cc-30@ucbcory.BERKELEY.EDU (Sean "Yoda" Rouse) (11/02/85)
Just came from a signing Arthur Adams and Mike Mignola had, here in
Berkeley. I know that there are a few people interested in Arthur Adams'
work, so I asked about what he's going to be doing, and about some of the
earlier pro stuff he's done.
Aside from the Fanfare cover, and the Alien Worlds 3-D story, he also
did a Defenders cover with Mike Mignola, and a Team-Up cover, the first one
with Spidey's "new" costume. He also said he inked a few of the Secret Wars I
pages.
Upcoming projects planned/done/working on:
8 pgs. for Batman 400
a New Mutants cover (the xerox was gorgeous!)
a Spiderman Annual
Cloak and Dagger fill-in (#9)
Longshot Graphic Novel
Morlock Limited Series (tentative)
X-Men Annual (next years')
and, possibly, the Blue Beetle (not regularly)
I'm sorry there aren't any numbers on most of this stuff, but considering
that I am occasionally an airhead, I was lucky remember as much as I did.
Another thing I'd like to discuss is the new magazine, "Fish Police"
I know the guy who does it, Steve Moncuse, and he doesn't want a lot of fan
fervor over his book, and I'm determined to see that he gets it.
Please, don't pass Fish Police over just because it's got a funny title.
LOOK at it!!!
Judge it on its own merits.
It really deserves a decent chance. The art looks professional, hell,
it IS professional!!! It's clean and knows where it's going. OK, so it's black
and white. Most of you know that means it's either really good, or really bad.
This stuff is really good.
I won't tell you the plot, because it's just the tiniest bit deranged.
But it's got a good plot, good characterization, a good direction,
and subplots left dangling in just the way you love/hate them to be.
Personally, I'm upset with Steve for leaving so much a mystery, (the
way I'm upset with Claremont for never telling me who Nightcrawler
really is.) Worst of all, he offered to let me read the xeroxes for no.2,
but when I thought of how long it would then be for me to wait for
no. 3, I had to refuse. It's that good.
Don't just take my word for it. R.A. Jones loved it. Likened it to
Cerebus in quality, and said all sorts of neeato stuff about it in
Amazing Heroes. He called it "the sleeper of the year"
I am not putting this article on the net as a favor to Steve. I just can't
bear the thought of people passing this book over, just because it
doesn't sound like something they'd read. Pick it up, and give it a try.
--Kathy Li
p.s. Could someone who's a Japanese animation fan tell me the plot to
Nausicaa? I saw the last third of the movie, and have the last three
volumes of the anime. I don't understand Japanese. It's been a little
frustrating.ins_atrh@jhunix.UUCP (Thomas Richard Holtz) (11/07/85)
(Please excuse any ineptitude here. I'm not used to the net yet.)
As to the plot of Nausicaa, this is as much as I can remember:
On what may be (in my opinion) an Earth colony seperated from
the mother planet and become technologically more primitive (like
MacCaffrey's Pern), huge humanoid alien beings attacked the humans,
only to be repelled by equally large giant arthropods (which looked kind
of like potato bugs). Anyway, that war ended long before the story begins,
and much of that knowledge has been lost.
Beginning of movie: our heroine, Nausicaa, a cute young woman
who's a dead ringer for Clarice Cagliostro from the Lupin III movie
"Castle Cagliostro", is a member of a fairly primitive, pseudomedieval
village in an isolated valley. She goes in for things like flying around
on her jet-propelled surfboard contraption and making friends with the
wildlife of her homeworld's nasty jungles. On one of her excursions
she gets involved in a war between two more advanced (roughly 20th century
Earth technology) nations. One side wants to use the potato bugs to
trash the enemy's cities, while the other is trying to resurrect a mutant
version of the giant humanoid invaders, with a radioactive breath weapon
like a small Wave-Motion Gun. (You following all of this?)
Anyway, lots of bad things happen to both sides, lots of things go
wrong, Nausicaa falls in love with a handsome pilot, etc. The movie
is basically a pro-enviromentalist statement ("Don't fool with Mother
Nature!!!"), is VERY well animated, and (now get this)
HAS RECENTLY BEEN RELEASED IN ENGLISH!!!!!
I haven't seen the English version myself, so I can't tell you
how close it is to the original.
Tom Holtz,
Dominus Draconum