March 2007

More Inside Vendetta

For those of you interested in the nuts and bolts of the creation of V, here's more of the blueprints. Some of this has seen print recently in Redeye 1.6 ( essential reading from Enginecomics.com ) but not all of it, or as close up. Below are the thumbnail sketches, decision-making compositional drafting stages of possible covers for V no. 6 from the original run of the DC series, before it was collected in graphic novel form - and then, below it, you'll see the final cover sketch before it was taken to completion.

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And here are some frames from V in their pencil stages - I was never very good at producing clean pencils - and then their inked forms. There are very few copies around of these stages in the development of V pages. They were never copied for any useful continuing purpose, and so are scarce.

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And now, if any of you ever wondered about what Evey was wearing at some stage in the proceedings and where she got it from, here's where her blouse came from...

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In Sunshine Or In Shadow

Ireland is largely unknown country to me, I'm sorry to say. After one trip to a very enjoyable event 4 years ago, I haven't found the time or the opportunity to be able to return and see much more of it than I saw during that visit - which was mainly the inside of a small but very pleasant hotel.
Luckily for me, I'm happy to say I'll be back to the Emerald Isle next week. For two talks/signings hosted by SubCity- one in Dublin, and the other in Galway - and then two other signings in Dublin and Cork. It was in my earlier plans to make a much longer tour of it, but circumstances did not prove favourable to that ambition.

These are the details.
Tuesday, Nov 27th, 7.30pm, talk and signing, Central Hotel, Exchequer St, Dublin2.
Wednesday, Nov 28th, 4-7pm, signing, Chapters, Parnell St, Dublin.
Thursday, Nov 29th, 8pm, talk and signing, The Roisin Dubh, Dominick St, Galway.
Saturday, Dec 1st, 12-3, signing, Other Realms, Paul St Shop Centre, Cork.
If you're anywhere near, come and hear me ramble about my art, or come and say hi at one of the signings.

A last word about that elephant I showed you earlier.
It's one of The Machines of Ile de Nantes in Nantes, France. It weighs 40 tons and can carry 30 passengers inside and out. It's amazing to look at, and is only one of a series of giant mechanical creatures that are part of an extraordinary attraction in the city of Jules Verne's birth. They have a museum dedicated to him there, also. If you're an admirer of Jules Verne's work or The League Of Extrardinary Gentlemen, both those places should be on your list to go to. And Nantes is a pretty nice place all round.

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Motion Picture News

If you're interested in further information concerning the life, career and views of the subject of this site, and you've got a speedier modem than mine - nothing worse than waiting for sloooowwww downloading video - you can access a video interview with me from the German Panini site at http://paninicomics.de/. There is also an English-translated interview on the German site, G Wie Gorilla - http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/content/view/321/18/, with the German version on http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/content/view/324/5/.
Finally, an excellent review of the Kickback German edition at http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/content/view/322/11/.

Doing The Continental

Friends,
I'll be back in Germany once more this weekend at the Frankfurt Book Fair. If you missed me last time I was in that buzzing town, or you're coming along to the show anyway, come and say hi on Saturday at the Comicentrum from 13.00-14.00, or from 14.00-15.30 and 16.30-17.30 at the Panini stand. Then on Sunday, I'm back at the Panini stand from 12.00-14.00 and from 15.00-16.00.
If you're interested, an interview I gave at Munich is now available online at www.comicgate.de, and in English at http://www.comicgate.de/content/view/802/76/1/1/. This one covers a bunch of things other interviews of mine haven't covered - especially regarding V for Vendetta.
Then on 16th October evening, I'll be La Roche Sur Yon in France for their regular cinema festival, where they'll be screening V For Vendetta - and next day signing at 85000, La Roche's splendid comics bookstore.
More appearances in France right after that, but news of them, later.

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California Dreaming

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No Sleep On The Redeye

Another review of Kickback - for those of you interested in such things - has just appeared in REDEYE 1.6, which is Barry Renshaw's excellent comics magazine, available via his website, which is also of sterling worth - WWW.ENGINECOMICS.CO.UK.
The issue also contains an interesting piece on V for Vendetta. And while I'm here, I'll solve a mystery which puzzled it's writer Jay Eales - namely why the name of the roses in V were changed from Violet Carsons to Scarlet Carsons. In an earlier entry here, I didn't make the situation clear about that change. The movie makers could well have used the Violet Carson rose - all being well with the use of the name in that context - but they decided they wanted a red rose for a stronger cinematic impact. Then, of course, they couldn't call it a Violet Carson because they're basically pink. So they invented a hybrid called a Scarlet Carson. That's the full story on it. A sad one, no doubt, for the many lovers of the original graphic novel who wish everything in the movie could have stayed the way it was in the book - and I'm sorry it couldn't have. To alleviate the suffering a fraction, let me tell you that the appearance of the rose was settled on simply because it's name began with V. I happen to have heard about that particular rose because it decorated a tea tray in my parents house. Now, if that rose had been red...
Another thing I want to shed light on, and correct, in the Vendetta piece is a detail of the origin of V which seemed to have been gathered from a movie magazine interview with Warrior's editor Dez Skinn last year. Dez did not suggest that myself and Alan set V in the future as he appears to claim. The only brief I was given for the series, as I have attempted to make clear in various interviews, was for some kind of masked vigilante character - the idea being to ape Night Raven in some way. The reason I wanted to do something set in a future time was because I was sick of the restrictions to creative freedom that are always involved in having to get the details of a period setting correct.

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