More on My Resurrected Zombies,
Zulli's Turtle Reign Redux!
And a crisp Monday morning it is, too.
As I walked the length of our driveway, towing our garbage can down to the roadside for early morning pickup, I was dazzled by the early morning/night sky: as clear and sharp a sky as we've had this year, every star visible, the quarter moon low on the horizon. Beautiful!
_________
Speaking of '
Roadside' (the abbreviated form of my
Johnson State College nickname, '
Roadside Frog'), my old
JSC pal and fellow '
Subhuman' (the moniker attached to all of us on the subfloor of
Governor's dorm)
Dave Booz snail-mailed me terrific color copies of a couple of my hand-drawn promotional 'posters' from my
JSC Film Committee days, circa 1974-76. Thanks,
Dave!
This makes three old
Bissette movie posters that
Dave has preserved over the years and provided me scannable color copies of, and once the new computer setup is in place, I'll be posting this ancient art and an account of the
JSC film days/daze for your early morning entertainment. Though only one of the three
Dave lovingly archived stands the test of time for me (still proud of my ballyhoo and art for the showing of
Mario Bava's
Hatchet for the Honeymoon, which is better than any of the genuine promo materials ever attached to that film's US theatrical or TV exhibition, if I may say so myself), it's still a hoot to see this stuff after thirty years.
One of the posters is from the
second (or third)-most infamous film showing I hosted at
JSC,
Paul Bartel's
Private Parts (not to be confused with the
Howard Stern film of that same title); so lurid was my promo, via poster and radio spots on
JSC's college FM station, that the non-violence class
chained the doors shut to Dibden Theater -- thus endangering those already in the theater!This bit of activism resulted in a real hubbub on campus, though we
did show the film, and to an appreciative and fully-entertained packed house (thanks in part to my shrill ballyhoo, but also to the instantaneous outrage against the Non-Violence class's actions; word spread like wildfire on the campus about the chaining of the doors, bringing people out of the dorms to see what film sparked such a stunt, instantly doubling audience size by the time the chains were down and the film began). My subsequent administration meetings with
JSC muckamucks and the teacher and a couple students from the non-violence class was memorable, too, for the revelation that
none of them had ever seen or heard of the film: they were reacting to my shameless, over-the-top hucksterism alone!
David Friedman, William Castle and
K. Gordon Murray would have been proud!
Anyhoot, thank you,
Dave, for these blasts from the past. I'll find a way to get them up on this blog in the very near-future -- and a big howdy, too, to
Sparky this morning.
___________________
A is for Ambrose...
Pg. 1 of "An Alphabet of Zombies," (c) 2007 Daniel and Stephen R. Bissette,
from the Accent UK anthology Zombies (2007)
(If you're just tuning in after the weekend, be sure to read yesterday's lengthy post and reveal on my and my son
Dan's part in the upcoming
Accent UK Zombies anthology before getting into this part of today's post...)
Here's another preview of what
Dan and I cooked up for the
Accent UK Zombies anthology, which will be out in
May --
Accent UK's biggest anthology yet. It's a treat to be part of this, joining the UK creators (including
Leah Moore and
John Reppion, whose invite got me into this in the first place) and the many
CCS artists who've completed stories:
Jeremiah Piersol, Denis St. John, Jaci June, Bob Oxman, Sean Morgan, Blair Sterrett, Morgan Pielli, and more. Kudos to
CCSer
Chris Warren (aka
Radical Warren) for scanning and prepping my work for submission, too.
FYI,
Danny and I worked on "
An Alphabet of Zombies" throughout the move, but the real fun was in the final week or two; having divvied up the panels equally (26 letters in the alphabet, 13 zombies each), we each cooked up some ideas for rhymes and names, shaking it all up and out in a fun breakfast at the
Chelsea Royal in
Brattleboro, VT (where our lovely waitress,
Rachel Johnson, also pitched in, solving one name-stumper and thus earning a 'thank you' byline on the final page). There, making sure we were juxtaposing my zombies with
Dan's to ensure a good mix of art (I inked everything, to pull it all together visually), we made the final attachment of names to portraits and cooked the text for the most amusing final script.
