October 12, 2007 Bonus Blog
Working hard on the black and white game. Pulled a couple of scratchboards out of my morgue for reference. This is the tonal qualities I want for the Top Secret Project (Limited Edition Custom Book Phase):



Both were done from photos, but free hand. Nice effects. Yesterday I did some sketches of Walter Camp running for a touchdown with one of those oldstyle footballs (very medicine ball-ish). That's Jim Thorpe at top, most of the scenes from the new book, which touts: "In 1903, a group of defeated warriors stepped out onto a field in front of thousands of hostile fans. They walked off heroes." The title is: "The Real All Americans," by Sally Jenkins.



The right hand page, done this morning, reflects the sparse ("This is Sparta!"), white space design of the books we saw down at Mark McDowell's. Trying to push things in that direction rather than the crowded, paranoid world of the usual comic book design.

Jesse James Backstory
"There's a backstory in here somewhere: what did Warner Brothers know about THE ASSASSINATION OF that caused them to embark on the desultory roll-out?  Something happened.  What?  Sour focus groups?  Ran out of mazuma for distribution?  Competition from other movies being released at the same time?  Or! Or!  WB is not done.  It's a trick.  It's a slow build-up.  A cinematic-distribution tsunami in slow motion.  What?  Unleash your beagle.

"Second, since the movie is running 3 to 1 fresh tomatoes to rotten, why would the ARIZONA REPUBLIC run an uninformed, negative review from a small newspaper 1,500 miles away, or however far NJ is from AZ.  And:  there's no East Coast bias here.  Most NYC critics like THE ASSASSINATION OF, for all the right reasons. It's moody and elegiac, and the acting dazzles.

"My guess is REPUBLIC editor just grabbed the review off the wire without thinking twice."
—Dan Buck

Yes, I agree. My theory is they did the limited release and the business wasn't there for a winner and they dumped it. It has had a very mixed focus group track record for over a year, so it really isn't a surprise, but still, I was hoping it would come out of nowhere, slowly and steadily build business and redefine Westerns as we know them. But then, I'm a hopeless artist (brilliant cartoonist but a hopeless artist and capitalist). ha.

"Be aware. For there are shadows within the shadows."
—Leonardo da Vinci (quote sent to me by Scott Matula—Thanks!)