It suits Serge Gainsbourg well that director Joann Sfar chooses not to just follow the usual plodding linier line of events that create the narrative structure of most musical biopics, but opts to instead make his debut directorial feature as unique, eccentric and unusual as the man it is inspired by. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is an ambitious film; as Sfar attempts to blur the line between myth and fact and reality and imagination, and in doing so creates a well-formed portrait of the man behind an icon.

Sfar strings together a fractured narrative drawn from important and influential moments from Gainsbourg’s life, using the women and relationships in his life as tent poles upon which the rest of the film hangs (You may notice on the poster Gainsbourg is framed by his two great loves, Bridgett Bardot and Jane Birkin). Sfar skilfully paints Gainsbourg at times both boastful and full of confidence but also manages to give the character a hidden shyness and shows an internal conflict between his natural urges and artistic desire. Sfar ingeniously does this by creating a physical representation off Gainsbourg’s own mind, which follows him throughout the film, changing its appearance reflecting the protagonist’s emotional state. Genius.

As a child hiding from Nazi’s in the French countryside (Gainsbourg was Jewish) he is followed by a huge round figure twice his size and at least three times his width, impossible not to see! As an adult a stick thin Ghoul with large ears and a long nose advises and, well quite frankly berates him into decisions. Doug Jones playing the Ghoul almost wraps his thin body around Gainsbourg’s and exaggerates his movements for full creepiness! Sfar draws upon his own graphic novel (which served as the source text for the screenplay) and blurs the line between reality and imagination, having characters talk to both Gainsbourg and the Ghoul at once, its mind-boggling!

The is a great film to look at; the particularly fine lighting and camera work perfectly compliment the production design, I can’t think of a single frame that wouldn’t look beautiful as a framed photograph. Of course Gainsbourg was a musician and Sfar is obviously a big fan of his music, often when a song plays the film stops dead in its tracks and just admires the musicianship. Eric Elmosnino gives one of those ‘throw yourself completely in’ performances as Gainsbourg; apart from closely resembling the musician, his performance is incredibly well judged, a scene in a police van after his Father’s death is particularly fine.

As I am writing this review I am listening to the best of Serge Gainsbourg, which I bought within about 10 mins of finishing the film. Sfar’s direction is impressive for a debut feature and I feel his cinematic career may be one to watch, the leap from comic book artist/writer to film director has proven tricky in the past (hello Frank Miller!) but he has managed it successfully. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life paints both paints a vivid portrait of the French legend, and at the same time is loads of fun.

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life currently has a limited North American Release, and is available on DVD elsewhere.

Will Pond.

The plot that runs across both stories is surprisingly sophisticated, comprising of multiple narrative strands across a wide group of characters. Whilst this meant the book was never boring it did sometimes get a little confusing, one dodgy looking French guy looks the same as another in dark shades and a moustache! The plot often takes a sharp turn towards the absurd and down right crazy, but eventually the story always come back to our heroine. Adele Blanc-Sec takes no crap, her most used facial expression would most likely be rolling her eyes from irritation at the stupidity of others. It’s really nice to see such a strong female character at the centre of all this mayhem, and her character really pulls the book together.

Abele Blanc-Sec’s cynicism is perfectly matched by an ensemble cast of supporting characters that are at times crazy, love sick, deluded and best of all totally insane! Inspector Caponi and love struck museum worker Andrej Zborowski really stand out from among the crowd; Caponi can rarely put a foot right (as evidenced by the leg cast he gains in the second story) and manages to continually get himself into a muddle, his appearance is more than a little reminiscent of Thompson and Thomson from Tintin, although Caponi manages to make trouble all on his own.

Tardi’s artwork is great to look at; his panels are vibrant and full of life. In his hands Paris 1911 is a busy metropolitan city still hanging on to its 18^th century spirit and facade. His drawing style is very angular and cartoony, from just a quick flip through the book Joe Innes (other GCB guy) commented upon its resemblance to Kevin O’Neil’s work on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I would say is a fair comparison. Adele Blanc-Sec herself wears her hair up tight and very rarely smiles; in fact I don’t think I spotted one in the whole thing! This book really is great to look at, and even when I had to go back over the previous pages to piece events together, I never minded since I got to look at the panels one more time.

The first volume of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec left me with more questions than answers, and volume 2’s release date of November seems all to far away! I look forward to reading more of Adele Blanc-Sec’s adventures.

Will Pond

The comparisons between Super and last years Kick-Ass are pretty obvious and have already been explored by a plethora of reviewers, I’m sure Gunn must have been more than a little cheesed off that Miller and Vaughn got there first. The differences between the films though are pretty big, whilst Kick-Ass still embraced the Hollywood aesthetic, Super completely throws it off and bears a much larger resemblance to reality. Gunn cleverly plays with the basic concept of what is right and wrong, and although Frank does everything with the best of intentions there is a huge sense of naivety to the character, and his actions would still mostly be deemed as criminal in the eyes of the law.

This film is proper Indie cinema; I would loosely describe Super as a black comedy, although the black far outweighs the comedy, by like, a metric ton. The film is incredibly violent and quite often I found myself wincing, for instance before hitting the streets Frank researches super heroes without powers and the weapons they use but eventually he just settles on hitting people very hard with a wrench.

Rainn Wilson really makes this film work, and it’s pretty difficult not to feel sympathy for him even as he is seriously hurting people for often trivial reasons. He is funny without ever cracking a joke or changing his facial expression from a resigned melancholy stare, and he really provides an emotional centre for the film. Kevin Bacon is great as the evil drug lord and Ellen Page is a load of fun as The Crimson Bolt’s sidekick Boltie, although we do not get to see enough of each.

There’s a really touching story in Super, but you just have to get past a huge amount of often-horrific violence to get to it!

Will Pond

Super is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now.

Download HERE

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To say Kevin O’Neill’s artwork contains a fair amount of sexual imagery would be an understatement; hardly a frame goes by without a quick nipple slip or worse. This is then equally reflected in Moore’s writing; who else would have made the 3 principle members of the League a love triangle? Both of the creators also take full advantage of the late 1960’s setting; the book is vibrant and full of colour, the detail in the panels is exceptional and sometimes it feels as if O’Neill’s landscapes stretch off into infinity. In the books out of body conclusion, I almost had to check that nothing had slipped into my own drink, O’Neill warps and distorts the usually geometric panels and basically displays an out of body experience as one long acid trip, it’s nuts!

Moore nicely sets up a number of different narrative strands which slowly come together as the plot progresses. I particularly liked Carter from Get Carter tracking down the satanic sect at the same time as the League, played completely for laughs with a hammy Michael Caine-esque cockney accent. The characters have moved on and developed in the 59 years since we last met them, Mina is now very different from the Victorian prude of the first two volumes, her hair has been cut short and the skirt she wears really leaves nothing to the imagination.

In the book’s final few pages, a particular character (I’m not giving anything away here!) walks through a wall next to platform ten in London’s King’s Cross Station, could this possibly mean there will be a bespectacled new member in the League’s next incarnation? Although as ace as this does sound, I can only imagine how JK Rowling would feel about it… and what Alan Moore would do with Harry’s magic wand!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969 is released on 28/07/2011

Will Pond.

Good Comic Books | Could you tell us about Hildafolk first? How would you describe it? What inspired it?

Luke Pearson | Hildafolk is basically a short story about a girl on a brief adventure through the fantastical Scandinavian-esque landscape she lives in. I wanted to create a fantasy world that appealed to my adult self and the child in me, taking inspiration from some of the fantasy worlds that have most affected and inspired me, such as those found in the work of Tove Jansson, Studio Ghibli, His Dark Materials and the tales of Scandinavian Folklore.

