nut

Michel Gondry's UBIK film poster

2011-08-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

I really, really want this to be great.

BLADE RUNNER CITY 2

2011-08-22T03:08:00.000-07:00

More gorgeous renders of the city from Blade Runner.

BLADE RUNNER DESKTOP

2011-08-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

[CLICK TO MAKE IMAGE LARGER]

BLADE RUNNER NIGHTS

2011-08-20T03:04:00.000-07:00

Awesome fan image of the streets of Los Angeles 2019.

ROY BATTY

2011-08-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

A very rare photo of Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty from the set of Blade Runner.

I have his autobiography "All Those Moments" sitting on my desk at home. One day I hope to find time to actually read it.

Meet Pris

2011-08-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

Trivia: Pris was "born" (i.e. "replicated") on Valentine's Day.

MORE SYD MEAD DESIGNS FOR BLADE RUNNER

2011-08-17T02:56:00.000-07:00

Found another gorgeous Syd Mead design for Blade Runner's city streets.

SPINNER RISING

2011-08-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

Ubik (Use As Directed)

2011-08-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Awesome can of Ubik created by an unknown fan of PKD's classic sci-fi novel.

**

BOB PEPPER (NAKED)

2011-08-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Detail of some cover art for Solar Lottery, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik by illustrator Bob Pepper (sans masthead for detail).

Awesome.

**

Where The Magic Began

2011-08-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is Philip K. Dick's typewriter and coffee mug. Hard to believe he wrote all those great short stories and over 30 novels on this thing.

Epic.

**

BLADE RUNNER INSPIRED

2011-08-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

SYD MEAD DESIGNS FOR BLADE RUNNER

2011-08-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

VINTAGE UBIK ADS

2011-08-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

PKD COVERS BY ARTIST BOB PEPPER

2011-08-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

More Blade Runner Magazine Goodies

2011-07-30T17:32:00.001-07:00

*CLICK IMAGES TO "EMBIGGEN"
From Fantastic Films Magazine June 1982
An Interview with Syd Mead
(Conan the Barbarian is the cover feature)

Picked this up for $5.00 today.

MY BIG SCORE: BLADE RUNNER SOUVENIR MAGAZINE & AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER

2011-07-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I discovered this treasure you see above at Frank & Son's Collectible Warehouse. Each magazine pictured (the Blade Runner Souvenir Magazine and the American Cinematographer) were each $5 so I snatched them up.

Inside I discovered pages and pages of full color (and some b&w) photos and interviews with PKD, Ridley, cast and crew, etc. and some images (shown above) that are not normally seen (at least by me) in the regular stock photos from the Blade Runner production.

The one image that really sets me off is the street scene image which at first looks like it must be one of Syd Mead's paintings but upon closer inspection is actually a photgraph of the set itself. Gorgeous!

Of course, I checked on Ebay (and you're welcome to do the same) and discovered that each of these is currently going for about $100 each. I got both for $10.

SCORE!!

(Don't hate me)

My Big Philip K. Dick Treasure

2011-03-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

I was able to find these 4 vintage Sci-Fi Magazines for $2.00 a pop! They each feature PKD short stories.

The black cover "A Glass of Darkness" is worth about $75 and the others around $10 each, give or take.

Pretty awesome, huh?

Found Treasure

2011-03-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I picked up a handful of old SF pulp magazines featuring PKD short stories for about $2 each(!) and one of them was the December 1956 edition of Satellite Science Ficton magazine with a cover story by PKD entitled "A Glass Of Darkness".

The story is the first published version the entire novel "The Cosmic Puppets" (about 95 pages).

Anyway, I went online to see if it was worth anything and couldn't find anything (no, not even on Ebay). But I did come across a listing on Amazon.com where someone was selling a used copy for $159. I couldn't believe it.

Turns out that it's probably more realistically priced around $75, but hey, that's still a good bargain.

This Saturday I'll head back to the same seller to pick up a couple more of these pulp SF magazines also featuring PKD short stories.

Woo-hoo!

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED....

2010-08-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

A Woman Who Gives Massages and Pedicures to Oppossums meets a man who adopts a parasailing donkey and together they team up to fight
the Bodybuilding Neo-Nazi Porn Star who embalms dead people for a living.

No, seriously, I did not make any of this stuff up.

DARROW: FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS GRAPHIC NOVEL COVER ART

2010-07-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

10 SCI-FI FILMS THAT MAKE YOU GO “WHAT THE FRAK?"

2010-07-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

*INCEPTION

*DARK CITY – (Inspired by the same exact twist in the anime classic “Megazone 23” anime.)

*DONNIE DARKO – (Don’t understand it completely. Love it anyway.)

*ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND – (One of my all-time favorite films. Epic and moving.)

*FIGHT CLUB – (“I know this because Tyler knows this…” My wife Wendy had it figured out before me. Actually, I never figured it out at all. It blew my mind.)

*12 MONKEYS – (Love the moment when Bruce Willis’ character actually believes he’s insane and the doctor has to convince him he’s really from the future.)

*GHOST IN THE SHELL – (A friend I saw this with said, as we walked out of the theater, “That wasn’t ‘Anime’, that was ‘Brainime’”. He’s right.)

*BRAZIL – (I’ve seen this one over 10 times. Love it to death. The ending is a work of art.)

*PLANET OF THE APES – (What can compare to that Statue of Liberty scene? Nothing.)

*Pi – (Does the solution for PI actually contain the hidden name for God ,or the secret of unlimited wealth? What if the answer would kill you?)

BONUS
*A BEAUTIFUL MIND (not sci-fi but quite PhilDickian.)

*THE SIXTH SENSE (I had the twist figured out very early on, but it’s a crime not to mention it.)

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments.

THE PITFALLS OF RE-LAUNCHING CLASSIC COMICS CHARACTERS

2010-07-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

In October of this year, Dark Horse comics will re-launch Turok: Son of Stone as part of their plan to modernize the best of the Gold Key properties, including Doctor Solar, Magnus: Robot Fighter, and even Mighty Samson (for some reason).

See press release
HERE

While I admit that I am a big fan of these characters (with the exception of Mighty Samson), and that I enjoy Jim Shooter’s scripts overall, I’m skeptical of the way the publisher is going about this re-launch. Perhaps it’s because what made these characters interesting twenty years ago isn’t necessarily what will interest readers today. So, either Dark Horse updates these characters and brings them into the anti-hero, spandex-clad comics world of today – and therefore changes the character to be something unrecognizable – or they stay true to the core of these characters and lose the majority of readers in the process.

I’ve had a look at the Doctor Solar and Magnus: Robot Fighter re-launch attempts thanks to the recent Free Comic Book Day preview flip book. The cover art on each is phenomenal, thanks to Raymond Swanland’s impeccable style, but the interior art on both is less than inspiring. Although the artist for Doctor Solar maintains a clean, simple style that feels more true to the classic Gold Key vibe, the Magnus art was just poorly executed – even amateurish at times. Although, to be fair, the Magnus script was the weaker of the two and stronger art wouldn’t have helped things all that much.

Here’s what I think the biggest challenge for Dark Horse is when it comes to re-launching these 3 classic characters: No one is looking for a re-launch of these characters. There. I said it.

For those of us who love the Gold Key comics, we scour the dollar bins (and save our money for the $60 back issues), or we purchase the gorgeous archive editions (thanks to Dark Horse for that). But what we love about these stories, and these characters isn’t something that you can update for today’s audience. They only work because they’re so unlike what’s on the shelves today. I love that Turok was a realistic looking Native American who used a simple bow and arrow and a spear to fight off giant dinosaurs and survive another day in an exotic jungle outside of space and time. No one in 2010 wants to read a comic that – every week – features another dinosaur battle, or yet another – “we almost escaped this jungle again, but maybe next week we’ll be successful” – storyline. And why should they? Those were simpler stories and simpler artists for a simpler time. I like the nostalgic quality of that artwork – especially Alberto Giolitti’s fine pencilwork in the later years. I like the self-contained stories of survival and the episodic nature of the overall series that built upon the hope of escape but consistently built the relationship between Turok and Andar.

