Monday, March 15, 2010

Hunters, Killers, and a Deadly Blue Duo

And another Monday rolls around. Here's your untrue update:

The Hunter page 3

Ran across this mash-up of my two favorite Zuda comics by the lovely and talented Dan Govar and James Fosdike:




















Beautiful stuff. Both these guys are cranking out mind-blowing work week after week on Zuda. Take a trip out to the cutting edge of webcomics with Deadly and Azure.

Saw an interesting movie this weekend in between drawing flyfisherman and cranky cartoon trout. The Killer Elite is an old seventies flick that caught my attention because of endorsements from George Pelecanos and Ed Brubaker, a couple of crimewriters that I greatly enjoy.























The movie stars James Caan (always a good thing) as a company hitman, with Robert Duvall as his shifty partner. There's a nice jumble of cool scenes and dialogue, but the film as a whole doesn't make much sense. The plot is something to do with a visiting japanese diplomat who is involved with the yakuza (I think) and James Caan is tasked with protecting him form an array of ninjas and company assassins. It's never quite clear why this guy is a target or why all these agencies are involved. The ninja don't really do anything interesting other than crawl around an old naval destroyer and get shot. There's a bunch of double-crosses that also didn't really make any sense to me. The fight scenes are cut really strangely, like they didn't actually have enough coverage to make them flow properly. In some places it even seems like they're just using the same shot multiple times. The movie was directed by Sam Peckinpah, but I gotta say, he doesn't really do a bang-up job here. It's kind of a mess. An interesting mess, but that's mostly due to the actors and dialogue. The best sequence is a long series of scenes where James Caan goes through physical rehabilitation after being shot. You really get a feel of how fucked up he is. Can't really recommend this except for overly curious film aficionados. Kind of scratching my head about why this got such strong marks from Brubaker and Pelecanos. I'm gonna have to go back and read their reviews again I think.

Okay, here's a preliminary character sketch from that hopeful Zuda project I keep mentioning without actually ever saying anything substantial about:

























Have a grandandy week!

7 comments:

Gabe Ostley said...

When can I buy The Hunter graphic novel already!??

Excaliburt said...

I tell ya one thing, you can't beat those old movie posters, and while I'm at it please take no offense to this but I'm getting a strange Jesse Ventura vibe from that picture.

Sam Little said...

You can buy The Hunter graphic novel right this very! It's awesome and drawn by Darwin Cooke even!

.... Oh. You meant that OTHER Hunter comic. No dice, Ostley! :)

Joe: Which picture? James Caan or creepy hillbilly grandpa? Either way I take no offense I assure you.

Speeking of The Body, have you seen the trailer for the new Predators movie? Looks coooooool. Sadly, the preview is unencumbered by Governor Ventura. :(

Excaliburt said...

Creepy Hillbilly Grandpa to answer the first question, lol.

Yeah I did see the new trailer on Youtube, looks good. I'm still waiting to see how good this new Nightmare on Elm Street rehash is gonna be. Idk why but now I wanna watch "It".

Michael Perridge said...

I'm gonna kill my way outta here!

Sam Little said...

I can't tell you how many times a day I shout that at work. Or the grocery store. Or my living room.

Foz said...

Little did I know that when I popped over to Littles' Blog that he'd be dishing out some mad props to my porrigey arse...Cheers mate, I'm off to tell my missus that I'm Cutting Edge...She'll probably get me to clean out the cat litter or something else equally downtoearthbringing. You rock mate.