A pause in the Hunt

It's Monday and the last page of the first installment of
The Hunter is up:

The Hunter page 9

The hunt will resume the next time I run out of pages or just feel like slacking off. But next week we'll be back with an all new Untrue Tale.

Until then, be sure to check out the big launch of The Hammer over at Zuda. Big Bunny action will be coming at you 5 days a week with a new page every Monday through Friday starting today.

A little something to whet the appetite:

























Have a good one!

More Hunting

Monday!

Here's the latest page from Gabe's sketchpad of doom:

The Hunter page 8

And a page from my own sketchpad of joy:
























Lots of frantic activity around the upcoming launch of
The Hammer over at Zuda. One week to go!

Have a darn fine week!

Arrested Development Simpsons

Hi again.

I'm reposting this here apropos of nothing just because it's pure awesome.


















This was done by some guy named Scott. Click the link for the place where I done found it:

Linky.

In case you haven't heard, Arrested Development is the greatest sitcom ever. It's better than Seinfeld. It's better than 30 Rock. It's even better than The Simpsons. If you somehow haven't seen it, go buy the complete DVD collection immediately. It'll be a fun, sexy time for you.

Hunt Hunt Hunt

It's Monday morning. I'm tired. Hence the oh-so-clever post title.

Anyhoo, new Hunter page from Gabe is up:

The Hunter page 7

And the requisite sketch:

























Saw an interesting movie this weekend -
Payback: The Director's Cut starring Mel Gibson.

























The story behind this is pretty interesting. Brian Helegeland, the writer-director of this one, set out to make a dirty little crime film in the gritty seventies style with an amoral hero and a lot of ambiguity. It would be loosely based on the Richard Stark novel The Hunter. Hey, see what I did there? :) Mel Gibson signed on. They shot the film and the studio was disappointed that it wasn't very much like Lethal Weapon. So they asked for reshoots and a new ending. Helgeland said thanks but no thanks. So Gibson and the studio concocted a new third act and Mel himself took over the direction. The result was an OK middle-of-the-road Mel Gibson action flick. So a few years down the road, Helgeland was given the opportunity to put together a director's cut with his original vision for the film. The result is a much cooler movie. There's an entirely new score in the old school seventies crime vein. The third act and ending are completely different. Even the texture of the film looks different. I really dug it. Plus, there's a cool extra feature about how it all came about. What's interesting is that neither side was really wrong about their needs for the movie. The studio wanted a Mel Gibson film that was gonna draw a wide audience and make a truckload of cash and their version tested far better than Helgeland's original cut. Helgeland readily admits that his vision was a very specific riff on a genre picture aimed at a pretty narrow group of noir and crime-film enthusiasts. I guess the lesson is, don't try and make a small genre film starring Mel Gibson.

At any rate, check out the director's cut if you like your noir dark and your heroes anti. You can pick up the DVD for under 10 bones on Amazon.

Have a good 'un!

Hunting High and Low

Ah yes, it's an Ah-ha reference. As an Oslonian I am compelled to make such references from time to time.

Check out the latest from the bent mind of young Gabriel:

The Hunter page 6

And here's a piece inspired by the work of Alex Maleev, one of my faves:

Man, I'm sure looking forward to that Spider-Woman series. Was there ever a nerdier sentence written?

I've really been slacking on the ol' blog writing of late. Life just keeps getting busier and busier. So, at last mention I was working on the Norwegian book Out Stealing Horses.

This book won a bunch of awards and stuff, but for me it was merely OK. Vaguely interesting stuff about a boy's relationship with his father in the post-WWII Norwegian countryside. Lots of stuff about how great it is to work with your hands. Salt of the earth and all that. Bit of a snooze.

So after that one, I needed some high calorie entertainment. A friend lent me Plague Year and Plague War by Jeff Carlson.

These are the first two parts of a post-apocalyptic trilogy about the struggle to reclaim present-day Earth after a plague of nanotechnology wipes out the entire population of the world below 10000 feet. Very suspenseful, page-turning stuff. This guy could be the successor to Michael Crichton. I'll definitely be picking up the third book when it comes out in November.

After those two I read A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin (of Rosemary's Baby fame).

A great twisty thriller. You could read it in a day.

Now I'm working on another Norwegian book called Flaggermusmannen by Jo Nesbø. The title translates as The Batman and it opens with a quote from Frank Miller. It's a crime novel about a Norwegian detective. My hopes, they is high. I'll report back on how this one turns out.

Until next time....

Bye.