The last time Shooter attempted to re-launch these characters with Valiant comics the result was horrific. Sure, the art by Bart Sears and Joe Quesada at the time was eye-popping, and the stories fit right in with the newly-launched Image brand of storytelling ala Rob Liefeld and Marc Silvestri, etc. But putting a machine gun into the hands of my Turok was something that no one should have ever done. Ever.

The question is, should Dark Horse tell the continuing story of these characters and pick up where the old Gold Key adventures left off? Should they pretend they never happened and start over from scratch? (This appears to be their plan). I don’t know, really. Frankly, I think either plan will fail miserably.

However, when I look at how other comic book publishers have handled their re-launch of classic characters I’m more encouraged. Dynamite has done an amazing job with The Lone Ranger with great story-telling, great covers by John Cassady and solid interior art. That one shines. I’m also fairly impressed with the Kevin Smith “Green Hornet” book and the upcoming “The Last Phantom” had my $4.99 as soon as I saw that bad ass cover by Alex Ross. (Not that I’m a huge Ross fan, mind you. But seeing the blood-drenched, two-gunned version of the Ghost Who Walks in the jungle surrounded by dead bodies made me want to know more).

Classic comic properties like these, including The Shadow, Doc Samson, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, etc., have their built-in audiences. Publishers need to know that their bread and butter is found in making those fans happy and giving them a product they’ll devour each and every month. Finding a new audience for these characters can be achieved, but not at the expense of loosing that core fan base. Maybe Dynamite got it right by publishing multiple versions of their Green Hornet property? They’ve got the cool as a cucumber Kevin Smith version, the classic retro version, and even the Green Hornet of the future version where the character can escape the constraints of the past but still riff on them as needed.

At any rate – I’m willing to give the Turok re-launch a shot, but I’m afraid they’ve already lost me on the Doctor Solar and the Magnus titles. Those characters deserve better. So do their fans.

Until they republish the old Dagar the Invincible archives (please, oh please), make mine Gold Key.
**
Visit http://www.goldkeystories.com to get your Dagar, Magnus, Dr. Solar, Turok, Star Trek fix.

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED

2010-07-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

A scuba diving weiner dog and a seagull who thinks he's a cat, join forces to rescue a penguin found wandering the streets of Dublin in order to stop a one armed Chinese monkey who killed 80 chickens.

Ok, now someone please go and write that screenplay because this is one movie I would love to see.

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED - ANIMAL EDITION

2010-05-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

In this episode, a German man marries his dying cat and breeds a tiny horse that fits into his pocket which causes a swarm of honeybees to invade the White House.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU

2010-05-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

The new film based on the short story by Philip K. Dick.

Short Sci-Fi Film: The Gift

2010-04-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here's something you'll like: a tantalizing dystopian sci-fi short by commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch, called "The Gift"; featuring robots, Moscow in winter, a kick-ass motorcycle chase, murder and a big mystery; below.

PREVIEW PAGES: PKD'S "ELECTRIC ANT"

2010-04-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

Read them all
HERE

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED - MARCH 22ND

2010-03-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

A man armed with a “Taser Me Elmo” rifle and a hand grenade loaded with hot, spicy peppers walked into his local TOYS R US and purchased a new Laser Bore sight for his 5 year old son.

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED - March 12, 2010

2010-03-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

A 101 year old woman who wakes up with a horn on her forehead and a baby girl born with a 5 inch tail drive to a restaurant which serves Squirrel Pie and end up in a tragic accident caused by a woman who was shaving her bikini line while driving.

Now...write that screenplay!

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED - March 4th, 2010

2010-03-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

A man who advertises illegal circumcision’s on Craigslist builds a flying hovercraft made out of his old barbecue, his daughter's scooter, and his wife's car and flies to Russia in order to rescue an alcoholic chimp who is sent to rehab.

*Note: This is another genius idea for a screenplay based on insane headlines from today's news. Go write that screenplay!

WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF WE TRIED

2010-02-26T10:06:00.001-08:00

Another dose of real-life news from the internet which, when meshed together, creates the framework for an ingenious screenplay concept.

Dateline: Februrary 25, 2010

A woman so fat she can stop bullets teams up with a cop who has to kill a crazed chimpanzee and then uses music to deal with his pain. Together they steal a commercial jetpack and help Kirstie Alley’s dream booty call come true.

**

SCAVENGING DAILY NEWS HEADLINES TO CREATE STORY CONCEPTS

2010-02-24T14:11:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Feb.24, 2010

A Lingerie model runs one of the world's largest drug cartels while her husband is an undercover Mossad agent spying on Hamas. Together they take on an evil vice principal at their daughter's school who has been spying on her via her laptop camera.

PKD'S ELECTRIC ANT: THE COMIC

2010-02-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

MAY, 2010 --
PHILIP K. DICK’S ELECTRIC ANT #2 (of 5)
Written by DAVID MACK
Penciled by PASCAL ALIXE
Cover by PAUL POPE

FROM THE MIND OF SCIENCE-FICTION LEGEND PHILIP K. DICK -
David Mack and Pascal Alixe continue their charged and visually stunning adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Electric Ant. When most people have crises of identity, a therapist might advise them to look inside themselves for answers. But after Garson Poole, CEO of Tri-Plan Industries, wakes up in a hospital and is told he is not human, but, in fact, a robot known as an Electric Ant, he goes looking for answers by opening up his chest panel and literally looks inside himself. But what lies in there is more profound and terrifying than anyone is prepared for…
32 PGS./Parental Advisory $3.99

THIS MAKES ME SMILE

2010-02-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

For years now, my friend Scott Laumann and I have been talking about creating Thomas Kinkaid style paintings with grafitti and poverty and real-life to counter-act the Disney-fied fantasy of the "painter of trite".

Thank goodness Banksy had the vision to beat us to it.

Bravo.

FRANK MILLER: THE PUNISHER -Original Art

2010-02-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

This gorgeous orginal Frank Miller ink drawing of The Punisher was given to me by my dear friend, Lito. At the moment it's in our spare bedroom because I ran out of wall space to hang it, but it's gorgeous to look at, isn't it?

Thanks, Lito!

TEMPLESMITH: ORGINAL ART

2010-02-12T13:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a peek at some of the great orginal art I own from artist Ben Templesmith. Ben was the artist for 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and he also works on several other titles for IDW comics.

You can see the progression of pencil sketches of the main character's face (Jenn) and then the basic outline painting, then the finished black and white, and then the final photo-shopped version with the effects added in later. Truly an amazing work. I personally feel that this is the very best example of Ben's artwork I've ever seen. And not just because it's my character.

Below is another original ink drawing from Ben that came along with all of this other great stuff you see here. This one below is an ink original of John Constantine from the book, HELLBLAZER. (It was also a film called CONSTANTINE with Keanu Reeves).

I'll post more orignal art later from Adijin and Frank Miller.

LICHETENSTEIN GIRL

2010-02-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

This is the coolest thing you will see all day.

Guaranteed.

More
HERE

BEN TEMPLESMITH: DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

2010-02-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, I used to have this crazy idea about starting my own comicbook production company. We called it PlasticAnimalStudios.com (and the link is still active).

Ben Templesmith, God bless him, did an amazing cover for our flagship title, "Digerati" and not only did he not charge me for it, he also mailed me the original art, plus a few other originals, and sent it to me from Australia. For free.

Yeah.

Anyway, the above image is from Ben's website. He was messing around with a cover idea for the book and I think it came out pretty good.

These days he's living off his royalty checks from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and working on a few original books of his own over at IDW comics.

Nice guy. Great artist. Cool cover.

Here's the DIGERATI cover:

I'll post the originals and more of his work later.

FOR THE LOVE OF GEOF DARROW

2010-02-05T16:46:00.001-08:00

[CLICK TO ENLARGE]

Scouring the net today I came across these lovelies...

