Thark Thursday: Tars Tarkas

Hey friends, it's John Carter Eve! If there's such a thing...which there is, I just made it official. It's still technically Thursday, so I wanted to a few pics of Tars up (click to embiggen). I've got another special art post planned as well, but it will have to wait until I can get the scanner working again (soon though). Until then, I give you the big guy himself...

And of course....

John Carter getting positive reviews so far...

The early reviews are starting to come in for John Carter, so far they're looking pretty good. It looks like it hits the right notes--namely, those of a certain pulp fashion (emphasis mine, below). From Hitwire:

The good news is that Andrew Stanton, one of the cornerstones of Pixar and the director of both "Finding Nemo" and "WALL-E," has made a nimble jump to live-action, and much of his movie is imbued with a wild, thrilling pulp energy and a genuine sense of wonder. It is a charming science-fiction adventure that makes no apologies for what it is. This is the sort of film where there is talk of Jeddaks and Tharks and Barsoom and you're supposed to just pick it up and understand, and where we accept that Mars doesn't look a thing like modern science tells us it does because that's the conceit. It will be interesting to see who gets hung up on the difference between reality and this film's conception of Mars, because there's nothing about this that plays as "real," but there is such a strong sense of voice that I think Stanton sells the reality beautifully.

I think the review does an excellent job of giving the film the proper context--that of an old-fashioned Saturday matinee-style adventure. The writer had some minor quibbles (mainly with buying Taylor Kitsch as a Civil War vet), but was largely positive and ends on a high note:

"John Carter" may be hobbled by one of the worst marketing campaigns in recent memory, but in that way, it is the opposite of many of Disney's latest event films. I thought they did a great job selling both "TRON: Legacy" and "Alice In Wonderland," but I hated the movies themselves. This time, I think they've fumbled the sales pitch completely, but if you're willing to look past that and go the theater, "John Carter" is transporting in exactly the way I want my escapism to be. Richly imagined, robustly performed, and directed with the evident enthusiasm of someone who's been dreaming about Barsoom his whole life, "John Carter" is a gem.

As of this writing, the film has a 74% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, which is downright terrific for an action movie.

Hat tip to io9 which has links to more positive reviews.

Ralph McQuarrie, 1929 - 2012

This one hurts. I first found out last night when my wife was up late reading the news online. There have been several artists in the last few years that we've lost, but I can't think of one more influential to my own juvenile imaginings that Ralph McQuarrie. Yes, he was the inspiration behind the look and feel of Star Wars (and many other films). Yes, he influenced an entire generation of artists and filmmakers. But for me, it was much more basic and visceral.

When I was a kid, I didn't have any clue that someone actually drew Star Wars before it "happened". I had no idea what a concept artists even was. I remember seeing a painting (below) and thinking "That's not Star Wars! It's like Star Wars, but somehow 'off' a bit." How wrong I was--it was the essence of everything George Lucas was trying to achieve. It sold 20th Century Fox on his ideas, and it propelled production by serving as the blueprint for Industrial Light and Magic's efforts to bring the script to life. 

But one thing was certain, his work was electrifying. And it ignited my imagination so much that for a time I was a McQuarrie junkie, hunting down his work wherever I could find it. This in turn led me to learning about filmmaking, which eventually became part of my area of study in college. 

I owe a great deal to his work, in part because it was one of the earliest lessons I learned about creativity--that every idea comes from somewhere and there are a million directions every idea can take. I still look at his work and can think of a different backstory for every character, starship, or planet. That's the real power of art--to move the viewer's imagination as much as the person who created it.

Thank you Mr. McQuarrie, for all the feverish, nerd dreams you've inspired. And with every illustration, painting, and sketch--making feel like a kid again. You will truly be missed.