Dan, being far more musical and a sharper ear for this sort of absurdity than his pop, had the better names and rhymes, so he polished the final draft and wrote up the final notes I lettered from. I had to deviate only once from this final post-it-note script, to ensure our two shortest zombies (
Gaelen and
Yusef) weren't on the same page.
Though we
could have overloaded the alphabet with movie zombies, we chose not to go there, save for our second and third portraits, visible on the page one sampled, above.
Bub is, well,
Bub, and if you don't know who
he is, you've never seen a proper zombie movie, have you?
Bub is by far
Dan's all-time fave cinematic zombie, so he had to stay. More in need of explanation, though, is
Carrefour; that entry embodies a pervasive generational gap, since
Darby Jones's unforgettable
Carrefour in
Maurice Tourneur & Val Lewton's
I Walked With a Zombie (1943) was the
best zombie my generation was exposed to via frequent TV showings of the RKO film library (
Darby Jones recreated the role in
Zombies on Broadway, too, though that's not a film I'd recommend to any but the heartiest '40s horror movie buffs). So,
Dan's fave movie zombie,
my fave movie zombie, and we went with all-original stiffs and boneheads thereafter.
(That's one deadline out of the way; now to attend to the encroaching deadline with
Bob McLeod and
Rough Stuff magazine!)
My daughter
Maia and I also be hard at work on a four-page story, "
Isola," though that'll be submitted to
Accent UK for a future collection or title.
Maia is scripting the original story, which unlike
Dan's and my collaboration isn't funny: it's a sorrowful portrait of life after the walking dead apocalypse. The premise is
Maia's own concept, revamped after a couple of face-to-face plotting sessions, and
Maia has started the scripting, which is going well. It'll be interesting to see how we work out the visual collaboration, as our approaches to our art are quite strikingly different;
Maia has evolved a couple of drawing styles distinctively her own. It should result in a compelling piece, and may evolve into a more expansive effort in time once this four-pager is done. "
Isola" won't be in
Zombies, but it was conceived as a result of that invitation to contribute -- in any case, we'll keep you posted via this blog once there's something to show for our collaborative effort.
In the meantime, I'll keep you posted here on progress on
Accent UK's
Zombies anthology, and post links for purchasing once it's available in the spring.
_______________
TMNT: Soul's Winter
Finally, on this fine Monday morn, I must note the pending graphic novel release of my good friend
Michael Zulli's memorable
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy. It's all under the title
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Soul's Winter, and
PaneltoPanel.net has just announced a special edition available only from
P2P's online venue.
A little personal background, to explain why I'm plugging Michael's book here: Michael and I met at the
Holyoke Mall in
Holyoke, MA, at a
Dave Sim Moondance Comics signing back in the mid-to-late '80s, when he and compadre
Steve Murphy were first negotiating with
Dave Sim to publish their serialized environmental sf/fantasy epic
Puma Blues.
We became close friends in the trenches of the pretty-much-forgotten distributor wars of the late '80s, primarily amid the ensuing hubbub over
Diamond Comics and
Puma Blues -- in short (tough to do),
Diamond wanted to 'punish'
Dave Sim over the first
Cerebus 500-pg. volume (which
Dave had in fact initially offered to
Diamond and all distributors, though they'd declined, saying no one would pay $25 for a graphic novel; this is
before The Dark Knight Returns hardcover collected, mind you, as it was
Dave who broke the then-extant artificial price barrier/ceiling affixed to book-format graphic novels), and decided to do so by refusing to carry
Puma Blues, misconstruing
Dave as a traditional 'publisher,' which he was not, thus 'punishing' blameless
Steve Murphy and
Michael Zulli instead. You got that? Good. If not, rest assured it's not
you:
Diamond's stance made little-to-no sense then, either.
