Emma Vieceli Art Gallery

Lat night, I finally got round to watching Superman Returns - though, despite my comic fan nature, I was watching it with an ulterior comic fan motive.
I have heard recently that Brandon Routh (AKA Superman) has been cast to play Dylan in a long, long, long awaited film adaptation of Bonelli’s truly awesome comic series of the same name. Yes, I may have mentioned my love of it before…ohohoho.
Now, this is a scary time for me and many other DD fans as, thanks to the severe lack of English translation, this film will be the first introduction for most people to this marvelous series. I can only hope and pray that it’s done right! With the right approach, this could be the start of a very long series of films. After all, DD is past 250 books so far, and each and every one of them could be a film in its own right!

For anyone not aware of who and what Mr Dog actually is…a brief intro in a nutshell:

He’s a London-based, beetle-driving, ex-alcoholic, ex-scotland yard policeman in his early thirties who spends his days investigating into the occult and bizarre with his side kick - an ex-Groucho Marx impersonator who got so ‘into’ his character that he now ‘is’ Groucho Marx. Dylan is a bit of a bumbling gentleman who always gets the girl, but alas - who always loses her again…he’s very old fashioned in his methods. A revolver and dusty books man through and through, he is scared of bats, small spaces and flying - the latter because he thinks that magic is the only thing that keeps planes in the air - and he doesn’t trust that.
He’s not swathe, he’s not cool….and yet he manages to pull both off with panache.
Think James Bond meets Dirk Gently with a bit of Giles from Buffy and Jack bauer thrown in on the side.

Intrigued? You should be! Having watched superman, I think routh is actually a good choice; he just needs to be a little less cool, and a lot more english. But yep - good casting - thank goodness!! ^_^

So, London MCM Expo came and went…what a weekend!
I’m not going to be as involved with the stage organisation next time, that’s for sure. Even with help I managed to lose my voice by the end of the show!

Luckily I kept it long enough to be able to chat with some of our wonderful guests. Billy Tucci and Mark Sparacio were just wonderfully friendly and encouraging, Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin were awesome panel guests and fun to chat with - even did a book exchange with them! yay! Takashi Okazaki was a sweetie! I wish we could have spoken for longer; it’s not every day you get to meet a japanese manga-ka, David Hine - I can’t wait to catch up with him again - this time WITH my copy of Son of M! and It was nice to catch up a bit with regular MCMer, Lee Townsend….and of course the irrepressible Tony Lee and dan Boultwood kept us mightily entertained on Saturday night! haha.
This isn’t even beginning to mention all of the wonderful regulars on the manga side….sweatdrop and forumners abound! I always feel among friends at an expo thanks to these wonderful people, even though I didn’t get to talk to many of them this time…

So yeah, from what I saw, it was a good show. Great feedback this time. It was so open and th atmosphere was just wonderful. If you haven’t tried and expo yet, don’t miss next May!

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Next up, aside from a few other workshops - Sonia and I will be apeparing at the Globe theatre tomorrow along with fellow selfmadeheroes Paul Duffield and Patrick Warre. Should be good, so do come join us if you’re in the area!

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So, I’m keeping plenty busy - I hope everyone out there is fab and groovy ^_^

I hadn’t realised how out of date some of those links were. My apologies to anyone lead down a dead end!
All shiny and updated now. Huzzah!
And hey, let’s have an image to brighten up this otherwise dull entry!

I return from BICS, and am ALIIIIIIVE!

Well, all in all, I had a sterling weekend. I was a little nervous about heading to my first event without Sweatdrop as a whole. This time it was just little me and Sonia Leong; all exposed with no Sweatdrop stock to hide behind. However, after a sparkling and shiny Friday night launch party (also launching Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood’s ‘Hope Falls’ - check it out!) we got into the swing of things pretty quickly! It was truly awesome and I am suffering post-con blues in a big way. I met so many fabulous people, but special shoutouts go to Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillan, Marc Ellerby, Leigh Gallagher and the rest of the Saturday night posse who saw fit to hang out with Pud and myself. (Photo evidence can be found at warrensllis.com, much to my chronic embarrassment. haha)
Those guys ‘rawk’. I feel I made a lot of friends over the weekend, and I look forward to seeing them all again, hopefully very soon!

And now, a note from our sponsors - not really. (disclaimer, I’m about to ramble. No harm is meant)
:
As a long-term comics fan, I adore being able to head to events like Bristol and Birmingham. I love shows like The London MCM Expo very much because of its hugely broad appeal and it will always be a special show for me, but with these comic shows, it’s the intimacy and the pure comic goodness that really floats my sequential art boat.
I know there are talks of the shows changing and bringing in more of the anime side of things, and I for one really hope that they don’t go too far down that route.
“What’s this?” I hear you say, “Emma? Long term anime fan, NOT wanting to see more anime?”
Hear me out ^_^
It’s not that I want to halt their growth in any way, just that -for me - why fix what’s not broken? Why go down the route of anime when, technically, it does not have to come hand-in-hand with comics? Manga and comics are one and the same, but much as manga and anime do indeed have their crossovers, would we expect to see Disney turn up to the Bristol show? No. Because Disney deal in animation and not comics. Sure, animation and comics are close on the geek map, but why single out anime as a form of animation that needs to follow its sibling like a pocky-fueled Alsatian wherever it goes?

I also see issues with the fanbase crossover. Your average ‘comics’ fan is likely to be checking out Death Note from the manga offerings at the moment; likewise, your average manga reader could well be picking up Runaways with a lot of interest (have I mentioned that to me manga and comics are one and the same? Good)…now imagine that same ‘comics’ fan watching Naruto and wearing a headband. Imagine a Naruto fan picking up Runaways. It doesn’t quite work in the same way. I know this even from talking to some fans at the event. Though there are exceptions (myself included for that matter), on the whole I’m not sure that anime fans and comics fans could necessarily work together in an intimate environment; they are very different beasts with very different tastes - each with their own wonderfulness. With the MCM Expo it’s not an issue as the place is a marketplace for all walks of geekdom, but in what is meant to be a pure comics show? I’m not so sure.

Aaanyways, I’m rambling away here. I hope I made some semblance of a point. Keep comic events pure. Sequential art for the win! Keep Expo’s unique and special in terms of cross-culture events. That’s what I’m saying..yeah ^_^

So, Birmingham was AWESOME! Roll on Bristol!
I also look forward to seeing some of the wonderful comics chappies at the aforementioned geekfest that is London MCM Expo. Just a week to go!

I’ve been doing some wind down images at night recently…after spending all day doing stuff that no one can see it’s nice to refresh with something on-the-spot and spontaneous ^_^
This is one of the results! Check the personal gallery to see the other.