Monday, November 26, 2007
Dr. Fool's myspace profile here!!!FOOL'S (inter)VIEWS - Paul Garner!!
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Friends
AC: Boys and ghouls, ladies and germs, thanks so much for tuning in for another installment of Fool's (inter)Views, where we turn the spotlight on you, the everyday horror fan. **Afterwards, feel free to offer feedback or ask any questions at the end of the interview by posting a comment.**
Today we are very pleased to have with us:
Horror artist extraordinaire Paul Garner! (http://www.gawkagogo.com and www.myspace.com/paulgarnerart). Welcome, good sir!
PG: Hey, thanks for featuring me.
AC: I totally love your stuff – it reminds me a lot of the Bill Gaines MAD magazine artwork. As I mentioned to Steven Bejman a few weeks back, I'm a bit of a layman when it comes to understanding the various mediums. Is this pen and ink? Can you tell us a little bit about your process?
PG: Funny you should mention MAD. I was obsessed with it as a kid, particularly the work of Mort Drucker with his amazing grotesque caricatures. It definitely influenced me. I use a mixture of pen & ink, acrylic paint & magic marker in most of my work... plus a little spit n' blood too if it's needed. I still prefer the old school 20th century practical media over any kind of digital ways of doing things, although these days I do stray into Photoshop a lot to tweak images in the final stages. I have sketchbooks full of doodles and half-conceived sketches some of which make it all the way to finished paintings, others not.
AC: How long have you been drawing, and were the monsters always a part of it?
PG: I've been drawing more or less since I was an embryo! It's all I ever wanted to do as a kid and yes, monsters have pretty much always been there. My dad bought me my first horror movie book when I was about seven years old and I guess it just went on from there.
AC: Do you remember what the book was, or what it was about? Do you still have it?
PG: Absolutely, I still have it right here on my bookshelf. It's Horror Movies: Tales of Terror in the Cinema by Alan Frank. It's now minus the original dust jacket (not surprising as it had a lot of use) but intact otherwise. It's packed with amazing stills and not surprising how much it hooked me in. I think you can probably still find it on Ebay somewhere. There was a similar book by Denis Gifford which arrived around the same time and that was very influential on me too. So it's all my dad's fault.
AC: A Pictorial History of Horror Movies is the Gifford book, I'm guessing, and yep, it's a seminal one for we horror fans of a certain age. Got it on my shelf as well. Are you married yourself? Kids?
PG: My partner Sarah Nield collaborates creatively with me a lot. Her imagination's as dark & twisted as mine so she encourages me to push ideas a little further which is always helpful. No patter of tiny monster feet yet though.
AC: What has changed the most for you from your early years as an artist?
PG: I'd say the emergence of the internet has revolutionised how I advertise and sell my work. I now sell work all over the world and my website and Myspace page mean that people can immediately browse, order and comment on my work. It also means I can easily make contact with and talk to other artists whose work I admire even when they're halfway round the world. I think that's the best thing about the web; it lets you find other members of your particular tribe much faster and much easier.
AC: No freaking kidding. I found most of the HORROR 101 contributors over the internet via message boards, and we've been able to promote it to other horror fans in ways that we would never have been able to before. Still, I don't think we'll ever lose the allure of a good old-fashioned face-to-face geekout. So, what's your normal daily routine like?
PG: Thankfully this week, a month after Halloween, is quite restful. Around Halloween itself, I'm usually busy because sales of my monster-themed artwork increase, and I get bookings for my freakshow theatre company Gawkagogo for which I co-design costumes, sets and installations. This Halloween was particularly manic - we did six shows in seven nights, a couple of them featuring a life-size witchdoctor puppet, which we only just got done in time. Sometimes I like living that close to the edge though - a deadline is the best thing to really make stuff happen that otherwise you'd just have as an idea on paper hanging around forever. Now that Halloween's over, I will get back into a more regular routine; there are a lot of new drawings I have at various stages of development, which I will look at again this week. I'll often not complete a painting for quite some time after I've started it. I'll move onto something else then come back to it when it's had a chance to percolate a bit. Sometimes stuff turns out better that way, when a new idea or a twist on an idea might throw up something better than the idea I was originally intending.
AC: Ah, the artistic process is a slippery one, isn't it? Gotta love those "happy accidents" that take place en route to the final unveiling or opening night. What's on the horizon?
PG: I guess I'll just continue what I'm doing but more and better I hope. The one thing I haven't yet cracked is designing and directing a film. I've done plenty of film concept art in the past and I have many ideas for film projects but none of them are quite ready to commit to fully yet. If the film happens in the next few years, I'll be very happy.
AC: I think that is one of the big dreams for a lot of horror fans, wanting to contribute something to the cause in the form of a fright flick of our own. Having only been in front of the camera, I have only briefly glimpsed the hell that indie filmmakers go through. I have all the respect in the world for someone who actually takes the ride and makes it happen. Speaking of which, what was the first movie (doesn't have to be a horror flick) was that made a big impression on you?
PG: That would be Planet of the Apes, no question. I was totally obsessed with it thru my childhood. I'm happy to say it's aged very well and still stands as a great sci-fi movie milestone today. I think it was the apes themselves and that incredible make-up. The ridiculous Tim Burton remake is best ignored.
AC: I'm a serious PotA fan, that's awesome! I went through the entire series earlier this year and did a big Fool's Views blog on it back in April. How would you rank the Apes films in order of preference, and why?
PG: Oh no, he's gotten me started on Planet of the Apes! I actually rewatched them a year or so ago, not all in one sitting, but in order. POTA itself with Heston is pretty untouchable. I think it's a unique combination of elements coming together: Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack, those incredible desert locations, a really intelligent political script, the costumes and make-up of course and an incredible performance from Chuck H holding it all together. Not to mention the twist ending of course...iconic or what? And in the DVD age it's amazing to actually get to see that test footage they shot with Edward G. Robinson. Wow!
I'd probably put Conquest next - it kind of works as a stand-alone movie. Darker in tone, even with the edited violence, more like an Orwellian thing. I like the use of Century City as the location (I went there a few years ago and stood near that big staircase under the skyscrapers. It hasn't changed much).
Third place I'd have to award to Beneath. Even though the first act is a retread and the script really isn't up to much, the audacious move of taking the story underground into the realm of the mutants really kicks this movie into surreal fucked-up overdrive. That scene where they pray to the bomb and peel off their masks must be one of the weirdest things ever in mainstream American cinema.
In fourth position I'd put Escape, even though it's really in joint third with Beneath. I know it's cheap and cheerful and some of the jokes are corny but I like the dark turn it takes in the final act.
Finally, Battle is the one for me that really doesn't make the grade. It feels like an add-on made only because Fox wanted to get one more use out of the costumes. For me it's down on the level of the TV series which is enjoyable too but only in a simplistic way.
AC: I'm giggling like an idiot right now. That was so much fun. Thanks for going APE with me! I have a special place in my heart for Battle, but only because it was the first in the series that I saw. As I mentioned, anyone who's interested can go back to my Fool's Views on the series, back in April of this year by clicking **HERE** Can you tell us the last 10 movies you watched, and give us your personal rating from 1-10?
PG: The ones I can remember are... (some of these watched of course for the umpteenth time!)
1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)- the best version. 10/10
2. The Big Lebowski 9/10
3. The Unknown (Lon Chaney) 9/10
4. The Unholy Three 7/10
5. Targets 9/10
6. The Prestige 8/10
7. Frenzy 8/10
8. Quatermass and the Pit 7/10
9. 300 6/10
10. The Ilusionist 5/10
AC: I gotta say, those are some great flicks, not a miss in the bunch. I saw the '78 Body Snatchers in the cinema when I was 10 years old and it freaked me out royally. Then later that year, I saw Carpenter's Halloween and my fate was pretty much sealed. Had you seen most of these before, or were there any 1st time views for you?
PG: I'd seen all of these before except 300 and The Illusionist. I try to keep up with most of the latest genre movies, unless they're pointless remakes.
AC: So, which was your favorite "period magician" flick, Prestige or Illusionist?
PG: Definitely Prestige. I really didn't guess the twist(s). Illusionist was a cop-out I thought; the ending felt like The Usual Suspects with all the 'what actually happened' information unraveling very fast. I don't think you can do a twist ending in that way anymore once it's been done so well already.
AC: You also picked three of my "underrated favorites": Targets is easily one of my favorite Karloff flicks, Frenzy from Hitchcock, and The Unknown from Chaney. It's a bummer that more people don't know about them already, but I guess that's what happens when you create such an amazing body of work.
PG: Yes, I think certain films age better than others. Some that have been effectively forgotten get rediscovered and re-evaluated even decades later. Most of Chaney's work is completely overshadowed by Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera, but there's an amazing body of work there. I think Frenzy is very underrated. It has a very nasty edge that's a million miles away from something like North By Northwest. Plus I have a soft spot for Frenzy because it was all shot on locations around where I work and it looks pretty much the same there now.
AC: So, as a Londoner, do you have any good personal stories from the "Video Nasties" era?
PG: Hmm... still thinking on this one.... nothing springs to mind even though I was there. I know I watched a hell of a lot of them and never went out to commit chainsaw murders as a result.
AC: Funny that, neither have I. Huh. Tell us the last goal you achieved (artistic or otherwise), and a couple that are on your "short list."
PG: I think the best thing that happened this year was that people really took to my art as tattoo design. I had an exhibition in a tattoo shop in London and it seemed to make that connection in peoples' heads. Before I knew it I was both getting requests to produce original design for tattoos and being sent photos by people who'd had a piece of my art tattooed on them. One of my goals for the next few months is to produce sets of Paul Garner tattoo flash. Some guys out there, like Mitch O'Connell, Coop and Vince Ray already do this and it's amazing stuff. I have various ideas for monster-themed images designed to fit certain parts of the body.
AC: I can't help but imagine that you would do quite well in that market. I am currently devoid of ink, but there are a few of your designs that I think I could live with looking at in the mirror for the rest of my days. So, what have you done for the horror genre lately?
PG: I created all the artwork for 'Sleaze Freak' the latest album by Scum Of The Earth (featuring Rob Zombie's ex-guitarist Riggs). There's a 28-page booklet featuring sleazy devil girls, zombie strippers and the like. I enjoyed doing that job a lot. I also recently did artwork for another great horror-surf band The Ghastly Ones which will be featured on an upcoming release.
AC: Sounds wicked cool. Do these bands find you or do you seek the work out?
PG: So far they've all found me, and it's Myspace that's done it.
AC: Tell us your favorite close encounter story with a horror celebrity.
PG: I realised I was sitting next to Christopher Lee once on a London bus. That was a good one.
AC: That's pretty damn cool. Lee takes the bus??? Who would've guessed it? Did you just sit there and quietly freak out, or did you try to talk to him? I've heard His Chris-ness is a bit stuffy at times.
PG: I wouldn't expect The Count to be riding the bus either but apparently it's true. No, I didn't dare speak to him. I figured there was a time and a place and this wasn't it.
AC: Who are some of your favorite horror icons, and why?
PG: It's mostly the classics: Karloff, Lugosi, Lon Chaney. I love Fredrick March's Hyde too. Really all the classic 30's horror iconography inspires me and I also like the way a lot of it was re-invented in the 60s thru things like The Munsters and Mad Monster Party. I don't really know why; it's just the stuff that's stuck with me thru most of my life.
AC: It wouldn't be a Fool's (inter)View without this next question: I'm a newbie to the horror genre, and I've never seen a horror flick from before 1995. Where should I start?
PG: Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead (78), Evil Dead II, Return of the Living Dead, American Werewolf in London, The Thing. Avoid most of the modern remakes of the classic stuff.
AC: Hey, all of those are featured in HORROR 101! I should put you on the payroll. All right, that's about all the time and space we have for now. Thank you so much for joining us, and I hope you'll drop by from time to time and answer any additional comments or questions folks might have for you! Any parting thoughts?
PG: It's been a pleasure. I'll just say that if people want to contact me for horror art commissions, contact me through MySpace or my site. Horror/monster subjects are my absolute favorite stuff to draw. I'm pleased there's a world of horror artists, filmmakers and fans out there to share all this stuff with.
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