Friends of
Michael, Steve, Dave and
Puma Blues rallied, and it was in this weird, almost-inexplicable crossfire, that I'm sure makes almost no sense to 98% of you reading this today, that
Michael and I really bonded. We in fact collaborated on not one but
two stories for the
Puma Blues benefit book, with
Michael inking my pencils on a (now long-lost, likely never-to-be-reprinted)
Alan Moore story featuring mating flying mantas (the flying manta rays were iconic in
Puma Blues's invented universe), and my inking
Michael's pencils on the opening story. I initially had a tough time inking his exquisite pencils, laboring through page one, shaken by how difficult it was to work with the stroke of
Michael's pencils -- until I discovered a simple solution for inking page two: if I
turned the page upside-down, my pen and brush stroke matched
Michael's pencil strokes
perfectly! He was (is) a
lefty! So, I inked the rest of the entire story upside-down -- and it came out quite nicely, if I may say so.
But enough on that. The news isn't
Puma Blues or this old hash -- the news is
Michael's classic
TMNT stories are at last collected in book form, complete beneath a stunning new cover by
Michael himself.
PaneltoPanel.net is offering a special edition with a tipped-in bookplate, featuring a portrait of Master Splinter, created exclusively and signed by Zulli; the book is scheduled to ship within the next two weeks, and can be pre-ordered here! And don't dawdle, if you're a
Zulli or
TMNT fan (or, best of all worlds,
both!); the special bookplate edition of
Tales of the TMNT: The Collected Books Volume 1 sold out and is no longer in reach, save for pricey online auctions (though the book itself
sans bookplate, is still available here).However,
copies with the awesome Jim Lawson bookplate for Tales of the TMNT: The Collected Books Volume 2 are still available here, while supply lasts.Michael's
Soul's Winter is a real highlight of the truly mutant years of
TMNT, when many guest artists offered their own unique takes on the Turtles. None were more unique than
Michael's, who extrapolated an alternate
TMNT universe as if
Akira Kurosawa had 'directed' the ultimate
TMNT film: turtles that looked like and behaved like reptiles, sheltered by a
Master Splinter of true rodent origins, facing not only the mystical powers of an implacable foe (
Shredder), but a confrontation with death incarnate on another realm of reality.
Rendered in
Michael's exquisite fine-line pen, brush and ink (on duo-shade), and anticipating his future work with
Neil Gaiman on
Sandman and other projects,
Soul's Winter is among the loveliest of all the
TMNT Mirage experiments, and the most memorable. This is a book well worth owning and revisiting -- more on the book, and
Zulli's work, in future posts... but don't wait for my sorry ass,
visit Michael's own eye-popping website right this minute!Have a great Monday, one and all...
Labels: Johnson State College, Michael Zulli, TMNT, zombies
My work appears in a number of new comics and books! Here's a quick review of those goodies, now out and/or about to hit the shelves:
* The latest issue of Bob McLeod's magazine Rough Stuff #4 features an illustrated overview of some of my Swamp Thing pencils, with insights by yours truly, and best of all a lengthy illustrated interview with my venerable amigo and fellow Swamp Thing vet John Totleben. Pick it up, and pronto -- it's on the shelves now, or you can order your copy immediately 
* So much for vintage Bissette -- there's new stuff, too. here's the upcoming (shipping in May!) Accent UK Zombies anthology, for which I drew a cover, some interior spot illustrations, and completed a brand-new four-page Edward-Gorey like humor piece working with my son Daniel Bissette, 
* In stores right now is the third (and, alas, final) issue of Mark Martin's most recent anthology Runaway Comics 
* I've also written the introductions for two new graphic novel collections -- one a partial reprint extensively revised and expanded into a whole new graphic novel, the other reprinting for the first time a seminal body of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle work by Michael Zulli. Both, though, are well worth picking up, and pronto!
* The amazing new graphic novel I proudly scribed an intro for is Rob Walton's masterpiece Ragmop, which doesn't "just" collect the existing pair of Ragmop series from the mid-1990s -- don't believe those know-it-all online putzes and pundits who claim otherwise. 