I really wanted it to be a good read for kids, without being crammed with the kind of cloying, phony values that are shoe-horned into a lot of the awful guff that kids have to read or watch for fear of outraging parents. I wanted to create a world that’s as creepy as it is cosy, but in a way that’s never too far from safety. The stuff that adults always remember about cartoons they watched when they were kids is the stuff that scared them or that was unintentionally creepy. I think kids really like that stuff but it’s watered down and siphoned out of most of what they get. I realise my readership is mainly adult though and I wanted it to be a good read for them too, by being pretty and weird and hopefully telling a good, adventurous story. I don’t feel like I succeeded or touched on all of my aims, but the intention was always for it to be a world that evolved over a series and this was an introduction/practice run.

GCB | Everything We Miss has a darker tone to Hildafolk, what was the catalyst for writing it, could you give us a short synopsis?

Luke | I was wary of following Hildafolk with another Hildafolk or something similar in tone as I knew I wanted to create adult works as well as more family-friendly stuff. I didn’t want to build a readership of people who might not appreciate me going in a darker direction so it was an intentional move to make sure my first two comics somewhat represented the two different paths I want to move down simultaneously.

It’s hard to give a proper synopsis as it’s only partly narrative. It’s essentially a straight forward break-up story but filtered through the darkly surreal and the ridiculous to make something that I hope has a unique atmosphere to it.

GCB | The preview I’ve seen makes me think it’s a very cathartic experience, presenting moments in a relationship I’m sure many people can relate to, is it drawing from personal experience? And if so, is it hard to show that much of yourself on the page?

Luke | I imagine a lot of people will assume this but it’s not really the case. There is obviously a lot of my personality in it. Everything comes from thoughts or feelings I’ve had at some point, so in that sense it’s truthful and I’m definitely hoping people can relate to it, but it’s not actually drawing from any specific experience or point in my life. I actually imagined the characters as being a good few years older than me. Maybe it’s a pessimistic prediction of the future.

GCB | What was your process for writing and drawing it?

It was a lot looser than some stuff I’ve done. I didn’t sit down and write it from start to finish. I worked out generally what I wanted to happen on each page and fleshed them out just enough in thumbnail form to convince myself it would all work naturally. I then drew it page by page and wrote the dialogue/conceived specific details and imagery as I went. Once I actually began to do the final artwork it was a very intense process and it was done from start to finish in a relatively short period of time.

GCB | And where should people be buying it?

You can buy it online from Nobrow HERE, in various comic shops across the UK soon including Nobrow’s shop at 62 Great Eastern St in London or (if this goes online in time) at one of my signings in Brighton July 16th (sorry, my bad – ED), Leeds July 23rd or Newcastle July 30th (details HERE)

GCB | A lot of your work seems to have a focus on nostalgic memories of childhood, would you agree? Where do you think this comes from?

I feel like there came a point not too long ago, when I stopped moving forward, turned around and I’m now going to spend the rest of my life scrutinising my childhood and bringing to fruition all the half-baked ideas I had as a kid and didn’t have the ability to do then. I’m always trying to tap into the way I thought as a child, it was all raw ideas and optimism and innocence and fun (when it came to drawing anyway, I have always been miserable and no fun). I’m also kind of naturally sorrowful and constantly looking back and worrying about how I could have done things differently, so childhood is basically my mind’s first port of call.

GCB | Why do your comics smell better than all the other comics?

This is due to my publisher Nobrow. They use high quality paper stock and offset printing. All their books look and feel great. And smell.

GCB | Why did you get into comics?… How did you get into comics? And how did you become involved with Nobrow?

I really started properly drawing comics in the last year of my illustration course. I’d always like comics to an extent, but I didn’t really discover indie/art/small press comics until going to university and that sparked it off. I hadn’t really done too much when I submitted an illustration to Nobrow’s ‘People I’ve Never Met’ competition and they asked me about doing something for their 17×23 series (which became Hildafolk). I’ve just kept doing them since then.

