Book Review: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion (Parka Blogs)

This is a hardcover book with no dust jacket. It's thick and the paperstock is good.

Included are many stories on the production process, Will Eisner's comic panels, behind the scenes photography on set, film stills and movie storyboards. The pages are well laid out and literally soaked with high resolution photos.

Mark Cotta Vaz has provided an in-depth writeup into the production process. The book starts all with a little history of Will Eisner and The Spirit, and goes on to talk about the process of making the movie. There are many interesting things to read, like how the studios negotiated the contract with Will Eisner, the casting of characters, shooting in front of the green screen, shooting different parts of the movies, death and rebirth of The Spirit on the movie and more.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

INDEX to MR. MEDIA INTERVIEWS

TV Stars * TV Producers * Movie Stars * Movie Directors, Producers, documentary Filmmakers and Screenwriters * Politicians and Political Writers * Stand-Up Comedians * Health Experts * Magazine Editors * Radio Stars * Bloggers, Podcasters and Web Producers * Novelists * Musicians and Music Journalists * Sexuality Experts * Culture and Society Experts * Food Experts * Biographers, Historians and A.J. Jacobs * Athletes and Sports Experts * Photographers * Journalists * Crime Experts * CEOs and Business Experts * Comic Book Creators * Cartoonists * Will Eisner Co-Workers, Friends and Experts

'Up, Up and Oy Vey!' Jews utilize comics to find a way to soar (JewishExponent.com)

Cover via Amazon

By Aaron Passman
December 04, 2008

If your idea of comic books is capes and tights and nefarious villains, then it's time to look again. As comic books and graphic novels have become an increasingly respected literary format in the past few decades, there's been a complementary trend in examining the Jewish connection to comics -- a medium that, like the film industry, began with no small amount of help from the Jews.

In fact, the connection between Jews and comic books has spawned something of a cottage industry over the past few years, including panel discussions, blogs and several books published on the topic -- the most recent of which, Arie Kaplan's From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, was released by Philadelphia's own Jewish Publication Society.

Superman was not Jewish, per se, although Jewish themes abound.

According to Paul Buhle, senior lecturer in the history and American civilization departments at Brown University, the past decade or so has seen "a broad legitimization within Jewish studies of looking at popular culture, and thinking about popular culture and Jewish roles [in it]."

"Eighty years ago, to talk about the Jewish role in popular culture was considered to be slightly dangerous, because it raised Hollywood-like hackles of Jews controlling young minds in America," continued Buhle, who edited the collection Jews and American Comics. Now, however, "these subjects are an object of examination, both entirely positive -- Jewish contributions to basketball -- and not so positive -- the Jewish role in organized crime.

"The field is open," added Buhle, to almost any area where Jews have made an impact, so it's only natural that comic books would be examined as well.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

INDEX to MR. MEDIA INTERVIEWS

TV Stars * TV Producers * Movie Stars * Movie Directors, Producers, documentary Filmmakers and Screenwriters * Politicians and Political Writers * Stand-Up Comedians * Health Experts * Magazine Editors * Radio Stars * Bloggers, Podcasters and Web Producers * Novelists * Musicians and Music Journalists * Sexuality Experts * Culture and Society Experts * Food Experts * Biographers, Historians and A.J. Jacobs * Athletes and Sports Experts * Photographers * Journalists * Crime Experts * CEOs and Business Experts * Comic Book Creators * Cartoonists * Will Eisner Co-Workers, Friends and Experts

Related articles by Zemanta

• Harvey Pekar audio interview
• 46 Down, 6 To Go "The Best American Comics 2008" (52 Books, 52 Weeks)
• A Year in Reading: Josh Bazell
• The 25 Best Pop Culture Books
• Top 10 links for comic-book heroes
• Top 10 graphic novels by Danny Fingeroth
• Pop goes the canvas

'The Spirit' movie that could have been (Los Angeles Times)

Image by guiltysin via Flickr

11:55 AM PT, Dec 12 2008

For every movie that makes it to the screen, there are a thousand projects that fall to the wayside. Later this month, "The Spirit," finally, hits theaters after plenty of failed attempts. Steven Paul Leiva was a key figure in one of those failed attempts and in this guest essay for Hero Complex he talks about the film that could have been. This photo below shows Leiva, Brad Bird and the late Will Eisner at the comics icon's White Plains, N.Y., home in 1981.

Frank Miller’s film version of Will Eisner’s innovative 1940s comic book, “The Spirit” opens on Christmas Day. It will be stylistic and hyper-visual, a hoped-for perfect melding of film and “sequential art,” a term coined by Eisner. What it will not be, however, is revolutionary. Comic book movies are now the meat and potatoes -- not to mention several side vegetables -- of Hollywood. And even its green screen, scene-simulation style is just part of a Miller continuum that started with “Sin City.”