REVIEW: A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

2010-02-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Published in 1959, this novel is what I would call an accidental science fiction classic. By accidental I mean that it mainly a thought-provoking, philosophical drama dealing with the pride of mankind and our self-destructive natures which happens to accomplish the task using great characters, vivid imagery, keen insight and a futuristic setting. In other words, the author is more interested in telling a great story and dealing with difficult issues than he is with writing science fiction. And that is why I believe it may be one of the best science fiction books I’ve ever read.

For me, great science fiction – whether in print or on screen – uses the future as a mirror to reflect back on us our own failures and foibles of character. By putting modern concerns in the distance, and dressing up our present in the clothing of tomorrow, it allows us to consider our current situation and imagine a better future for ourselves.

This book is spread over a period of a few hundred years time and sectioned off into three parts: “Let There Be Man”, “Let There Be Light” and “They Will Be Done”. In each of the three sections we are told the story of mankind after the first nuclear devastation nearly obliterates mankind. Man’s greatest knowledge is scavenged and cataloged by the monks at what will soon become the abbey of Saint Leibowitz. While most of the survivors, self-proclaimed as “Simpletons”, rage against any sort of wisdom from before the nuclear holocaust, the monks must protect the “Memorabilia” from those who are dedicated to its destruction.

But the novel, a Hugo Award Winning work of masterfully written fiction, is about so much more than this. Here we have a book that hints at the wasteland we have come to know from films like “Road Warrior” and games like “Fallout 3”, but instead gives us ordinary people who simply try to live their lives and fulfill their vows to God, and to humanity.

Miller deals with the conflicts between faith and politics, science and religion, suffering and euthanasia, survival and compassion – all without ever losing sight of his ultimate storyline which is about mankind itself.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, is easily comparable to a handful of other great science fiction novels, including “Fahrenheit 451”, “Brave New World”, and “1984”. It is thoughtful, poignant, and subtle, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks, and consider the future, in sobering visions of what could be, and what we hope might never be.

From the Amazon.com review:

Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized.
--Paul Hughes

**

TIMECRIMES: A REVIEW OF THE FILM

2010-02-03T17:33:00.000-08:00

TIMECRIMES - (2007), Directed by Nacho Vigalondo. Starring Karra Elejalde

I cannot say enough how intriguing and entertaining and genuinely well-done this little independent foreign language film really is. No really. I can’t. Because to say too much is to give away this ingeniously planned story and twisty-turning plot.

The director, in an early interview, cited the fiction of Philip K. Dick as his inspiration for this film, and it really shows. The storyline turns in on itself over and over again, telling, and then re-telling the story in overlapping layers as the main character travels through time – again and again – attempting to correct his mistakes and set everything right. He must outsmart himself and anticipate his own actions and reactions in order to avoid a catastrophe that threatens to ruin his life.

Some have compared this film to that other time-travel film, Primer, and while both are low-budget, cerebral sci-fi dealing with time travel, this film is a much better execution of the concept. In fact, not only did I not enjoy Primer, I found the narrative got bogged down in attempting to explain how the time travel was accomplished rather than in telling a compelling story. This film succeeds by avoiding the “how” of the science of time travel in favor of telling an intriguing story.

This is a great little film. It will have you guessing, and then make you pause the film to stop and think about it a bit more, before you reach the end.

Highly recommended.

From the description of the DVD on Amazon.com:
The Oscar-nominated Vigalondo's first feature has elicited comparisons to time-travel movies from Back to the Future to Groundhog Day, but in its reliance on clever plotting over special effects, his thriller has more in common with the low-budget Primer. At the time of its release, United Artists announced that David Cronenberg would be handling the English-language remake, which is sure to offer up its own unique twists and turns. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this jigsaw-puzzle picture calls for multiple viewings to make all the pieces fit.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy

MOEBIUS: ARZACH

2010-02-02T23:41:00.000-08:00

[CLICK TO ENLARGE]

THE ART OF DYLAN LEE GILES

2010-02-02T23:12:00.001-08:00

THE ART OF DYLAN GILES

I will admit, I am a biased art critic when it comes to my 14 year old son, Dylan. I’ve watched him blossom from an infant with a crayon and a toddler with a watercolor brush, into a young man whose imagination is barely contained by his ability to breathe life onto a page.

When he was four years old he painted something so gorgeous that I cannot – to this day – recreate it on my own. By the time he was in first grade he had created his own fictitious publishing company (Squishball.com) and designed the logo.

Today, his art style is highly detailed and more than a little inspired by the likes of Moebius and Geof Darrow, but I have a feeling that even this latest style of art is only a brief layover into exponentially greater realms of creativity to come.

Just check out these insanely detailed drawings he’s produced over the last month or so.

[CLICK TO ENLARGE]

His main blog is
HERE

GEOF DARROW vs Godzilla

2010-02-02T10:18:00.001-08:00

Amazing.

[CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGE]

MOON: A Review of the film

2010-02-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

MOON – (2009), Directed by Duncan Jones .Starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey

This film intrigued me long before I ever saw it on screen. The murky, reality-bending previews promised a very mind-twisting and cerebral sci-fi experience. I was salivating in my imagination with every teaser image and cinematic trailer. Then came the word of mouth and the reviews, which were all quite positive and only helped to reinforce the illusion that this was a thought-provoking, intelligent bit of science fiction storytelling.

They lied.

Whatever your first guess might be in the very early frames of this film about where the plot is going will most likely be 100% correct. Once the story catches up with your initial theory, a few seconds later, the story really doesn’t take you anywhere unexpected or interesting. I was, to say the least, disappointed.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

If you’ve seen the film, you probably had an idea early on in the story that Sam Rockwell’s character was a clone. Sure enough, once he goes outside and finds his own body at the scene of the accident, your suspicions are confirmed. After that, it’s all falling action (as we say in the fiction writing business), and that takes up about two thirds of the film.

I kept expecting another twist to the story. Perhaps when the two clones are scouting around they come upon another base just like their own, and they discover a third clone of themselves? Or perhaps when the rescue team arrives they overpower them and take their shuttle to return to Earth? Or perhaps the rescue team is another set of clones just like themselves? Or maybe when he called his daughter on Earth we get to see the original version of our astronaut character and he’s crippled, in a wheelchair perhaps, or maybe he looks into the video screen and realizes that they cloned him without his knowledge? I don’t know….but anything other than the straight ahead, deadly obvious storyline we got in this film would have been an improvement.

This film could’ve been fascinating. It could’ve played with whether our main character was insane, or actually a clone, for a bit longer before the reveal. It could’ve pulled back the curtain and revealed that this was an elaborate experiment back on Earth to test the mental stability of these clones under stress.

But no. Instead, we get a story that feels like it was written in one sitting over pizza by a pair of junior high kids who are more easily amused, and mentally stimulated, than I am.

MOEBIUS: AIRTIGHT GARAGE (detail)

2010-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

*From HM, May 1979

Moebius: Major Fatal

2010-01-30T17:38:00.001-08:00

*from Heavy Metal Magazine, Sept. '77

MOEBIUS: THE LONG TOMORROW

2010-01-30T13:32:00.001-08:00

Serialized in 2 parts in the July/August 1977 issues of Heavy Metal Magazine.

Today I picked up the second part for a sweet trade of books at Frank & Sons, plus 4 other HM magazines from 77/78 with tons of great Moebius art. I'll post those later.

MOEBIUS: MORE ART OF THE FIFTH ELEMENT

2010-01-30T13:28:00.000-08:00

From the book: Luc Besson: The Story of the Fifth Element ($150)

MOEBIUS: THE ART OF THE FIFTH ELEMENT

2010-01-29T13:22:00.000-08:00

If anyone has this book and wants to help it find a good home, please let me know.

RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH - SCREENING IN LA

2010-01-29T09:18:00.000-08:00

Over at www.io9.com there's an interview with director John Alan Simon about RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH which is now screening in select theaters in LA. (I might need to make a road trip).

[from the article]
A new film based on Philip K. Dick's posthumous, roughly autobiographical novel, Radio Free Albemuth, has begun some informal screenings around Los Angeles. We saw the film, and spoke to writer/director John Alan Simon about representing the author's ambivalent life.