GCB | What are you working on at the moment?

Right now I’m working on the first book in a series of bande dessinee style Hildafolk books called ‘Hilda and The Midnight Giant’ which will be out in November.

GCB | What would you have us read?

I would recommend checking out all the Nobrow folk, Nick Edwards, Louis Roskosch and Philippa Rice.

GCB | Where can the people find your work?

You can find all my work HERE. If you click on the comics button at the top you can get a fairly comprehensive run down of every comic I’ve drawn and where you can read and/or buy it.

Thanks Luke! Nice one.

Our narrator Mertens comes to Cuba attracted by the romantic image of the revolution, looking to document this vital time in Cuba’s history and hopefully meet Castro himself. He reminisces at the book’s beginning over advice he has received; that a journalist must always be impartial to the events he’s reporting on. All too quickly though, he becomes caught up in the zeitgeist of change and eventually Mertens finds himself an old man in a foreign country, sitting at a kitchen table recounting collected memories and stories directly to the reader. Castro works best when the action regularly cuts between Castro and the effects of his regime on Mertens, his family, and old comrades from the revolution; Kleist creates a well formed and interesting group of characters who we see from the first days of the uprising to their eventual struggle in the new Cuban society.

Kleist’s artwork is expressive yet simple, black pencil scratchings against white pages. Kleist often only draws the most essential details to create a frame and I was amazed by how much could be conveyed with so little detail, whilst on other pages he creates exciting gun fights and battles.

Kleist uses Castro’s tall frame to his advantage and his figure dominates the book, whether its when talking to people in a group or looming large over a page like a communist statue. Kleist uses the frame and speech bubbles in interesting and inventive ways, in one encounter between Castro and then Vice President Richard Nixon there is literally a tear down the middle of the frame dividing them, in other frames Kleist crafts speech bubbles into the shapes of baseball bats evoking the power words can hold or literally wraps the words around Castro’s frame.

There is a surprising and welcome stream of humour running through Castro, I had to double take when I thought I saw Michael Corleone in the corner of a frame (I was right, he was there!) and I couldn’t help but laugh at the UN Ambassadors gossiping behind Castro’s back like teenagers at school. Also, I bet Kleist must have chuckled to himself as he shaded in the Adidas logo on Castro’s track suit in the book’s epilogue.

I really didn’t know that much about Castro past the beard and cigar before reading this book and now I do… which is nice! Kleist guides the reader through Castro’s life without bombarding them with information; his book is full of life and excitement, and really works best when we see the effects of Castro’s actions on the country and society he rules. Kleist’s book is a valuable insight into a significant time in history and one off the 21st century’s most imposing figures. Viva la Cuba!

‘Castro’ is published by Self Made Hero, who are awesome… Find this, and them HERE

Will Pond.

The pictures in this thing are crazy, it’s like falling into someone else’s head and having a look around. There are certain ideas and themes that are recurring throughout the book that seemingly give a picture of the artist’s psyche, including lots of amps, guitars and vampire groupies. The fact the artist is in a band is evident, and he plays around with the desire of rock n’ roll excess regardless of the trappings, to quote Fight Club; “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” At first glance, some of the images may seem arbitrary, but look hard and you’ll find an incredibly clear focus of expression.

Even though this isn’t sequential art, the world of the illustrations is consistent. The characters and landscapes recur like being lost inside a twisted Wonderland, like an adult version of Where’s Wally. There’s a lot on the page to find, and an incredible amount you don’t see at first glance. He plays with optical illusion and paints doubt over everything he puts on the page, so you often can’t be completely sure of what you’re seeing. There’s some text in both English and French, which is often explicit, I had my French flatmate translate some of it… which was interesting.

Big Mother #1 is published by Nobrow, and just like everything else they put out, it smells great. It’s an oversized A3 size thing, which was really cool to see. I really feel like when I’m reading the same kind of things over and over I begin to stagnate, and this was some kind of tonic. it’s an absolute treat to dip in to, a real experience. Go get it… HERE

Joe Innes

Good Comic Books | What (or who) was the inspiration for Chloe Noonan?