But if the world had turned a little differently, if fate had been a little kinder, a “Spirit” feature film would have debuted in the 1980s that would not only have been revolutionary but -- those of us involved in it were convinced -- a huge hit, possibly the first $100 million-grossing animated feature. And the futures of such filmmakers as Brad Bird, Gary Kurtz, John Musker and John Lasseter might have taken alternative paths.

In 1980, I was a freelance publicist specializing in animators I admired. My clients included Chuck Jones, Bill Melendez and Richard Williams. However, I was not particularly happy with the state of animation itself. Previously I had been executive secretary of the animation society ASIFA-Hollywood and an animation programmer for the Los Angeles International Film Exposition (FILMEX), and so had been exposed to a lot of great, classic American animation and exciting foreign animation. I had become frustrated that animation in Hollywood had fallen into the doldrums of sub-standard Disney, awful Saturday morning TV cartoons, and too-cute-to-stomach exploitations of brightly colored bears and other sugarcoated creatures. And I had become tired of anthropomorphic animals as the dominant fauna of American animation. Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with them, it’s just that I was a Homo sapiens chauvinist and felt that American animation as an art form would never mature (as Japanese and European animation had) until it learned to tell human stories directly, and not through the filter of talking animals.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

INDEX to MR. MEDIA INTERVIEWS

TV Stars * TV Producers * Movie Stars * Movie Directors, Producers, documentary Filmmakers and Screenwriters * Politicians and Political Writers * Stand-Up Comedians * Health Experts * Magazine Editors * Radio Stars * Bloggers, Podcasters and Web Producers * Novelists * Musicians and Music Journalists * Sexuality Experts * Culture and Society Experts * Food Experts * Biographers, Historians and A.J. Jacobs * Athletes and Sports Experts * Photographers * Journalists * Crime Experts * CEOs and Business Experts * Comic Book Creators * Cartoonists * Will Eisner Co-Workers, Friends and Experts

Related articles by Zemanta

• Spirit Space Movie
• Christmas Themed Trailer for The Spirit
• Something tells me that The Spirit is in for a sexy time...
• The Spirit Special #1
• Sin City 2 works out its snags; April start date planned
• RIP: Bettie Page

Samuel L Jackson's make-up fun (Metro.co.uk)

Samuel L. Jackson image by Getty Images via DaylifeFriday, December 5, 2008

Samuel L Jackson has revealed he enjoyed wearing make-up for his latest film role, in his words, "a little too much".

The actor, known for his tough guy roles, wears outlandish costumes, head gear and make-up to play villain The Octopus in The Spirit - a film adaptation of Will Eisner's comic books.

Speaking at the launch party for the film, directed by Frank Miller, Sam said: "Frank wanted the eight teardrops tattooed onto my face and the rest of it he kind of let me do, so when it came to eye colour or eye shadow or eyebrows.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

INDEX to MR. MEDIA INTERVIEWS

TV Stars * TV Producers * Movie Stars * Movie Directors, Producers, documentary Filmmakers and Screenwriters * Politicians and Political Writers * Stand-Up Comedians * Health Experts * Magazine Editors * Radio Stars * Bloggers, Podcasters and Web Producers * Novelists * Musicians and Music Journalists * Sexuality Experts * Culture and Society Experts * Food Experts * Biographers, Historians and A.J. Jacobs * Athletes and Sports Experts * Photographers * Journalists * Crime Experts * CEOs and Business Experts * Comic Book Creators * Cartoonists * Will Eisner Co-Workers, Friends and Experts

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ridiculous 'Spirit' Scene Leaks Online
• The Spirit Trailer Premiered
• i09 Take on Frank Miller's 'The Spirit'
• PICS: Scarlett Johansson Brings Sexy Back to 'The Spirit'

For Beautiful Spirits (DNAIndia.com)

This India-based site has a short slideshow of exclusive photos from The Spirit premiere in thar country.

Click HERE to See the Rest of the Photos!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

INDEX to MR. MEDIA INTERVIEWS

TV Stars * TV Producers * Movie Stars * Movie Directors, Producers, documentary Filmmakers and Screenwriters * Politicians and Political Writers * Stand-Up Comedians * Health Experts * Magazine Editors * Radio Stars * Bloggers, Podcasters and Web Producers * Novelists * Musicians and Music Journalists * Sexuality Experts * Culture and Society Experts * Food Experts * Biographers, Historians and A.J. Jacobs * Athletes and Sports Experts * Photographers * Journalists * Crime Experts * CEOs and Business Experts * Comic Book Creators * Cartoonists * Will Eisner Co-Workers, Friends and Experts

Frank Miller interview (TheList.co.uk)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Miles Fielder

Dec. 11, 2008

Graphic novelist Frank Miller talks about his film adaptation of comic book legend Will Eisner’s groundbreaking 1940s crime-fighter strip, The Spirit.