[READ MORE AT LINK BELOW]
HERE

A PREQUEL TO "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?"

2010-01-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

Yep. Not only that, it's an officially licensed and Dick-Family-approved prequel.

Really.

Of course, it's a comic book mini-series from the publishers of the current "Do Androids Dream..?" serialized graphic novel in stores now.

Here's the scoop:

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?: DUST TO DUST #1
Written by Chris Roberson, art by Robert Adler.

A science-fiction publishing event! Who hunted androids before Rick Deckard? Taking place immediately after World War Terminus ends, the problems with artificial life -- androids -- become apparent. The government decides they must become targets, hunted down, but who will do the dirty work? Two men are assigned: Malcolm Reed, a "special" human with the power to feel others' emotions, and Charlie Victor, who's the perfect man for the job -- or is he? Meanwhile Samantha Wu, a Stanford biologist, fights to save the last of the world's animals. John W. Campbell Memorial Award-nominee Chris Roberson writes the prequel to John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winner Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, one of the greatest science fiction novels ever published!

32 pages, $3.99. Releasing: April, 2010

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

2010-01-25T19:56:00.000-08:00

I am about two thirds of the way through this excellent post-apocalyptic book. Some have suggested this might be the very first such book of its kind dealing with the survivors of a world-wide nuclear devastation. Maybe so. I’m not sure. But I can say that, so far, it is one very well-written and well-thought-out narrative dealing with how faith and the preservation of knowledge come into conflict with science and politics, and leads ultimately to yet another war.

Downside? My library copy has a very unfortunate cover. Makes it look like I’m reading some biography of a Catholic Saint who lived in the desert and memorized Augustine or something.

Trust me, this is a great sci-fi book that deals with fascinating ideas and contains more than a few surprising twists to keep you guessing. The end of the first third section of the book had me, literally, shouting “No way!” to my very surprised wife.

It’s totally worth seeking out, and if possible, a purchase.

NEW LA TIMES ARTICLE ON PKD

2010-01-25T19:42:00.000-08:00

A nice synopsis of PKD's last days here in Orange County. Good stuff.

Read the full article
HERE

SHADE ART: LITO

2010-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, it's a man baby. Yeah. Seriously. This is Stilt, the twin brother of Obsidian. The dragon tattoo was interwoven with nanotech which wired him to his computer with a heart monitor connected to a large bomb in the heart of his facility. Kill him, destroy the building...and yourself.

The scramble suit, here modeled by Stilletto with a very futuristic haircut (ahem). He killed a Mossad agent who was wearing one of these and took it or himself. It creates false holographic shadow images so you're a hard target to shoot at. Also capable of stealth/invisible mode and, in emergencies only, a teleport function which not only hurts like hell but drains the battery to zero and leaves you vulnerable.

SHADE CONCEPT ART: LITO

2010-01-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

We even created a name and logo for our fledgling production studio: Shadowdancer Studios.

My original costume design for Stilletto. He was a master assassin who used throwing knives, arrows, and martial arts mainly.

Very Blade-Runner-inspired title page for Shade. Notice, in the background of our future NY skyline you'll see the Twin Towers.

Early concept for Jenn/Shade's hi-tech (ahem) gear. Heads up display, laser sights, body armor.

THE ART OF SHADE: LITO

2010-01-23T09:29:00.000-08:00

Early art for the Shade/Jenn split personality motif. Later we just had Jenn operate as an agent with transferred memories and abilities. A popular idea apparenty.

Color version of Obsidian and Stilletto.

Lito and I created our own futuristic weapon: The B.A. (Bad Ass) 450/9mm. It was a 450 shotgun on top and a 9mm on the bottom.

I really, really love this drawing of Shade versus Stilletto in his scramble suit.

ART DUMP: LITO

2010-01-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

Wizard - from one of my poems. Can't remember which one now. This one always scared me.

The Pilot - from one of my poems called "The Pilot", of course.

Tennessee Motel - from my poem of the same name. This one was a creepy poem, as you can probably guess from the images. Maybe I should post some of these older poems here? Hmm....

ART: LITO

2010-01-22T14:59:00.001-08:00

Rock House - This is Lito and I doing what we used to love best - Shooting our guns in the old rock house outside El Paso city limits in the desert.

Phal - The villian for our comic/sci-fi epic known originally as "Shade" and later as "Digerati". Technically, this is an idol of Phal who was an ancient evil alien/demon creature who possessed humans as hosts and craved power.

Obsidian - Another villian from SHADE, she was the twin sister of Stilt and one of the four members of "The Square" (later changed to, "The Diamond").

Matt Matrix - My junior high era, mega-violent character. He drove a yellow jaguar convertible, used an .85 caliber machine pistol and a machete to kill, maim and destroy just about anyone in his path. He was the good guy.

MORE ART OF LITO

2010-01-22T14:55:00.001-08:00

Knight Hawk - illustration for my poem of the same name. Especially love the light coming through the trees.

Captain America - Is it just me, or is Cap a bit too happy?

12 Guage - Illustration for a story I was working on at the time.

More 12 Gauge

ROBOT LOVE STORY

2010-01-21T17:33:00.001-08:00

FIRST LOOK: PKD'S "ELECTRIC ANT" Graphic Novel

2010-01-21T15:26:00.000-08:00

First issue of this 3 part mini-series releases in April from Marvel Comics.

Written by David Mack (after the PKD short story)
Covers: Paul Pope
Interior Art:Pascal Alixe

READ MORE
HERE

MORE GEOF DARROW: BOURBON THRET

2010-01-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I picked up Dark Horse Presents #19 which includes this black and white "Bourbon Thret" short. This is only Darrow's second US work in print. The first being the "Bourbon Thret" short in the Heavy Metal magazine published below.

You'll notice more than passing similarity to his current work on "Shaolin Cowboy".

BOURBON THRET by Geof Darrow

2010-01-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

Picked up this issue of Heavy Metal Magazine which featured Geof Darrow's suitably insane "Bourbon Thret" for .25 cents.

Got home and discovered that the entire collected volume is going for $182 on eBay.com.

Yeah.

THE AMAZING ART OF LITO BUJANDA-MOORE

2010-01-15T17:24:00.001-08:00

THE WORD THIS WEEK: PHILIP K. DICK Featured

2010-01-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of a television show featuring PKD on the 25th anniversary of his death.

Excellent stuff!

FREAKANGELS

2010-01-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

If you're not reading Paul Duffield & Warren Ellis' amazing free online weekly comic, FREAKANGELS I need to ask, "What is wrong with you?"

It's an amazing, well-written, gorgeously illustrated piece of sci-fi sweetness that you need to start reading now.

Start
HERE

New episodes post every Friday.

SHADES OF UBIK?

2010-01-13T18:41:00.000-08:00

For some reason this image reminds me of UBIK.

SAVE THE MUSK!

2010-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

Thousands of these innocent animals are senselessly killed every year for just one ounce of their scent to be harvested in cologne/perfume production.

These animals are kept in cages smaller than your medicine cabinet and fed hormone-inducing drugs to artificially increase their scent gland output.

After these animals are brutally killed, their scent glands are harvested and their bodies are thrown into the trash.

Please help put a stop to this tragic waste of life! These animals could be used for dog food, or raised as pets for the homeless.

How many more of these helpless musks must die in order to cover our bodily odors and attract the opposite sex?

STOP THE MADNESS!!!

IMPROVISATION by Keith Giles

2010-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

A short story about finding your inner voice.

Words by Keith Giles. Pictures by Jeff Spokes
Copyright 2007, Plastic Animal Studios
**
IMPROVISATION

By Keith Giles
Art by Jeff Spokes

Smoke dances on the bell of my horn

There’s the smell of patchouli and rosemary in the air

My first teacher told me once,

“You can’t teach someone improvisation,” he said

“Anymore than you can speak a language before you know the words.”

Benny on the stand-up slaps the upbeat

Melvin starts to play a smooth riff on the keys.

