to expand over the soldiers body once the ring is activated. But for the purpose of this story the nanobots spread over the body too slowly, he is looking for an instantaneous effect. To overcome his quandary, Barry invents a synthetic gas that accelerates the nano-technology...an accident occurs...aaaaand you see where this is going.

Now my redesigns for the Flash uniform have reasons behind the redo. First I think it should look more like a runners outfit and this is one of the few times I forgo my aversion to spandex. aerodynamics would be important so to this one I'll turn a blind eye. I based my design on an old Cadillac style and you can see I've skipped the gold and replaced it with chrome. Much more sleek and modern in my opinion.

The director of this film needs to keep in mind that the old fail-safe of just running the actor in fast forward is not going to work anymore. We are going to need some truly sci-fi worthy special effects to show The Flash's amazing powers. It would be wise to assign a concept art team that only works on those effects.

I'll add more to this post concerning the main villians but I want to have some casting in mind before I write those parts.

Superman: The Man of Steel

It took me a few scenes, but I think I started getting used to Brandon Routh as Superman at about the same time he did. He started with the acting chops of oil soaked cardboard but seemed to progress with the film and perhaps he could just make out Christopher Reeves boots (in need of filling) just over the horizon. I think pretty much every avid fan wants to give the kid another chance and see what he can really do.

The same, unfortunately can not be said of Brian Singer. I read an article a while back that stated Singer was at a loss to create conflict for a character that powerful, hence the Superbaby story line, arguably the worst plot line in film history. Now, if one has been handed a movie franchise of this magnitude and can't think of a conflict then they are just not the right person for the job. Hate to say it because pretty much all of his other films are brilliant but there should be no invitation to return for Mister Singer.

One thing I must always insist upon are those fantastic opening credits. Singer actually did such a good job on this part of the movie I got chills. Maybe a tear or two.

WHAT I WANT TO SEE:

Immediately following those credits we should see an alien entering our solar system. An alien with no space suit riding on what appears to be a chopper. Enter Lobo, stage right. He arrives at Earth and eventually, Metropolis. Lobo is a bounty hunter for those of you who may not be familiar, and he has a contract to find Superman. After making enough of a mess Superman confronts him and pretty much wipes the road with him. But it was never Lobo's job to take Superman in, or out as the case may be. All he had to do was find him. There is another, bigger and far more dangerous being coming for the Last Kryptonian, that is Doomsday.

But in my little version of the DC Movie Universe, Doomsday is just a thug. He too was sent by another being, an entity from another world who simply wants the honor of extinguishing every atom of Krypton that ever existed: Darkseid.

There is a lingering problem. How the hell to we get rid of Superbaby?Do we just reboot and pretend it never happened? Perhaps there is a crystal in the Fortress of Solitude that can wipe the kids memory, and Lois' memory as well. Hell while you're at it, wipe my memory that it ever happened along with all the other mistakes in Superman Returns.

CASTING:

I know the hate mail is revving up but Vin Diesel is my choice for Lobo. A couple of design changes and just leave out the wig altogether and I say give it a chance. I based my Lobo drawing on this page on Vin Diesel and think it could work. (p.s. the changes in the Superman costume are mine as well.)