Marc Ellerby | The character of Chloe Noonan is made up of many girls I have known throughout my life. It seems I’ve known a lot of scowly girls and so a little bit of each has made it into Chloe. I have a friend called Tara Noonan (who has starred in a couple of Ellerbisms in her time - click HERE) so that’s where the name came from, and visually – well she’s not too far removed from the Chloe aesthetic.

The story came together when watching Buffy one night. You know how Buffy usually arrives in the nick of time to save the day, like she’ll run across Sunnydale and then BAM! Starts taking down vamps left right and center. I was okay with that because she has powers and stuff, but in those early seasons, her mates Willow and Xander would always be just behind her. I was like “they’re not even out of breath! They don’t have powers, how’d they get across town in pretty much the same time?” So I thought, wouldn’t it be funny to reverse the roles, have the “bit character” take center stage and strip her of any super ability. And I guess you know the rest…

GCB | What are your plans for her? Will she be the object of your attention for many years to come? Is there any sort of overarching story for the character?

Marc | There’s definitely a bigger story in place, but I haven’t even begun to hint at it yet. My plan is to do a four volume graphic novel series that would act as “the first season” as it were. So we have bits that are individual in their own books but slowly the bigger picture starts to emerge where volumes lead into one another.

I really love making Chloe comics so I don’t see her going away any time soon. I think last year I was in this massive rush to get them out, but now I’m going to take my time, try and find the right publisher (or actually the web is looking more and more likely nowadays) and do it properly. She isn’t going to go anywhere.

GCB | What is your process for writing the comic? Do you head to pretentious book launches on purpose to gather inspiration?

Marc | That bit you’re referring to was actually taken from the second year of my illustration course. I enrolled in a book making class and we pretty much did the complete opposite of “making books”, and someone did actually make a book of smelly plastic pouches, it was a total ‘Art School Confidential’ moment, haha. I was pissed off about it for weeks (read: years). “It’s not even a book!”

My process is a little chaotic, I guess. I haven’t refined it at all, it’s usually scrawled plot points in a notebook with tiny little thumbnails to give myself an idea of where my head is at. Then I try and write the script but it’s usually only dialogue and I try and piece that together with what’s in my head and then go straight into proper thumbnails.

Saying that though, I wrote a few drafts of the first Chloe graphic novel earlier this year like a film script, which I maybe did just to make myself feel like a “proper writer”.

GCB | The stuff about being in a band seems right on the mark, is it based on personal experience?

Marc | Nah, I have no musical talent whatsoever. Pretty much everyone I hung out with at uni was in a band and so I just took stuff that they did as a starting ground. Being in a band seems really boring for the most part.

GCB | Did the Moomins freak you out as a kid as much as they did me?

Marc | No, but I’ll tell you what did. Short Circuit! I can’t even remember what it was that scared me, I think I had bad feelings towards anything robotic or animatronic in the late 80′s early 90′s. What were those two mutant bad guys at the end of the second Turtles film? Jeez, I couldn’t even make it through to the end of the film I was so freaked out. Absolutely terrifying!

GCB | How hard was it to get the comic off the ground? When was it you learned how to be a comics creator and publisher?

Marc | Oh I don’t consider Chloe off the ground yet. I’ve started pitching it around, but it’s a struggle trying to place it at a publisher, one publisher who will remain nameless said it was “too funny” which knocked me back for a good month I think. “Is that bad? Is funny a bad thing? How can funny be bad? People love funny! Shall I make it less funny?” but then I realised it was more to do with the fact that the publisher and the project wasn’t a good match.