Jay taps out a warm groove on the skins

His brushes sound like a windstorm building in the distance

The mouthpiece is cold to my lips

I miss my intro measure and the guys cover for me.

I struggle with what to play..

“It’s like intuition,” my teacher said.

“Like the will of God or a woman’s glance from across the room.”

“You can never be sure until you’re sure,” he said.

“You’ve just got to feel it, boy”

“The sweetness is deep, like the bottom of a well. Sometimes you drop the bucket down…”

“You come up dry..”

“But, sometimes, you hear that splash and reel in the sweet water…”

“And it tastes like rain on your tongue.”

Random notes, possibilities, fly across my mind

Something swells in my heart, like a songbird spreading her wings.

I close my eyes.

“It’s all about the context, son,” I hear him whisper.

“But the trick, if there is such a thing, is to never go back to the same well twice.”

He told me about the young Mozart, improvising at the piano before he could climb a tree.

And a young Beethoven, fingers trembling with anticipation, intoxicated with this same burning,

..playing every note before it could diminish in his mind, chasing it down.

“It’s letting go, and it’s being in complete control,” he said.

“Like automatic writing, speaking in tongues, and falling in love.”

Brahms, he told me, carried his Intermezzi around for over two years
Comitting them to paper only under protest

Loving the sense of danger, the high-wire act, the walk along the razor’s edge

This is the opium of my soul, the same elusive spirit Mozart exhaled, the same burn that seared the soul of a young Beethoven, fingers trembling at the keys, eyes closed, head swaying, tears along the corners of his face…

And here I stand…

Who am I?

Not Mozart…

Not Brahms…

No one to you..

No one to them…

But the burning…the seething thing in my spirit…pounding in my chest…filling up my lungs, leaps from my mouth

Into the horn

Moves my fingertips like some invisible spider’s silk

Cries out in the darkness of the night

“You can’t teach improvisation,” he said to me.

“But you can learn it, son”

Benny turns the rhythm around, Jay follows his lead,

I step down the key on a wild eighth note run, swirling the melody like a whirlpool, pulling the connection between us taught, daring them to follow me down.

We slip into a riff that sounds like a Coltrane joint.

Jay reaches down and pulls out a rain stick, he starts pounding it on the floor of the stage, flipping it to let the rain sounds sizzle like gristle on a hot stove

I chop out the notes, swelling the end of each measure like a mournful wail before I relent and set it free.

Benny takes a run on his bass while Jay slips up the beat. He’s down on the three, then the one, then the two.

“There ain’t no wrong way to cut it loose,” he would say.

“There ain’t no right way either.”

I start a slow progression along the edge of Benny’s pulsing bass line, then I let out a single wail along the circle of fifths that is just a hair flat, right up until Jay hits the next measure and Benny’s next note catches up with me.

I take that moment to start blazing down the scale like a banshee.

Jay paradiddles now and the momentum builds. Benny scoops and slides his notes until I expect his fingers to start to bleed.

Everyone’s head in the courtyard begins to bounce.

On my last day of class, the old man gave me his horn.

“Miles Davis once played this horn,” he said.

I knew it was probably a lie, but it felt good.

I take a stab at the empty spaces between the staccato rhythm the guys have going.

My notes pierce the sky at random points along the curve, taking flight, riding the updrafts, soaring on wings of color and sadness.

My horn begins to weep between the mesh of drum and bass. Seeping through like rain against a screen door.

I breathe through the instrument that the old man placed in my hands that day.

The day he died.

My teacher…
My Father…
My friend…

I inhale the moonlight, exhale the deep ache of his ghost in me.

I cut it loose.

**
THE END

HOLLYWOOD LOVES PHILIP K. DICK

2010-01-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

Do you love the scene in “The Matrix” where Neo wakes up in an embryonic chamber, connected to wires and floating in a nutrient bath? Do you love films like “Stranger Than Fiction” or “The Truman Show” where the main character discovers that reality isn’t to be taken at face value? Do you enjoy stories like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” where the process of erasing someone from your memory triggers a realization that true love is really all about accepting someone – warts and all?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you are already a fan of Philip K. Dick stories. You just don’t know it yet.

In many of the hundreds of short stories and novels by prolific author, Philip K. Dick, the concepts of flawed perception, fluctuating reality, and evolving humanity are central themes. While Dick did not directly write any of the stories found in the films mentioned above, his influence on every single one of those films is unmistakable.

In fact, there are key moments in all of these films which could easily be traced back to the short stories and novels Dick published decades earlier. Which is probably why Hollywood is so in love with Philip K. Dick these days.

At the moment, several of Dick’s novels have been optioned for film production, including “Ubik”, and “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said”. Production on the film adaptation of his novel “Radio Free Albemuth” wrapped recently and is slated to release later in 2010. His short story “The Adjustment Team” has just been optioned by Matt Damon’s production company under the title “The Adjustment Bureau”.

There are also two biopics based loosely on his life story. One, “Your Name Here” starring Bill Pullman bears the dubious distinction of being a fictionalized take on his life, (read, “the unauthorized version”) and the other, “The Owl in Daylight” stars Paul Giamatti and is being produced under the watchful eye of the Dickian Estate.

Of course, the saddest thing is that Dick never lived to see any of this. He died a few months before his book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” released to theaters as “Blade Runner”. Thankfully, this meant that he also died before having to endure “Paycheck” with Ben Affleck or “Next” starring Nicholas Cage. Not all of this ideas have survived the Hollywood treatment. Only “A Scanner Darkly” and “Total Recall” (based on his short story, “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale”) can stand alongside “Blade Runner” as faithful, and nearly intact, adaptations of his work.

While “Minority Report” may have earned a lot at the box office, thanks mainly to the star power of Tom Cruise and the presence of Steven Spielberg, the film itself bore little to no resemblance to Dick’s original story.

Still, the spirit of Philip K. Dick lives on in films where reality is questioned, perception is altered, and memory is untrustworthy. Perhaps this is why, as a long-time PKD fan, I love movies like “Memento”, “Adaptation”, “Time Crimes”, “Brazil”, “Fight Club”, and “12 Monkeys”. When we question reality and test our perceptions, we are exploring our own souls and mining for truth. I’m just thankful that people like Philip K. Dick had the courage to get this process in motion.

PKD's final residence in Santa Ana

2010-01-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

Just discovered a few interesting details about the last days of Philip K. Dick.

He died (after a stroke) at Western Medical Center. I've been there more than a few times and had no idea that this was where Dick died.

Also, just discovered PKD's death certificate online and it included his address info:

408 E. CIVIC CENTER DRIVE, APT. C-1, SANTA ANA, CA

So, I Google-mapped that address and discovered that it's only about a block off of Main street where I travel every day on my way to work.

I'm halfway tempted to drop by sometime and take a picture of the door.

Am I obsessed?

THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH - PKD Documentary on DVD

2010-01-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

Just watched PENULTIMATE TRUTH documentary last night and I have to say it shed new light on much of Dick's life and clarified a few details in my mind.

Overall, the impression I was left with was that Phil was a lost soul. If I had been his friend while he was alive I think I would've really felt a need to help him get his life back on track.

At the end, when his friend Joan was recounting his speech in France about alternate realities and remembering future events, etc. I would have to agree with her that it was sad. A great mind had veered off course and would never return home.

Perhaps, as Jeter suggests near the end, the Transmigration of Timothy Archer is a sign of hope that PKD really did realize that he had gone too far with some of his theories and eventually returned to reality/sanity before he died. I really hope so.

I also found it fascinating that during the period of time when PKD was taking amphetamines to write 24/7 and avoid sleeping for days/weeks at a time - it was when he was writing his mainstream novels - NOT the more psychedlic/reality-bending sci-fi stories.

Of course, this was also when he started to see faces in the sky and threatened his wife with a gun. So, the negative affects were very real.

The other thought I had after watching it was a profound sadness that Phil never lived to see the future we're living in now. iPhones, Google, the internet, nanotechnology, etc. - all of it would have delighted and astounded him.

If only he could've held on a few more years, there's no telling what new stories he would have told.