‘At first I found it too daunting, because Will Eisner had been my mentor. But after three minutes of careful thought I decided that nobody else could touch it. So I went from protecting The Spirit to exploring what I perceived as Will’s intent, which was to create something new and exciting. Accordingly, I didn’t want to make a piece of stodgy memorabilia. I wanted to do something with modern technology that was as adventurous as Will was with his horsehair brush and ink.

‘We use digital effects similar to the ones Robert Rodriguez and myself used in Sin City. What’s happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen.

‘The stories that make up the core of this movie were three: ‘Sand Saref’, ‘Bring in Sand Saref’ and ‘Showdown’. The first two introduce one of The Spirit’s many femme fatales, played in the film by Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Jaime King and Paz Vega. The third story was a bloody fight between the Spirit and the villain the Octopus, played by Samuel L Jackson, that demonstrated both of them could withstand inhuman punishment. Working out how to justify that allowed me to make the Spirit a man who is existentially confused about why he came back from the dead – he knows that he is a cop who was shot dead and mysteriously came back to life, but not why.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

TV STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


TV PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media


MOVIE STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


MOVIE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER and SCREENWRITER Interview Index to Mr. Media


POLITICAL Interview Index to Mr. Media


STAND-UP COMEDIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media


HEALTH EXPERTS Interview Index to Mr. Media


MAGAZINE EDITOR Interview Index to Mr. Media


RADIO STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


BLOGGER, PODCASTER and WEB SITE PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media


NOVELIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


MUSICIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media


SEXUALITY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


CULTURE & SOCIETY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


FOOD EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


BIOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN and A.J. JACOBS Interview Index to Mr. Media


ATHLETE and SPORTS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


PHOTOGRAPHER Interview Index to Mr. Media


JOURNALIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


CRIME EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


BUSINESS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


COMIC BOOK CREATOR Interview Index to Mr. Media


CARTOONIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


WILL EISNER Interview Index to Mr. Media

The 12 comic-related gifts of Christmas

Cover of
The Best of the Spirit

Written by Jim Beard

Toledo Free Press

You only think your true love isn’t into comics. With the incredible expanse of comic book themes, characters, and licensed tie-ins being published, there’s never been a better time to gift that comic-enthusiast or potential comic-enthusiast on your list. Here’s a handy list of 12 tomes with which to surprise and delight this year:

4. “The Best of The Spirit” (DC Comics, $14.99)” Another book to absorb before the film adaptation arrives this month; this archive is the cream of the crop of Will Eisner’s trendsetting Spirit stories. If you know fans of hard-boiled mysteries, these 22 tales are for them.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

TV STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


TV PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media


MOVIE STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


MOVIE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER and SCREENWRITER Interview Index to Mr. Media


POLITICAL Interview Index to Mr. Media


STAND-UP COMEDIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media


HEALTH EXPERTS Interview Index to Mr. Media


MAGAZINE EDITOR Interview Index to Mr. Media


RADIO STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media


BLOGGER, PODCASTER and WEB SITE PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media


NOVELIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


MUSICIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media


SEXUALITY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


CULTURE & SOCIETY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


FOOD EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


BIOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN and A.J. JACOBS Interview Index to Mr. Media


ATHLETE and SPORTS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


PHOTOGRAPHER Interview Index to Mr. Media


JOURNALIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


CRIME EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


BUSINESS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media


COMIC BOOK CREATOR Interview Index to Mr. Media


CARTOONIST Interview Index to Mr. Media


WILL EISNER Interview Index to Mr. Media

Related articles by Zemanta

• Great Comic Books for Christmas Gifts
• Ridiculous 'Spirit' Scene Leaks Online
• Directors Snuffed in Josh Brolin's Quest to Make 'The Most Awful Movie I Can Find' [Josh Brolin]
• Arts, Briefly: Is Batman Destined for Death?
• Watchmen artist Gibbons on film, comic
• Dan DiDio Talks Powergirl
• Reincarnation in the superhero realm
• Answer the Call: Recycling Cell Phones with EMA, Eva Mendes, and "The Spirit"
• The Spirit Trailer Premiered

Eisner's 'Spirit' lives on in documentary (South County Independent)

Image by roadkillbuddha via Flickr

By Doug Norris/Features Editor

WEST KINGSTON - Two brothers who grew up as comic book fans in Wakefield teamed up to make a documentary on one of the iconic figures of the industry. Their film, "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist," will be screened at the Courthouse Center for the Arts Wednesday at 7 p.m. as part of a homecoming celebration for family and friends.