Not to get all ranty, but I reckon some UK publishers should be looking at genre pieces as well as the highbrow books they’re chugging out. “Pop” isn’t a dirty word. Not that there’s anything wrong with serious comics or thought provoking narratives, but entertaining comics should have a place in the publishing field, I mean, people like to be entertained, guys. And just because something has humour in it doesn’t mean it’s not as “good”, y’know? I would argue that the writing in 30 Rock is equal to the writing in The Wire, you obviously can’t compare the two shows together but in relation to what they bring to their respected genres, they’re at the top of their game.

(Not that Chloe Noonan is near 30 Rock’s brilliance but you get what I mean, right?… Right?)

I’ve self published Chloe because I felt the story wasn’t ready to be a graphic novel straight away. The idea wasn’t all there yet. The three issues I’ve done so far have been practice runs for me to get to know the character, to try out stuff I hadn’t drawn before (monsters, action, chase scenes) and see what wasn’t working.

I’ll be honest, I don’t want to self publish any more just due to the sheer effort it takes in doing it all yourself and I’m not in a position where I can give up my day job to replace that with full time comic drawing, let along publishing. There’s only so many hours in the day. But, I believe in the character and the story and if I can’t find the right fit, I’m sure the web will play an important part in getting the story out there. But then I have issues with the web too. Gah, it’s so complicated, haha.

GCB | You recently tweeted drawings you had done in your childhood, would you trace your craft back that far? When did you know it was something you wanted to do when you grew up?

Marc | Yeah sure. I knew I wanted to draw for a living when i was a kid, I knew who Jim Davis was, Eastman and Laird, who Matt Groening was y’know? I was like “someone is drawing these comics and making a living off of them so why can’t I?” I haven’t escaped that mind frame I guess, haha.

GCB | Are you working on anything now that we should know about?

Marc | I’m trying to get a collection together of my webcomic Ellerbisms, but I don’t want to rush it or anything. Personally, this year’s not been a great one, so I’m going to take my time with the book and get myself in order before I try and add anything else to an already complicated mess. Health > art, right?

Other than that I drew a comic for the band Art Brut which I guess is coming out soon. I don’t really know much about it other than it’s an anthology and has some awesome people in it (Bry O’Malley and Hope Larson, Jeffrey Brown, Jamie McKelvie etc) but I don’t know how you can get a copy or whatever.

GCB | What comics would you recommend for us to read?

Marc | Ooof, what a question! Save doing a massive list, I’ll just go on about the lovely comics I’ve read recently…

Liz Prince’s last couple of mini comics have been so good, and if anything have made me want to get back into doing autobio. Alone Forever and More Squares are especially fugging good and deserve your Paypal monies. She’s one of my favourite autobio creators – click HERE

I love Joe Decie’s comics, a true original in the field. Full of half truths all rendered in lovely ink wash, his book The Accidental Salad should be in all of your hands – HERE

Loving what Louis Roskosch is doing at the moment. I picked up Leeroy and Popo at the last MCM Expo and it was easily the best thing I picked up. His stuff is kind of what like Taiyo Matsumoto meets Nintendo – HERE

Have you seen the books published by Koyama Press? Ohhhhh boy are they a treat. Not just brilliant comics, but lovely production values. It’s probably the one line that I love everything they bring out. On one hand you have Dustin Harbin’s wonderful autobio strips and in another you have Michael Deforge’s kitchen-sink-drama-esque comics drawn in this…”vomit” of styles. You’ve got art comics, kid’s comics, but mostly they’re just really bloody good comics. I love ‘em, just wish they were slightly easier to get hold of over here – HERE

GCB | Where can people find Chloe Noonan as well as other awesome stuff you’ve made?

Marc | On the interweb! You can find links to Chloe, Ellerbisms and to my store HERE

But if you live near any of these fine comic establishments then you can buy a copy of Chloe in real Life!

Gosh! Comics – London
Orbital Comics – London
Page 45 – Nottingham
OK Comics – Leeds
Dave’s Comics – Brighton
Plan B Books – Glasgow
Comic Guru – Cardiff
Travelling Man – Manchester, Leeds, York and Newcastle

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