THE AMAZING ART OF GEOFF DARROW

2010-01-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been on a huge Geoff Darrow kick. He's the artist for Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (pictures two and three at the bottom) and Hard-Boiled, (pictured at top). Both were written by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow handled the insane-detailed artwork.

His style is detailed to the Nth degree and it takes almost half an hour to devour a single page of his artwork - just to absorb every tiny detail in each and every frame.

Today I happened upon an old issue of Heavy Metal Magazine for .25 cents which featured a 13 page short story by Geoff Darrow called "Bourbon Thret".

This same issue also included a short article about Philip K. Dick. BONUS!

OUTLAND: THE STERANKO COMIC

2010-01-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

Outland was an underrated sci-fi film by director Peter Hyams. In fact, I think it was my first R-rated film back in the day.

The movie is out of print on DVD, but you can read the incredible sequential art adaptation by Jim Steranko
HERE

Great art. Semi-derivative "High Noon in space" storyline. Plus, Sean Connery!

BTW- this art, as the film, depicts brief nudity. Be warned!

*Originally serialized in the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine.

RARE FOOTAGE OF PKD'S ANDROID

2009-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

MY TOP FILMS OF THE DECADE

2009-12-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

In no real particular order, here are my favorite films of this decade:

District 9
Children of Men
The Dark Knight
LOTR (Trilogy)
Crash
Donnie Darko
Kill Bill
No Country for Old Men
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Incredibles
Man on Wire
Pi
Memento
Wall-E
Up
Traffic
Iron Man
Star Trek
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It Might Get Loud
Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace
Hotel Rwanda
March of the Penguins
8 Mile
Punch Drunk Love
The Simpsons Movie

BONUS: Movies I wanted to like but really didn’t:
Happy Feet
The Aviator
Minority Report
A.I.
King Kong
The Wrestler
Michael Clayton
Knocked Up
Letters from Iwo Jima
Lost in Translation
Spirited Away
Ratatouille
Pan’s Labryinth

My CD, "Elysian Skies" is now on iTunes!

2009-12-17T17:31:00.001-08:00

*TOYS I WISH I OWNED: THE ROAD WARRIOR SET

2009-12-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

If I had $35 to blow I could easily own four of the Road Warrior Toys, in the box, over at Frank & Sons in Diamond Bar.

One vendor has the following toys:

*Mad Max w/ wild boy
*Gyrocopter pilot
*Lord Humungus
*Mowhawk Rider Wez

He's told me I could have all 4 toys for $35, but that's still a bit pricey for me.

What I really want is just the Mad Max figure with his dog.

Another vendor there has all of them (which includes the version w/the dog, and the girl figure with the white shoulder pads), but she wants $60 for the set, and will not break them up individually.

(sigh)

I've determined to wait until I can find the figure with the dog out of the box for less than $20.

AMERICAN FLAGG - THE REST OF THE STORY

2009-12-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the awesome deals at Frank & Sons in Diamond Bar, I have filled out my American Flagg! comic collection with issue #'s 8 through 25 of the series.

It's amazing how entertaining and intelligent this series was. In fact, it's a lot better than anything on the stands right now from the big guys.

There. I said it.

Oh, and I picked them all up for .25 each!

Eat your heart out.

NEW MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER/SOLAR: MAN OF THE ATOM – JIM SHOOTER

2009-12-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

I can't really fully explain why, but ever since I heard that Jim Shooter was returning to write new Magnus Robot Fighter and Doctor Solar stories for Dark Horse I've been itching for this to release.

SLEEP DEALER - DVD Review

2009-09-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I watched it last night and I have to say – If you’re looking for a well-acted, moving, authentic drama watch “Sin Nombre” instead.

The story was pretty linear and it missed so many great chances to be great. Instead, it settled for “ok”.

If you’ve seen the previews you already know the entire story. No surprises. No mystery. No enticing little details about this future world.

This is one of the few foreign films where a big-budget Hollywood re-make would be a huge improvement. Cast Benecio Del Toro and Salma Hayek and have Ridley Scott direct it and then you’d have something.

Pass.

KING CITY

2009-05-14T13:50:00.001-07:00

Not sure why, but the solicitation for this new comicbook series appeals to me.

Maybe because I have an affinity to insane storylines?

KING CITY #1, story BRANDON GRAHAM, art & cover BRANDON GRAHAM
Coming AUGUST 19, 32 PAGES, BW, $2.99

Pete falls in love with an alien he’s forced to betray…Anna watches her boyfriend literally turn into the drug he’s addicted to…and Joe has a cat that can become any tool or weapon.

It’s all just another day in King City, where mystery is down every alley…and weirdness is crawling through your window.

From critically acclaimed comics vet BRANDON GRAHAM comes a comic unlike any you have ever read!
**

SHADES OF SOMA?

2009-05-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

Today's news story about how pharmacutical giant Pfizer is giving away free Viagra and Lipitor to those who are unemployed sounds like the beginning of a Soma-like society where the masses are kept drugged and happy (ala Huxley's "Brave New World").

Story
HERE

TRENTON, N.J. — Pfizer Inc. says it will provide 70 of its most widely prescribed prescription drugs _ including Lipitor and Viagra _ for free to people who have lost their jobs and health insurance.

The world's biggest drugmaker said Thursday it will give away the medicines for up to a year to Americans who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more.

The announcement comes amid massive job losses caused by the recession and a campaign in Washington to rein in health care costs and extend coverage. The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices.

The program also likely will help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands.

*FULL STORY IN LINK ABOVE

"THE ROAD" Release Date - Oct. 16th

2009-05-13T09:31:00.001-07:00

One of the most powerful and elegantly written novels I've ever read in my life was Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". If you haven't read this book, you must go out and do so as soon as you possibly can. It is poignant, lyrical and poetic in its language and heartbreaking and stunning in its prose.

The film has been in development and post-production for quite a while now. There was some fear that the story wouldn't translate well to the big screen and that movie audiences would balk at the bleak subject matter (the end of the world) and the long, empty scenes where no one talks and silence suffocates the two survivors (a father and his young son).

Finally, the film has a release date (Oct. 16th) and an early review by Esquire magazine calls it "the most important film of the year".

The film stars Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from LOTR to most) and was filmed primarily in locations of ruin and along abandoned freeways and in actual ghost towns to provide a stronger sense of realism and destruction.

I've been looking forward to this film even before I had read the novel.

Here's the blurb on the Esquire review:
Esquire magazine calls The Road, the post-apocalyptic movie based on Cormac McCarthy's best-selling SF novel, "the most important movie of the year."

"Go see it because it's two small people set against the ugly backdrop of the world undone," writes reviewer Tom Chiarella. "A story without guarantees. In every moment—even the last one—you'll want to know what happens next, even if you can hardly stand to look. Because The Road is a story about the persistence of love between a father and a son, and in that way it's more like a remake of The Godfather than some echo of I Am Legend. Only this one is different: You won't want to see this one twice."

PKD's "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" Film in Development

2009-05-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

I read this press release (below) and had to jump for joy. One of my favorite all-time PKD books is now being made into a feature film. Yes!

PRESS RELEASE
Halcyon Co. co-founders and co-chief executives Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, who picked up first-look rights to SF author Philip K. Dick's estate in 2007, have selected his 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said as the first of his works they will adapt for the screen, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Set in a futuristic, dystopian world, Tears is the tale of a celebrity who wakes up after an assassination attempt to find no one has ever heard of him.

Isa Dick Hackett and Laura Leslie, co-founders of Electric Shepherd Productions, the production arm of the Dick estate, will develop the work alongside Kubicek and Anderson. Dale Rosenbloom and John Alan Simon also will produce.

Dick's works have served as the basis for such movies as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly, which together have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.

WELCOME CBR READERS

2009-05-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently I won the cover challenge at PERMANENT DAMAGE and my blog was linked from there.

So, if you're joining me from CBR, welcome.

I actually used to write for CBR about seven or eight years ago doing mostly interviews with guys like Jim Steranko, Stan Lee, Brian Bendis, David Mack, and Paul Pope (among others).

