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I wish...

Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy

When I was checking the listings on TCM and saw this title, I knew I had to record it. Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy is a terrible 50's grade Z scifi movie from Mexico about a mad scientist who builds a "human robot" to fight an Aztec mummy so that he can steal the ancient treasure that the mummy guards. The robot and the mummy were a sad looking mish mash of cardboard and playdoh, but the actors in the movie were a lot of fun to watch.

The hero (I think he's doing the Mexican version of 'Blue Steel'):

His fidgety egghead sidekick (his giant glasses should have gotten the screen credit):

The mad scientist (he looks more jolly than mad):

His fidgety scarfaced henchman (a little moisturizer should take care of that):

Call Me Ishmael...

I recorded the 1956 John Huston/Gregory Peck version of Moby Dick that was on TCM last week and watched it clandestinely since my wife hates the book and wasn't too interested in watching the movie. I don't remember much about the book from reading it in high school, so I'll respect her opinion, but I do like the movie.

Huston created a fantastic looking film with a limited budget as well as the limited effects technology of the day. He also put together a great cast. Although Peck got flack at the time for being too young and handsome to play Ahab, I thought he did a great job, especially in the finale when he faces the whale. Other actors may have played the part more broadly, but few could have brought more conviction to it. Friedrich von Ledebur, who played Queequeg, had an amazing face that, like Woody Strode's, looked like it was carved from marble. On top of all that, you had Orson Welles in the small part of Father Mapple, delivering a fiery sermon from a pulpit that looked like a ship's prow.

Now I'm going to have to re-read the book, dammit.

Mayday, Mayday!

Still messing around with the oil paints a bit. I used this old movie still as reference:

It looks like David Niven in some kind of war movie, but I'm not sure which one. Anyway, I wasn't going for an exact likeness, but more of an idealized kind of feel:

"Call it my woman's intuition."

This past weekend I got to see the newly restored version of North by Northwest that was shown as part of the Chicago Film Festival. The new print was made for the Blu Ray release of the movie and Martin Landau was at the screening and answered some questions afterwards (the title of this post is a quote from his character in the film).

I always enjoy seeing old movies in the theater, especially anything from a master like Hitchcock. It's amazing how modern the movie feels. The opening credits were designed by Saul Bass, one of the graphic design pioneers who helped create what we think of as modern style. In fact, the opening credits to Mad Men (my favorite TV show after the Venture Bros.) are inspired by the credits in North by Northwest. I was inspired to try my hand at that clean design style and whipped this up during lunch:


Graphic design isn't really my strong suit, but it was fun to try play around in that style.

One Reel Wonders

I found out from a friend that the owner of a local night club is an avid fan of old and obscure films, and once a month he shows some of the movies in his collection at the club. My wife and I went last week and saw two one reel zingers - The Preview Murder Mystery & Strangler of the Swamp. Both films were favorites of film historian William K. Everson, who helped preserve lots of these non-mainstream films. Both movies had very cool visuals despite their shoestring budgets and packed a lot of story into an hour or less, but I enjoyed the Strangler the most, just because it felt like a story that might have been in an E.C. comic back in the day.

I'd been wanting to draw something based on it and I finally had some time today during lunch to knock this out:

The Good, The Bad and The Freakin' Weird

I'm on my own this weekend, so I've had movies playing while I putz around the house. Yesterday was western day - I watched For a Few Dollars More (a classic), Django (rough around the edges but fun), and El Topo.

El Topo is a 'mystical western' written, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky is a Ukranian who was raised in Chile and is best known for writing French comics. The movie has some interesting visuals, but man is it weird. It starts off with in the fairly standard "man with no name" scenario but quickly goes off the rails and ends up with a cave full of deformed midgets with a lot of flute playing, dead rabbits and old men wearing make-up along the way. Not for the faint of heart:

Insert Bad "Who Watches the Watchmen" Joke Here

I'm going to see The Watchmen tomorrow with a group from work, so I drew a quick Dr. Manhattan today.

The movie looks like it's going to have some amazing visuals. The shots in the trailer where Dr. Manhattan & the Comedian are in Viet Nam always catch my eye because it looks like they dropped them right in the middle of 'Apocalypse Now'. I'm also looking forward to the flashbacks to the original Minutemen back in the 40's & 50's. That's probably the closest thing to a big budget Golden Age superhero movie that we'll ever get:

Major Dundee

One last movie sketch, this one of Sam Peckinpah's first films, Major Dundee. Charlton Heston plays the title character, a Union officer who leads a pack of rag tag volunteers and Confederate P.O.W.'s across the Mexican border to track down a band of Apache's who have been raiding forts and settlements in Texas.

There are lots of interesting characters all played by great actors in this one, but I really liked James Coburn as the scout who tracks the Apache for Dundee. This seemed like a part more suited to Lee Marvin, being a gruff, scraggily bearded frontiersman, but Coburn played it well. The fact that Coburn was so damn skinny helped. Usually when an actor hides one of their arms under their shirt to play an amputee it's very obvious and looks weird, but it actually made Coburn look beefier and more heroic:

Dr. No

Last weekend was great for catching up on some of my favorite old movies on TV. After watching The Big Heat, I caught some of the James Bond marathon on BBC America. I just watched bits and pieces, but saw three different Bond films in one day.

