I used to be a big fan of comic books. I'm sure most people can say the same for some period in their childhood when they poured with awe over the latest heroics of Spider-Man or Batman or whoever happened to catch your younger self at just the right time and in just the right way to spark that magic flame of imagination. My history after that initial rush was somewhat inconsistent but I was fortunate enough to be turned on to some of the more sophisticated, or at least different, works of artists outside of the Marvel/DC style of comic via the phenomenon of the movie Heavy Metal when I was still in my early teenage years. The amount of detail and fantasy in the stories that made it into Heavy Metal, let alone the highly visible gore and sexuality, was quite a turn from the very sterilized or specific way these subjects were brought up in most other media. It defied almost every convention that I expected from exposure to traditional media and wrapped it all up in a visually striking art style.
There's been a lot of time between then and now but I still have fond memories of the vistas and the design of the characters. Imagine my surprise then when I find myself talking about documentaries at a post earth hour party with my landlord and having him hand me a documentary called "Moebius: Redux" he produced on the life and influence of Jean Giraud AKA Moebius, artist behind the original incarnation of Heavy Metal and apparently designer of the art in some of my favourite films. The film puts together interviews from Moebius himself and some individuals he worked closest with in his career including fellow french artist Phillipe Druillet and famed director Alejandro Jorodowski. Mostly I found it fascinating because, probably due to the language barrier, I never knew about the totally surreal and philosophical stories these artists were telling. Even flipping through panels today I'm amazed by how much these guys seemed to pack in to each frame. There was a quote in the movie about how the characters looked like they had a full history written all over their face from the very first panel and I would have to agree.
The next part was about how Moebius moved to movies which highlighted some interesting contributions to movies that I've appreciated the art style of for a while. The major ones were Ridley Scott's Alien, The Fifth Element and Blade Runner, although the documentary kind of implies that Scott cribbed the design from the world of Blade Runner from a story that Moebius did with the screen-writer for Alien. All interesting trivia and made me appreciate what all these artists have done.
The other documentary I watched was way less interesting but I had some time to kill tonight so I loaded up one of the free documentaries on CBC On Demand. Tonight's pick was "Morbidly Obese" on fat people who get gastronomic bypass surgery. There were some interesting aspects to it but everyone gets the surgery and has an awesome life after they lose their fat so I didn't really feel like there was much of a message aside from "when fat people get thin they are happier" and some prying the curtain back on the challenges these people face doing things the rest of us take for granted. Lots of bedsores and naked fat people and warm happy music when the fat people are less fat. Not really much there otherwise.
From gratuitous gore and breasts to bedsores.... the things I learn.... oi...
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