These days I only dabble in comic and sci-fi stuff and if there's anything worth sharing along those lines it will end up here.

I also blog over at www.KeithGiles.com and that's mainly my focus these days along with my 3rd book project.

On the sci-fi front I'm currently just cracking open Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" and so far it's great stuff. I'll post a full review here when I'm done.

I'm also reading ARKHAM ASYLUM for the first time and I've just finished PKD's book of philosophical writings which was fascinating.

More to come, I promise...

NEW PAUL POPE SCI-FI SERIES: ADAM STRANGE

2009-04-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Awesome preview artwork from the upcoming series by Paul Pope: "Adam Strange" starting in July as part of the new, weekly newsprint comics zine from DC Comics called "Wednesday's Comics".

Can't wait!

REVIEW: RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH BY PKD

2009-04-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

"Radio Free Albemuth" is one of Philip K. Dick's finest novels, having been discovered and published after his death in 1985.

Although Dick wrote the novel back in 1975, ten years before, the book was orignally rejected by his then-publisher Bantam books and sent back to him for re-writes. Rather than handle the re-writes, Dick sent them a different book instead, although he did go back later and write new chapters to correct plot issues.

His original title for the book was "VALISystem A" but when Arbor House acquired the rights in 1985 they published an edition under the current title (the original was too close to VALIS, already published by then). The new, published manuscript was retitled "Radio Free Albemuth" and assembled from the corrected script given by PKD to his friend and fellow science fiction and fantasy author, Tim Powers.

"Radio Free Albemuth" is easily one of Dick's most thought-provoking and provocative books. As a novel that includes many of Dick's personal experiences, and Dick himself as a major character, the story takes on a strange, surreal quality that invades our reality and toys with our perception of the book itself - as fiction or as an allegory of actual events in Dick's life.

At one point in the story, Dick and his friend Nicholas are arrested by the authorities and taken into FAP custody (an SS-like group of secret police who intimidate ordinary citizens). One of the FAP officers tells Dick that they plan to publish books under his name in order to plant subliminal messages in people's minds. At this time in the authors life he is in the process of writing "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" and it makes one wonder if Dick had any intention of casting doubt as to the authorship of his own body of work after his death.

The book blurs the edges of reality, as most of Dick's books do, however this one manages to ask "What is fiction?" rather than, "What is human?" in a way that is quite entertaining and provocative.

One thing I loved about the book was how, at the midpoint, the first person narrative changed, in mid-sentence, from the voice of author Philip K. Dick to that of his friend Nicholas Brady. The effect was slightly disorienting and yet, ingeniusly well-timed in the story. Later on the voice switches back again in mid-sentence which makes sense. After all, we're reading a book written by Dick in the first place, so having Dick drift in and out of the narrative is fitting- because he's been the voice all along.

As someone who is aware of a lot of the major spiritual events of Dick's life, the book took on a fascinating quality as specific details spilled over into this book. Nicholas (or "Nick") and PKD (or "Dick") are practically synonymous. Events that Dick experienced such as hearing a voice speak to him about his son needing immediate medical attention and saving the boys life are re-told here as happening to Nicholas. As the two share in Dick's autobiographical experiences it becomes clear that the two are meant to serve as the one, interchangable character- Dick himself.

There is a bit of an alternate history going on where Richard Nixon is personified as "Ferris F. Fremont" and described as an undercover agent of the Soviet Communist Party, and an extra-terrestrial satellite is discovered orbiting our planet and openly reported about in the daily news, however we are always left wondering how much of this is allegory and how much is meant to be taken as fiction.

What makes reality more challenging to unravel stems from Dick's own, and very real, drug use. Of course, in this book he denies being a drug user and attributes the misconception to a misinformed quote from Harlan Ellison. At one point he laments the perception that he uses drugs and says that his readers should no more believe he uses drugs simply because he writes about drug use any more than a crime fiction writer should be assumed to be a murderer because he writes about murder. Of course, it is no secret that Dick did take large doses of amphetamines in his lifetime, largely to stay awake and allow him to write more - which meant he would get paid more. This fact is supported by the astounding number of novels Dick wrote in such a short time (over 36) and the hundreds of short stories he published as well.

In addition to the drug use, Dick also had his own personal bouts with mental illness. His behavior - self-medicating and constantly at the typwriter- suggest someone with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), which also largely contributed to his seemingly endless variety of story ideas.

For the uninitiated, Dick was also someone who dabbled quite a lot in philosophy and beleived that he was receiving messages from either an extra-terrestrial being (Valis) or God himself, much like Nicholas Brady in this very book. Because of this, Dick uses the book to unpack quite a bit of his own personal thoughts about God and his own twisted version of a quasi-Christian religion.

Another surprising element of the book was the humor. It was genuinely funny, which is something I cannot say about the majority of his novels (at least not the one's I've read to date).

Having finished the book I am curious as to whether or not any of Dick's other books can equal the quality of writing or the wall-to-wall lunacy found here.

So far this book ranks in the Top 5 list of Dick's books for me which include "Ubik", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", "The Man Who Japed" and "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said".

Highly recommended for fans of PKD.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER?

2009-04-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I used to repeat this old nonsensical limerick for fun. It went like this:

"One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other, drew their knives and shot each other. A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and shot those two dead boys.

If you don't believe this lie is true, just ask the blind man he saw it too."

5 PAGE PREVIEW: PKD'S "DO ANDROIDS DREAM..?" COMIC

2009-04-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

The first 5 pages of the new comic version of PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" are now online
HERE

Not sure how I feel about the constant and unnecessary "he said/Iran said" on every word balloon, but the art looks great and having a comic version of this amazing novel is enough to push me over the edge.

Especially since there's the chance that the success of this comic novel could mean future PKD projects down the road and I'd love to read a comic book version of "Flow My Tears" or "Ubik".

ON CREATIVITY BY LINFORD DETWEILLER

2009-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

This letter below was sent to me by someone I consider a friend, although he probably doesn't remember meeting me at the Squeeze concert 15 years ago in Los Angeles.

Linford is a songwriter and gifted musician who also happens to write letters that read like poetry.

His band, Over The Rhine, also records some of the most beautiful music around.

Here ya go:
**

Hello friends and extended family,

I know of a glass blower who gets up every morning in the dark to do
his work. Before the world wakes up, before the phone starts ringing,
in the sacred remains of the night when all is still, he gathers and
begins to fuse his raw materials: the breath from his lungs, glowing
flame, imagination, dogged hope.

I used to work from the other direction. I loved the feeling of still
being up after the rest of the city (and world) had grown sleepy, the
light of a lamp making my third story bedroom windows glow while I
leaned over my desk and sailed towards something I couldn’t name.

Someone sent me this little excerpt awhile back, in a beautiful letter
of encouragement I should add, the sort of letter that makes everything
slow down, hold still:

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?
- GK Chesterton

I’d really be okay with this being my epitaph.

When I was younger I would often write myself short job descriptions. I
was thinking out loud about what might be worth hanging a life on, a
life I was willing to sign my name to:

-Create spaces where good things can happen.

-Give the world something beautiful, some gift of gratitude,
no matter how insignificant or small.

-Write love letters to the whole world.

-Build fires outdoors, and lift a glass and tell stories,
and listen, and laugh, laugh, laugh. (Karin says I’m still working
on this one. She thinks I still need to laugh more, especially at
her jokes, puns and witty asides.)

-Flip a breaker and plunge the farm into darkness so that the stars can
be properly seen.

-Do not squander afflictions.

-Own the longing, the non-negotiable need to “praise the mutilated
world.”

-Find the music.

I still crave the extravagant gesture, the woman spilling a year’s
wages on the feet of Jesus, the rarest perfume, washing his feet and
drying them with her hair, a gesture so sensual it left the other men
in the room paralyzed with criticism, analysis, theoretical moral
concern - for what - the poor? Or was it just misdirected outrage in
light of the glaring poverty of their own imaginations?

