Month: January 2011

Three doses o’ grit.

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Clint

Longtime readers of this blog may recall that several months ago I blogged about the movie True Grit. The original 1969 production starring The Duke, that is, although I had recently heard first word of the Coen Brothers remake and was excited for it.

Weird, I was just thinking how John Wayne only managed to be The Duke, whereas Elvis got to be The King. I guess Wayne didn’t really give a crap about where he stood in the royal ranks so long as Presley didn’t come by and throw his weight around (or those infamous hips).

Tangents: I has them. Anyhow, here we are in 2011 and I have not only seen the True Grit remake, but I decided on whim to check out the Charles Portis novel that started it all. Actually, my “whim” turned out to be me calling about 6 different bookstores until I finally found one that had a copy for sale, which caught me by surprise what with the Coen movie having just been released. Even Amazon had them backordered for at least two weeks. High demand? I’m not sure. It might be something weirder than that, since Amazon now says they’re not getting any more until the end of May. Helluva time to be “between printings”.

But I did get my paws on True Grit, and was immediately surprised to see how thin it was. Now I use the term “thin” in relative sense, since this edition is a bit larger in dimensions than your usual pocket-size paperback, but the approximately 230 pages fly by rather fast, especially if you find yourself in a page turning mood.

Which isn’t to say the tale in those pages has no merit. Quite the opposite, it has an economy and purity of vision unmarred by the presence of what the narrator might very well consider “foolish flights of fancy”. In this book, every word printed comes from the pen of the adult Mattie Ross, thinking back to her 14 year old self and the journey of vengeance she undertook in her father’s name. The first sentence of the novel, which the Coens (bless their twisted hearts) repeated word for word as the first sentence of their movie, runs thusly:

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.”

Now if you’ve followed the Coen brothers’ filmography at all, you can see how a speech like that would be right up their alley. The puzzling thing about the movie for me, though, is that the book has several more quirky scenes and lines that would also seem ripe for Coen-land, and yet they were omitted. In some cases, their absence was replaced with scenes completely fabricated for the film whose presence I did not quite understand.

It’s still soon enough I probably shouldn’t go into any details for fear of spoilers, but let me tell you, experiencing three different helpings of grit in the past year makes for interesting digestion. Such a straightforward, uncomplicated tale, and yet changing some of the details makes for big differences.

A big reason for this might be because Mattie is a person thoroughly grounded in details, at least as they pertain to her quest. Also a person of very strong opinions, so much so that you can’t help but wonder if her account of affairs is accurate despite the assured, matter-of-fact way she presents it all. This more than anything is what makes the True Grit novel a fascinating read for me, because neither movie quite gets across the point that for all we know, everything that happens could be akin to watching only a single segment of Rashomon and taking that as gospel. Puts a different spin on the word “True” in the title, don’t it?

So on reflection I’m really not sure the Coen version lived up to my expectations, but then, my expectations were very, very high, and that’s always dangerous going in. I do wonder how long ago they might have read it, because I swear the strange “just left of reality” style of speech and circumstance the Coens specialize in just spills out of Portis’ book, not to mention a stubborn-as-a-gov’t-mule woman(girl) who obsesses on an objective, something we often see with Holly Hunter’s characters in Coen movies. Mattie is definitely the type who, like Penny in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, would have ended a dispute with the statement, “I have spoken my piece and counted to three.”

Maybe it was too close for comfort, and thus the odd divergences? Well, in any case, both films have their ups and downs, and both led me to the book, which I was also surprised to see had this recommendation in its jacket pages:

“True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time. What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last twenty? I do not know… What a writer!”

— Roald Dahl

If that name is not familiar to you, I’ll tell you straight up that Roald Dahl is neither a writer of Westerns, nor even an American. What he is, though, is one of my absolute favorite writers of all time, and to see his endorsement on True Grit was both totally unexpected and totally fantastic. Had I known I probably would have given Mr. Portis a whirl a good sight sooner than I did, but regardless, I have the book, I have read it, and it was a damn good yarn. Once it gets its new printing in late Spring, I reckon you could do a lot worse for yourself than giving it a look.

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We got the bleat

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Clint

In one of our early brainstorming sessions for Zombie Ranch, we discussed how when the near-apocalypse was going down, huge swarms of zombies ravaged the countryside, devouring everything in their paths like two-legged locusts. Sure, they were still slow and uncoordinated, but most livestock abandoned in their pens were going to be some doomed critters. The fate of the Zane family’s stock and farm animals (and for that matter, just about everyone else’s) was sealed.

Could anything have survived? Well, as I was browsing around the googleverse, I came across a video of a bunch of goats up in a tree, casually chewing on leaves.

Flock of Tree Goats

The video was taken in Africa, but I brought it up with my live-in farming reference, and Dawn just started laughing.

Yes, she’d owned goats. Yes, it was nearly impossible to keep them penned if they didn’t feel like it. And yes, they’d be up on a roof the moment you turned your back, with nothing more than a carefree bleat and a tail wag  in response as you shouted at them wondering how the hell they got there.

I was fascinated, so I had to go poking around for more videos, this time of the domesticated variety. These weren’t your laughingstock “fainting goats” that fall over paralyzed when scared (a trait that we humans bred them for, I guess for our own amusement, and which would make them easy zombie food). Your average farm goat seems to be a pretty crafty critter, and whatever enclosure you’ve built seems to just be something a goat considers optional.

Goat climbs fence

Goat opens gate

Goat doesn’t even bother opening gate

Between that, and having the instinct and ability to get up high someplace where a person would have trouble reaching, much less a zombie, it was clear to us that if anything “domesticated” and hoofed was going to survive our greenie hordes unassisted, it would be those wonderfully obnoxious goats. And while Frank may be unamused by their antics, you gotta give them credit for pulling through… not to mention Frank no doubt likes still having some milk and cheese options around without having to trade for them from a Safe Zone.

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Vegas, baby!

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Clint

Oh, the wonderful Fallout of the Holiday season.

Literally.

Pictured on the right is the box art of my Christmas treat, courtesy of some Best Buy gift cards from generous relatives enabling me to forbear upon a certain amount of fiscal responsibility in favor of a new toy. I honestly was still hemming and hawing for a bit on whether it was a good use of money, but it’s amazing what you can convince yourself of in the cause of “research”, even if I highly doubt the IRS would allow me to write this off as a business expense.

I’ve always loved the Fallout series of games (and its unofficial predecessor, Wasteland). Not all of them, mind you, for there have been some duds, such as whenever they tried to stray from the RPG format. But Fallout and Fallout 2 were pure, post-apocalyptic gold, combining freeform gameplay and exploration with an open morality system, and a tongue-in-cheek sense of dark humor perfectly balanced with doses of true drama and horror.

After Fallout 2 in 1998 there was a long dry spell, punctuated by the sad demise of Black Isle Studios, the abortive attempts at non-RPG games based on the Fallout IP, and finally Interplay selling the rights over to another company entirely. That company was Bethesda, and lo and behold, 10 years later Bethesda debuted Fallout 3, which completely reworked the look of the game into a first-person/third-person style more reminiscent of such games as their Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Was I skeptical? You betcha. So much so that to this day Fallout 3 remains something I only rented from Gamefly… but uhm, sort of a several month rental. By the end, I probably might as well have bought it, but I think it was the ending that made me not really go for ownership. Nossir, I didn’t like that ending, so that sort of took the steam out of any replay value.

Other than that, though, I had to admit: Bethesda had done a fine, fine job of preserving all the core values of Fallout, and wandering the wastes in a new, more personal fashion made it all the more immediate. The unique SPECIAL system of attributes and skills was still there, as well as the darkly cheerful atompunk environment (or what remained of it). The Vault Man mascot, who to me will always be the true Fallout Boy, was present and accounted for in all his vapidly grinning glory. They even brought Ron Perlman back to do a reprise of his legendary opening voiceover. “War. War never changes…”

I never made the actual buy, which means I also never bought any of the DLC’s that followed. I moved on to other matters (including Zombie Ranch), and it barely registered on my radar when some new DLC supposedly let you run around the Las Vegas area. Yeah, it seemed to have a lot more of a ‘cowboy’ vibe to it, but buying Fallout 3 just so I could buy some add-on that probably didn’t have much to it? Meh.

Well, stupid me, Fallout: New Vegas wasn’t a DLC but a full-on game in its own right. Once I figured that out, I knew that I needed to show the love and rectify my failure to buy its predecessor. Plus, it’s a post-apocalypse American southwest? There must be inspiration for Zombie Ranch to be had here, despite it being a different apocalypse than the zombie kind.

Anyhow, I’m not sure how far along I am in the game yet, but I’m not regretting the purchase. The cowboy vibe is mixed with a dose of classic Vegas lounge, but its all great stuff. Of course I had to create a Suzie to run around with, and she’s a right terror with her six-shooter and even her fists (alas, no lassoes to be had or I’d be hogtying folks and critters after knocking them cold).

I’m getting the sense that when I actually reach New Vegas it may be quite a vision of a Safe Zone, but we’ll see. For now it’s the Nevada desert, and I’m actually recognizing quite a few of the early landmarks from previous trips to Vegas, including the nightmarish one where Dawn’s car broke down not too far past Primm.

I actually want nothing more than to get back on and do some more wasteland wandering right now, but I’m being good and getting this blog done, as well as some more writing for the comic. Really, the environments are at least as inspiring as those of Red Dead Redemption, and maybe even moreso given such conceptual similarities like old wooden buildings with neon signs stuck onto them (as you’ve briefly glimpsed with the Sheriff’s Office in comic #48).

I’m also liking the storyline so far as well. Sure there’s a war a-brewin’, but that’s nothing you really need to get involved in unless you feel the need. Meanwhile there’s a group of no-good varmints to track down after they left you for dead.

I’ll no doubt do a follow-up after I finish the game, which may take awhile what with all these distractions like my day job and that other thing… oh yeah, this thing. Just kidding! You readers have all been great, and I love writing this yarn for you and seeing Dawn turn my dreams into purty pictures for you to share.

But hey, I gotta work in a little “research” here and there, right?

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Groaning in the New Year…

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Clint

It is always darkest before the Dawn…

But this time… there will be no Dawn!

How dramatic was that? And now my wife & comic partner is going to ruin it all if she happens to make a filler post, but we’ll have to see just how much offishness she’s going to have with her week off. We’re both pretty busy getting back into the day job grind after our family gathering in San Francisco, which was a fun time. I could complain about it being cold and rainy, but the fact is it was plenty cold and rainy down in L.A., at least on the days we left and came back. It looked like the Rose Parade was spared, but we watched that remotely.

I don’t mind watching the Tournament of Roses remotely. I have a great abundance of pollen and flower allergies to contend with, which takes away the upside that we live within a few blocks of the parade route and float viewing area. The complimentary tickets we receive are just things that I pass on to family and friends, and meanwhile we still enjoy the benefits of not being able to park on our own street for a few days a year. Might as well leave the car at the airport, right?

While in San Francisco we checked out the Moscone Convention Center, or at least a small portion of it since it turns out that Moscone represents an entire complex of buildings and outdoor spaces. Now that I’m home and checking maps it doesn’t look like we ever saw the actual building that WonderCon takes place in, much less APE. Matter of fact, it turns out APE is held in an entirely different location several blocks away, so that was even more of a fail on my part.

Let me back up a moment for those unfamiliar with the “convention circuit”. WonderCon and APE (the Alternative Press Expo) are the other two expositions directly run by the same people who are responsible for San Diego Comic-Con. They are smaller scale, but then again compared to SDCC that’s not saying much. WonderCon occurs in April and APE in October, and both are held in San Francisco, so we were interested in scouting out their locations as part of our hoped for expanding of Zombie Ranch operations in 2011. Also influencing our interest was the fact that by getting pro status with San Diego, we also qualified as pros for WonderCon, meaning we can get free passes to see the show. The plan right now is to go to WonderCon as pure attendees, and then hopefully get in on APE as exhibitors… this means APE on one weekend of October, and then Long Beach Comic Con the next, but all the independent publishing folks we’ve talked to really recommend APE as a “gateway convention” to getting approved for the small press section in San Diego. Our 2011 application for SDCC Small Press was again denied, which again both disappoints and elates (elation because it means we get to wander free for at least one more year), but we’re really pulling for 2012 to go through.

By the end of this year we’re hoping not only to have a label company up and running for Zombie Ranch, but also another comic for public consumption. This new comic will still be primarily web-based, but we may be publishing it in “chunks” rather than page-per-week format. It’s going to be a humorous fantasy theme, and before you say that there’s already a gajillion of such offerings online (including my much enjoyed Rusty & Co.), I must say that Dawn has been looking forwards to telling this story for a long time. Whereas Zombie Ranch is a project that I write and she draws, the new comic (for now code-named “Saturnine”) is a project that she will draw and I will write. If that’s confusing to contemplate, let’s just say that she gets to be much more in the driver’s seat this time around, and she’s being rather disturbingly giddy about that.

So that’s what’s currently on the agenda. Meanwhile I caught a showing of the True Grit remake, but decided to combine that with actually reading the book, which I’m not quite done with as of this writing. Dawn also retrieved a tome entitled ‘Zombies vs. Unicorns’ from a bookstore we browsed in the Haight-Ashbury district, but that means she’s got first crack at it and has made noises of reviewing it her own self. I don’t know about you lot, but I’m intrigued.

Next week, the story of Zombie Ranch continues. See you then, and Happy New Year!

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