"The comics were really great to us," said Jon B. Cooke of West Kingston, the writer and co-producer of the film he made with his brother, director and co-producer Andrew D. Cooke, who lives and works in the film industry in New York. "This homecoming screening, it's really to celebrate the achievements of my brother, and it's also for our mom, who always supported our interest in the arts. She bought the comics."

The film illuminates the life and career of Eisner, creator of "The Spirit," who coined the terms "graphic novel" and "sequential art" and became one of the most influential and visionary comic book artists of all time.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS/XML Feed

Get MR. MEDIA Interviews delivered by email! Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

TV STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media

TV PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media

MOVIE STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media

MOVIE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER and SCREENWRITER Interview Index to Mr. Media

POLITICAL Interview Index to Mr. Media

STAND-UP COMEDIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media

HEALTH EXPERTS Interview Index to Mr. Media

MAGAZINE EDITOR Interview Index to Mr. Media

RADIO STAR Interview Index to Mr. Media

BLOGGER, PODCASTER and WEB SITE PRODUCER Interview Index to Mr. Media

NOVELIST Interview Index to Mr. Media

MUSICIAN Interview Index to Mr. Media

SEXUALITY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

CULTURE & SOCIETY EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

FOOD EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

BIOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN and A.J. JACOBS Interview Index to Mr. Media

ATHLETE and SPORTS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

PHOTOGRAPHER Interview Index to Mr. Media

JOURNALIST Interview Index to Mr. Media

CRIME EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

BUSINESS EXPERT Interview Index to Mr. Media

COMIC BOOK CREATOR Interview Index to Mr. Media

CARTOONIST Interview Index to Mr. Media

WILL EISNER Interview Index to Mr. Media

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Spirit : Upcoming Movie Trailer
• Will Eisner Now a CAA Client
• Great Comic Books for Christmas Gifts
• Twelve Splash Pages from Will Eisner's "The Spirit"
• The Spirit Special #1
• i09 Take on Frank Miller's 'The Spirit'
• Frank Miller's THE SPIRIT looks like exactly that in Trailer 2!
• Arts, Briefly: A Superhero Glitch
• EXCLUSIVE: Final Poster for 'The Spirit'!

Drawing power: Graphic novelists get top billing at Miami Book Fair (SunSentinel.com)

Art Spiegelman via WikipediaBy Colleen Dougher
City Link Metromix
November 5, 2008

While comic books and graphic novels aren't new to the Miami Book Fair, they're being highlighted this year in Comix Galaxy, a program that will include panel discussions with more than two dozen artists, as well as editors, distributors, publishers and others in the comics industry.

"We've always had graphic novelists at the fair," says Lissette Mendez, the program coordinator for Comix Galaxy. "But it's true that in the past few years, there's been an explosion of graphic novels and comics into the mainstream."

Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman, Ariel Schrag and David Heatley will participate in panel discussions at Comix Galaxy, which will kick off with "A Celebration of the Life and Work of Comic Book Legend Will Eisner" Wednesday, Nov. 12 and run through Nov. 16 at Miami-Dade College, 300 N.E. Second Ave., in Miami. Call 305-237-3258 or visit Miamibookfair.com. Contact Colleen Dougher at cdougher@citylinkmagazine.com.

Click HERE to Read the Entire Story!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Will Eisner Now a CAA Client
• Two Out Of Three Should Be Good
• Essential Comics for Non-comic Book Readers
• book that would be good for aesthetics/analysis class
• Google Chrome Comic book on eBay {at a high price}
• McCloud Googles
• A Month of Good LGBT Comics - Juicy Mother

Samuel L. Jackson IS Wiley E. Coyote, Super-Genius (MTV)

Image via Wikipedia

“['The Spirit'] is a comic book. You can call ‘The Dark Knight’ a comic book, but no, it’s a graphic novel. There’s a difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.

“‘The Spirit’ is funny. It’s tongue-in-cheek, wry humor. It’s sort of Wile E. Coyote with real people. We hit each other with big things [and] we’re both kind of indestructible, so it’s funny in that way. We get shot up, we get stabbed up, we just don’t die.”
—Samuel L. Jackson, a lifelong comic book fan who, instead of reassuring fellow fans, wound up scaring them even more in an MTV Splash Page interview with Rick Marshall.