Some friends of mine were talking about this scene the other night. We
got to imagining Mary with a pixie haircut, which made the drying more
difficult. We were drinking wine and Rob had made something to eat late
at night: take a cracker, put a thin slice of fresh pear on it, then
some sautéed goat cheese from the skillet, and top it with walnuts
drizzled with honey from the oven. At midnight?!

Someone once described our music as a mash-up of spirituality, whimsy
and sensuality.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Music and art and writing: extravagant, essential, the act of spilling
something, a cup running over…

The simultaneous cry of, You must change your life, and Welcome home.

I’ve been trying to write songs again, and I’ve been hitting a maze of
dead ends. I want the songs to reveal something to me, teach me
something. It’s slow going. I’m not sure where I’m going. Uncertainty
abounds.

But the writing works on me little by little and begins to change me.
That’s why I would recommend not putting off writing if it’s something
you feel called to: if you put it off, then the writing can’t do the
work that it needs to do to you.

Yes, I think there’s something there. If you don’t do the work, the
work can’t change you. (No one expects to change overnight.)

My sister Grace recently sent me this quote from a slim little volume
called Art and Fear:

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to
your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the
prerequisite to succeeding.

A blessing for the writers among us: May all your dead ends be
beautiful.

When I was younger and I found myself sitting down in a new season of
writing, I would put my pen down and close up the pica typewriter (the
only letterpress printing machine I ever learned to operate all by
myself, the bell of encouragement and mild alarm ringing at the end of
every line, I can still hear it) and feel compelled to clean my rooms,
put my world in order. It used to take 3-4 days.

Now it takes 3-4 months.

Our messes get bigger. And bigger.

So, I’ve been getting “caught up” with taxes and filing, putting things
away, making lists, getting more than a few lagging projects out the
door that are overdue (the first Over the Rhine songbook?!). And on and
on.

Someone in our Santa Fe songwriting workshop once confessed, I’m good
at a lot of things that will kill me. For those of us who write, there
are always so many options that don’t involve the dilemma, the
extravagance of the blank page. When we sit down to write, there’s
never a guarantee that we’ll have anything to show for it that we can
touch with our hands, or see with our own eyes. In fact, life is a lot
cleaner and more manageable when I’m not writing.

Yes, I’ll just admit it. I’m a writer that all too often is more than
happy to run from writing. But sooner or later I realize something is
dying inside. And then I try to get back to work.

From Linford Detweiler, Over The Rhine
April, 2009

VISIT OVERTHERHINE.COM

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

2009-04-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Boom! Studios Announces new 24 issue comic book mini-series based on PKD's classic novel.

Written by Phillip K. Dick, art by Steven Dupre, covers by Dennis Calero, Bill Sienkiewicz, Moritat and Scott Keating.

The book that inspired the film Blade Runner comes to BOOM! with backmatter by Warren Ellis!

Visionary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" has been called "a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today" and served as the basis for the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner.

The Story: San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. The World War killed millions, driving entire species to extinction, and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic fakes: horses, birds, cats, sheep -- even humans. Rick Deckard is an officially sanctioned bounty hunter tasked to find six rogue androids -- they're machines, but look, sound, and think like humans, clever, and most of all, dangerous humans.

Rick Deckard, Pris, The Voight-Kampff Test, Nexus 6 androids, the Tyrell Corporation: join BOOM! Studios as the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, groundbreaking 24-issue maxi-series experiment.

Coming in June.
32 pages, $3.99.

To Luke Crow

2009-04-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

As the serpent is lifted up in the wilderness
so is my anger lifted up against you
If my desire to end your life were a flame
oh how I would burn
supernova, under a blue sky
with a Bible in my hand
and a thorn in my side
I am torn, I am
torn between lusting
for the warmth
of your blood
on my hands and
longing to see you covered
in the blood of the Lamb.

And I hope one day
to find you sleeping
and to raise my sword
above your head
to cut a lock of your hair
and leave it beside you
as you dream

You are not the king
you hope to be
and my songs can never
soothe the demon
in you
or me

by keith giles

Elegy by Keith Giles

2009-03-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

and so we make ourselves ready
with cloth and comb and polish
measuring the circumference
of a life once lived
careful with our hands
we smooth the wrinkles
straighten the crease
immerse ourselves in sunlight
shallow and warm and silent

we cradle the glass
in trembling palms
take sips between exchanges unspoken
breathing slowly
when it comes between us
unexpected, quiet, and dark.

we make ourselves ready.

THE UNTELEPORTED MAN by Philip K. Dick (A Review)

2008-12-29T13:04:00.000-08:00

While visiting my parents in El Paso I ran across two great paperback editions by PKD, one was "The Unteleported Man" and the other was "The Eye in the Sky". I picked up both for $5.00 which was awesome and I started reading "The Unteleported Man" immediately.

The first 100 pages of the book are seriously amazing. I was all prepared to declare it one of my favorite PKD books, up until page 100 when the story took a complete left turn into stupidity.

Apparently the book has been published in various forms over the years with the additional material (where things get really stupid) being added in by the author himself to expand a short story which originally appeared in a sci-fi anthology as a long-form short story.

Those first 100 pages are good enough to inspire a feature length film, as long as the adaptation avoided the detour added in to pad the story.

I would recommend the book to those who already love PKD as I do and who are patient enough to plow their way through the second half of the book to get to the ending which was part of the original short story.

For the record, these are my favorite PKD books in no particular order:

*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
*Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
*The Man Who Japed
*Ubik

I might also note that I have read but not particularly enjoyed "The Man in the High Castle" and "A Scanner Darkly" which are often hailed as some of PKD's greatest novels.

Of course, I have barely scratched the surface since he wrote over 40 novels and hundreds of short stories in his lifetime.

I am currently reading the "Paycheck" collection of short stories by PKD and have just finished "The Eye of the Sybil" collection.

While I'm in a list-making mood, here are my favorite sci-fi films of all time:

*Blade Runner
*Brazil
*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
*Children of Men
*Gattaca
*Alien
*Aliens
*Terminator
*The Matrix

-kg

MY FAVORITE CARTOON

2008-12-28T17:43:00.001-08:00

SOONER OR LATER - SHORT SCI-FI FILM

2008-12-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

This 10 minute short sci-fi time travel film will warp your brain like a PKD short story on speed. (Which PDK was on most of the time).

Check it:

INTO THE TEETH OF THE DARK KNIGHT

2008-07-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

It's not uncommon for a film director to use a recurring visual theme to communicate something to the audience that transcends the script or the performance of the actors.

For example, "Blade Runner", the epic sci-fi film directed by Ridley Scott, employs a recurring eye theme throughout the film. The movie opens on a tight close-up of an eye wherein we see the reflection of giant refineries belching fire into the night sky. The camera lingers on the eyes of each actor. Characters sport strange eye-glasses. We are inundated with the human eye throughout the film and it becomes a visual touchstone for the viewer and a subtle whisper for the director to point us to notice something unspoken in his art.

One of the most unexpected themes of the new "Dark Knight" film starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger is teeth.

Anyone who watches this film will know what I'm talking about. The teeth in this film are a significant visual touchstone.

First we have our main star, Christian Bale. The first time he smiles on camera you'll notice that he's wearing a set of those fake vampire teeth that you buy from the vending machines at Toys R Us, which is kinda cool except then you realize that he's not wearing one of those and you say to yourself, "Hey, that guy has really weird vampire-like teeth."

Morgan Freeman, an actor of amazing range and ability, also has a set of very scary teeth. Just watch the scene where he smiles at the Chinese business owner from across the bargaining table. It will make you wish you were a dentist…or maybe thankful that you're not his dentist.

The Joker, played brilliantly by the late Heath Ledger, also sports a set of yellowed, coffee-stained chompers which he flashes to us continuously throughout the film in scenes gruesome, black humor.

Finally, Aaron Eckhart, who plays the tragic Harvey "Two Face" Dent, displays a
mouth full of perfectly-formed pearly whites which become even more prominent when you get to peek through his grotesquely burned cheek at those never-ending, shiny white molars.

Not sure why the film has such a strong teeth motif, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but this film leaves a serious bite mark.

-Keith Giles