The last one was Dr. No. - still one of the best Bond movies despite being the first. Even though it had a crazy villain with metal hands, a cool hidden lair in the Caribbean and membership in a secret society called S.P.E.C.T.R.E. it will always be remembered most for introducing the first Bond girl. The first time we see her, she's walking out of the ocean wearing a white bikini complete with knife belt. The only thing that ruins the scene is that she and Bond both sing "underneath the mango tree", a song that's heard about 10 times throughout the movie. The producers definitely got their money's worth out of that licensing deal:

The Big Heat

I watched one of my favorite film noir movies this weekend - The Big Heat. Glenn Ford plays an honest cop who doesn't know when to back off in investigating the suicide of a police official with ties to the local crime czar. I think I like it so much because it's very simple but very well done. The story is straight forward, but it hits all the right notes and has some pretty intense stuff for the time. I highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing:

Forever Cool

Just a quick sketch of Paul Newman, who passed away a few days ago, from his role as Cool Hand Luke. He was one of the last 'Old School Cool' actors in Hollywood. Like Steve McQueen, he didn't have to act cool - he just was:

The Long Goodbye

I watched 'The Long Goodbye' over the weekend - a 70's interpretation of Raymond Chandler's last Phillip Marlowe story starring Elliot Gould and directed by Robert Altman. It was a lot different than I expected, more like Fletch and less like Point Blank, which is what I thought it would be like.

Gould did a great job playing Marlowe as though he had just walked out of the Marlboro haze of the 50's into the California hippy culture of the early 70's, but I think Sterling Hayden stole the show as one of his clients - washed up novelist who was one part Ernest Hemmingway, one part Blackbeard the pirate.

Jack Davis (of Mad magazine fame) drew an amazing poster for the movie, so I shouldn't even try to caricature Gould, but what the heck:

Fox Noir

This month the Siskel Film center in Chicago is running newly restored prints of many of the film noir classics from the Fox library. I saw Night and the City last weekend and it was great to see it on the big screen. The movie is about a down and out hustler in London trying to make one last grab for the brass ring by horning in on the wrestling promotion racket.

Richard Widmark was great, as usual, playing the frantic loser who won't face the fact that he'll never be a big shot, but the real highlight of the movie for me was the grudge match between the old master wrestler, Gregorius and the reigning king of the ring, The Strangler. Gregorius was played by Stanislaus Zbyszko, a real old time wrestler who was 71 when the movie was filmed. The scene was very visceral, filmed in what felt like real time with tight camera shots, long cuts and no music or sound effects.

It was a great film overall. I love the way that old movies were able to throw in some humor without losing the sense of peril or emotional intesity.

Hopefully, I can go and see some of the other movies before month is out.

Process #4

Here's the final version of my Charlton Heston sketch:


I laid the wash down pretty loosely - I didn't want this to feel stiff as a lot of photo referenced drawings tend to feel. The paper got too wet when I was putting in the background so it's kind of messed up. That's what I get for doing this on a piece of scrap paper.

Oh well, it was a fun change of pace.

Process #3

Got a chance to finish off the inks tonight:
Since I'm going to lay in some ink wash, I left a lot of medium & darker values undefined in the inks, especially towards the bottom of the figure. We'll see how it goes this weekend.

Process #2

Not quite done with the inks tonight, but it's getting there:


I don't ink with a brush very much anymore, so I'm feeling my way through this one. I had hoped I'd pull off some crazy new way of doing things as a result, but I'm not confident enough to let that happen. As usual, I've fallen back onto the same old crutches I've always used.

Maybe I'll redo this one when it's done and force myself to ink it differently. I'd like to get away from any and all feathering and find more varied ways of laying in texture and shadow. Why? I just think it time for an overhaul. I'll never be Wally Wood so I might as well explore some other approaches.

Process #1

I'd been wanting to draw Charlton Heston since I'd heard that he'd passed away. As a kid, we didn't have big budget CG extravaganza superhero movies coming out every week so Charlton Heston was as close to a superhero as we had. On any given weekend, you could catch a re-run of Planet of the Apes or The Omega Man on TV and of course, every Easter we got to watch The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. I certainly didn't agree with the man's politics, but he could play bigger than life heroes like few others.

I just had time to do some rough pencils today, so I thought I'd post each step of the process. I'm thinking this is going to be pen & ink with some ink wash laid in when it's done. We'll see:

Edited to add the reference photo I'm using (a still from Ben Hur):

Spaghetti Sketchin'

When I watch a favorite movie for the umpteenth time I like to pause on interesting shots and sketch. This is a page I doodled a while back while watching Once Upon a Time in the West:


There are some amazing faces in that movie - Woody Strode looked like he was carved from stone and of course Charles Bronson was Moebius's model for his Lt. Blueberry character.

The Most Dangerous Game

I watched the 1932 movie "The Most Dangerous Game" last week. It's about the mad Count Zaroff who lives on an isolated island and causes passing ships to wreck so he can hunt the survivors. It was filmed concurrently with King Kong and had most of the same cast, crew & sets. The actors were chewing up the scenery left and right, but it was a fun movie with some nice visuals: