Hi Myspace. It's been a while, if we exclude my way-too-long rambling about how fuckin' whacked out Alejandro Jodorowsky's adaptation of Dune would've been.

Did it make you go out and rent El Topo or the Holy Mountain? Did you all go out and order, borrow, steal, and read any comics he's written like Technopriests or the Meta-Barons? Did you hit up Wikipedia for more information on Jodorowsky himself, reading about how he performs THERAPEUTIC PSYCHOMAGIC and stuff?

Probably not. And I don't blame you.

Anyways, let's run through some stuff real quickly, shall we?

I'm slowly moving things into a new apartment in which I will be living alongside the great CJ. We have a kickass living room with all things good, and my room is going to be pretty awesome as well when I get it all finished up. I won't be living there just yet. I need to stay in Bristol to keep working at the storage buildings until I can wrangle a job in Johnson City, or until the new semester starts, whichever comes first. Sadly, it'll probably be the latter, because our economy is teh s_uxx0rz.

Kat has me reading the Dark Tower series. The Gunslinger was awesome, the Drawing of the Three was...meh, but the Waste Lands is the one I'm on right now and it's pretty sweet. Once I finish it, only four more books to go!

Oh, and I bought Guillermo del Toro's first novel, the Strain, co-written with Chuck Hogan, who I've never heard of. It's a vampire novel, but it's del Toro trying to bring about a return of the vampires of folklore, the plague-ridden Nosferatu-esque motherfuckers that don't fucking sparkle like pussies and would sooner rip your throat out than swoon you with poetry about immortality or something. There is no romance here, just a lot of blood being drained. I'm not even 100 pages into it, but I love it and so far whole-heartedly recommend it, if only for the fact that it's also a sort of modernization of Dracula. I mean, the airplane? PERFECT.

The lead vampire is apparently 8 feet tall, too. That's pretty awesome. So is his origin story from the very first chapter of the thing.

I saw Transformers 2. It has a lot of problems, but it's still an incredible movie, a sensory overload and hot damn I want an action figure of Ravage.

I played and beat Mother 3, making it the only non-Pokémon traditional JRPG I've ever actually FINISHED. You have no idea how happy this accomplishment makes me. I can now mark it off of my list of Things To Do Before I Die. I might review it for the amazing Hindsight Alloys. I should.

ROB-CON was Saturday. Kat got more comics than I did, which is just a bit baffling. We each bought an issue of Heavy Metal, and her issue had more tits, robots, and cool shit than mine. Bah.

Pepper is going deaf in her old age. Poor girl. It kind of bugs me.

I'm spending the weekend in Johnson City because my parents leave tomorrow morning for Maryland for a family reunion. HUZZAH.

The director of the Machine Girl is back with a film called RoboGeisha. It looks awful. I can't wait.

I...I can't think of anything else. Therefore, I must retreat back into the wild. AWAY!

[Brett]

Just a warning, I'm about to go off on a weird tangent here.

So. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Ever heard of him? Possibly not, I have yet to meet anyone who has, but then, I try not to mention him in public so often. I mean sure, I've finally met a few people who've seen Tetsuo the Iron Man, and there are plenty of David Lynch lovers out there, but Jodorowsky is pretty obscure, despite his two most popular films, El Topo (surrealistic western madness) and the the Holy Mountain (psychadelic quest for enlightenment), were distributed by the Beatles manager Allen Klein, with the latter of the two being completely financed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

But then, he's only done a few other films along with those, none of which are nearly as notable,and finding any of it on DVD is damn near impossible. I got lucky in getting my copy of El Topo at Target. I guess it also lends to his obscurity that, despite having written quite a ton of comicbooks after deciding that film wasn't good enough, English translations are hard to come by. I myself am lucky to have the first volume of Technopriests (incredibly fucked up and mythical sci fi), the second volume of Son of the Gun (starring gunslinger-with-a-tail Juan Solo!), and an old 1980's issue of Heavy Metal with a strip written by him and illustrated by Moebius.

So don't feel bad if you haven't heard of him. Hell, I feel weird bringing up my knowledge of the man, for fear of getting looked at funny or for people thinking I'm some pretentious twat.

Because yeah, his films are weird, surreal, arthouse things that are equal parts pretentious, whimsical, bizarre, and horrifying. And his comics just kind of crank it all up, though I admit he gets to work with some INSANE illustrators.

Anyways, here we go, I'm getting to the meat and potatoes of this thing.

When I read about how David Lynch was picked to direct Dune (and also the Elephant Man before that) based on Eraserhead, I get confused. How could you watch Eraserhead and think, "man, this guy should TOTALLY direct a sci fi movie!" Hell, how can you watch Eraserhead and be capable of rational thought at all for at least 3 days afterwards? Wait, I may've just answered my own question.

Anyway, David Lynch directed Dune in the 80's, and it was an odd beast. But that's not the point.

The point is, Lynch was the final guy in a string of directors (including Ridley Scott) who stepped up to direct Dune, and he's the only one to succeed in what is truly a case of what-the-fuckery on a cosmic scale.

The first guy they wanted to direct the film, though? Jodorowsky. Why? I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE.

Looking into it, Jodorowsky's vision of Dune was practically doomed from the start. He, much like Lynch, never read the book at first, so when he set forth in writing the 14-hour-long script, he took MASSIVE artistic liberties and went way off-track with the weirdness, wanting shit like making Duke Leto a eunuch and wanting the spice to be some sort of spongey substance. This would've been hardly anything like the novel, so it's for the best it never happened.

And yet, at the same time, look at the conceptual artists who were involved and the work they produced for Jodorowsky before the thing got aborted:

Chris Foss!

Jean "Moebius" Giraud!

H.R. motherfucking Giger!

Other interesting things to note are that the soundtrack would've been done entirely by Pink Floyd and Salvador "melting clocks" Dali as the Emperor!

Granted, this was the 70's, and special effects technology could not possibly live up to the concept art done by these fine artists, but still, can you imagine what kind of movie this would have been? Sure, it would not have been at all what any Dune fan would have wanted, but it would've been INCREDIBLE.

Incredible, and fucked up.

After watching El Topo again the other night and watching most of Jodorowsky's first film, Fando Y Lis, without English subtitles, and after seeing the crap he's pulled off in comics, I just find myself sitting, wondering, just what kind of movie he would've made if he had the abilities to make it. Maybe you're reading this thinking that I'm insane and retarded for it, but Jodorowsky is unrivaled when it comes to such a strange fucking imagination.

I mean hell, the guy's a philosopher who does therapeutic psychomagic. Say that out loud: THERAPEUTIC PSYCHOMAGIC.

He's one of the most interesting minds I've encountered.

Apparently, a lot of his ideas for the film, once production was scrapped, went into his sci fi comics, which can be seen, as my volume of Technopriests has ornithopters and two or three fat characters floating around with suspensors like our fair Baron, and I'd like to get my hands on more of his work, but still...

Admit it, it would've been one HELL of a movie.

[Brett]

This year and next year have been great for the Wii, with lots of good games coming out and people everywhere saying "oh now I can dust off my Wii and actually play the thing!"

...I kind of hate those people, seeing as how I love my Wii and play it all the damn time.

Anyways, E3 is going on and today was Nintendo's press conference, with announcements for some awesome stuff:

Top of the list that has me hot and bothered is this:

..

I just finished Metroid Zero Mission today, and when David called to tell me about this, I got giddy. Plus, it's being developed by Team Ninja, the Ninja Gaiden/Dead Or Alive team? I have never seen Samus being so brutal in a game before...

..

Super Mario Galaxy was the first Wii game I bought, and oh it was such a fun, worthy purchase. It was simply an amazing game, and look! It's Yoshi!

..

The first Sin and Punishment is my favorite N64/Virtual Console game, made by Treasure, who are among my favorite developers for making other badass games like Ikaruga and Gunstar Heroes. Though the two characters looking like they're 10 years old is kind of lame, the action looks just as awesome.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I just came

[Brett]

Oh wow. Pardon the dust, I've been neglecting Myspace. My new regular haunt seems to have become Facebook, and of course my LiveJournal has been seeing some action as well.

I dunno why. It happens. So, some bits and bobs then:

ART:

CONFRONTATION. Watercolor painting that served as my final project for Visual Thinking.

Prints:
EPIC STRUGGLE. Mantis versus Jellyfish!
LEECH KING. Inspired by an episode of the X-Files and the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
DAMNATION. Done in the manner of Gustav Dore.
SUMMONING. Also known as "Brett's totally trying to rip off Mike Mignola."

VIDEO:





And I love this fucking song:


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Also I recently finished a script for a 22-page comic called WARREN LUSK: THE BEST JOB EVER. It has sex and violence in it. I finished the thumbnails, which are shit but who cares, I'm designing the characters, and here, have a page of script to get an idea of what I'm doing:

PAGE 8 (SIX PANELS)


PANEL 1: WARREN tries to sit up, having a hard time, freaking out over the appearance of another woman.

1- WARREN: I KNEW IT! SCAM!

PANEL 2: JORDAN gives ENGEL an exhausted look as she’s about to head out the door.

2- JORDAN: YOU WERE WATCHING US. OF COURSE.

3- ENGEL: IT’S MY JOB.

4- JORDAN: SURE. I HAVE TO GO.

PANEL 3: WARREN tries to point accusingly at ENGEL, who looks at him with disdain, hands on her hips.

5- ENGEL: HI, I’M ENGEL.

6- WARREN: YOU WERE RECORDING US FOR THE INTERNET!

7- ENGEL: I WISH. I WAS HIRED BY GOLD AND SILVER TO LOOK AFTER YOU, WARREN.

PANEL 4: WARREN collapses back onto the bed as ENGEL steps back into the bathroom to find her clothes.

8- WARREN: YOU WATCHED US. YOU WERE MASTU-RRRRAHHH…

PANEL 5: ENGEL pokes her head out of the bathroom.

9- ENGEL: THE PROCESS OF ENCODING INFORMATION ONTO SOMETHING SO MICROSCOPIC AND SENSITIVE IS STILL KIND OF NEW.

10- ENGEL: YOU’RE SUFFERING FROM SOME NASTY SIDE EFFECTS.

PANEL 6: WARREN, lying on the bed, groaning in pain.

11- WARREN: WHYYYYYYYYYYYY

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And that's all. Semester's over, trying to find an apartment, not sure if I'll be keeping my job at the storage buildings or not, Kat cut her hair, I'm taking Photography next semester, and David Lynch is the nicest person on Twitter.

So how's life?

[Brett]