21 Alternate Outcomes: An Excercise

Just playing around on a Friday with some alternate history ideas. I tried to do this within a certain amount of constraint, owing to some self-imposed rules:

1.) Must be based in historical context (not further into our own future)
2.) Did my best to shy from stuff I've already seen/heard (just tried to avoid the obvious, i.e., "What if the Germans had The Bomb instead of the US?")
3.) Shouldn't be inherently fantastical (i.e., What if we'd discovered alien footprints on the moon in 1969?) but there is some leeway.

The intent of course is that these would seed some alternate-universe inspiration that would at least border on, if not embrace, a sci-fi outcome. Have a look and feel free to add yours in the comments or blog your own list:

1. What if NASA had decided robotics were not a reliable enought tool for exploration? Imagine a different method our outcome.
2. What if the Superconducting Super Collider in Waxahachie, Texas had been as well funded/supported as the Mahnattan Project and the US was leading the way in particle physics reasearch?
3. What if Dolly the sheep had ushered in an era of cloning tech that was fast, cheap, and accessible to the middle class by 2012?
4. What if the Manhattan Project split into two initiatives after 1945 to win the arms and space races simultaneously by the mid-1950s. Imagine where national defense and space exploration would have taken us by now.
5. What if Saudia Arabia had dumped the profits from oil wealth into space and undersea exploration?
6. What if China had become the world's largest democracy, instead of India?
7. What if Arabian advancements in science and engineering had never slowed during the Middle Ages, but ramped up to lead the world in technology?
8. What if both Venus and Earth had been hospitable--and home to--humans into the present. When would we have disovered, and how would we have influenced one another?
9. What if whales and dolphins were the end-stage of human evolution?
10. What if the human population on Earth hadn't been slowed by Black Plague--or any plague really?
11. What if the ruling Empire of the last 4 centuries was from Africa, and not Europe?
12. What if filmmaking had been around since the Renaissance?
13. What if World Wars I and II had been fought in Antarctica to avoid spoiling homelands?
14. What if Britain had owed a war debt to France and sold the Colonies (east of the Louisiana territory) to pay it off.
15. What if fossil fuels had run out 50 years ago?
16. What if spiritualism in the 19th Century had been confirmed as real and led to the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th? (Technically runs afoul of rule #3, but whatevs.)
17. What if the Knights Templar were still around today as the world's most prestigious and capable humanitarian fighting force?
18. What if Native Americans had discovered and employed gunpowder long before it's ubiquitousness in Europe and Asia?
19. What if flight technology had been around since Ancient Egypt--and never been a lost?
20. What if all communicable diseases had been erradicated by 1950?
21. What if Tesla--not Edison--had become the technology guru of his time? What if they'd been amicable partners?

Thark Thursday: Joe Jusko covers

I'm a big fan of Dynamite Entertainment's various Warlord of Mars titles. Among my favorite cover artists is Joe Jusko, who has done some amazing pieces on a number of variant issues. There's really two reasons I love his work. The first being that each piece does an excellent job at conveying a story in the covers. This is made even more apparent when you look at how some of Dynamite's other covers have focused on, ahem, "other" aspects and have actually led to endangering their ability to publish Burroughs' stories. So I really do appreciate that the cheescake factor isn't the primary focus (I could write a seriously long rant about how much I hate that).

Jusko's are quite the opposite, actually. When it comes to composition, both within the scene as a whole, and the figure of each character, he's got incredible technical skill. One of my favorite covers is this one of Dejah before a Thark Jeddak who's posed as if he truly is one physique built on top of another. It made me do a  double-take the first time I saw it. The Thark anatomy and posture appears totally natural the way one set of limbs casually rests on top of the other, and is still articulating a dynamic posture.

Jusko is master of the posed "hero shot" covers like with issue #1 of Warlord of Mars (above), and equally--if not better--at putting characters into fantastic and believable action scenes...

This last one below is great just for shear muscle-bound barbarism. It's a great action cover and I love the lavish colors.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Jusko's style is indicative of certain era during which I grew up (the 80s!) and had a huge influence on my view of fantasy and sci-fi artwork. At least if seems that way to me. It just "feels" like a hearty, swashbuckling-good time...on another planet!