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"Looks like I'm going in!" [44]

"If he tries to come out here I'll fry it."

Art Notes: Filth

This page was probably done in two stages. The first half around 1981 say, the next in '82 perhaps. I quite like the way Dallas climbs into the shaft in panel 2. It looks hellishly awkward and confined - especially in that suit. We've all taken off our coat in a car readers, so I think we all know just how he's feeling right now. Poor, poor fellow. What a dreadful situation. Coat. Car. God.

alien comic page detail

Thank goodness there was no Smell-O-Vision

Hull Grease. What the..?

It's grimy looking isn't it? And this was before I'd ever seen Alien or Blade Runner.

The 'Used' Universe

I was familiar with the used universe approach - as introduced to me by George Lucas in Star Wars - but this is way grimier and beaten up looking. Lucas used to tell the set dressers to stop polishing off the smudge-marks between takes. The ship's C-Deck - inhabited mostly by Parker and Brett, the engineers, was said in the novel to be much darker and messier than the clean-bright-white top A-Deck. Perhaps some visual inspiration - in the absence of any other - came from 1981's Das Boot film which was cut up and serialised on Irish television. You could virtually smell that film. Do you think think that's where the HULL GREASE shown in the detail above came from?

"Got to get there first, stupid!
What do you mean?
Gibraltar!
Stick a finger up your ass to get the idea!
It's as tight as a virgin.
We'll need Vaseline to get through. "

Das Boot (1981)

Charming! Anyway, moooving on...

landspeeder

"What a piece of junk!"

Urban Decay

My art college pal - and illustrator - Maurice Pierse ^ and I used to have long talks about films like Bladerunner and ALIEN back in the '80s. Maurice would look whistfully off into the distance - dreamy eyed - and wax lyrically about the beauty of Urban Decay. Funny, considering that he grew up in a small town in lovely County Kerry (Oh, maybe that's why). But he's a parent now and enjoys the peace and beauty of the Irish countryside again.

Splat!

I also remember Maurice creating his graduation project graphic novel around 1989. He was somehow way more cultured than I was even though he grew up in a small country town like I did. Perhaps got free access to Starburst Magazine ^ in the family shop? His was futuristic, based loosely on Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald (one character was named Rubin Jackson) and it was filthy. I recall walking over to him, after hours, in the fussily clean-bright-white top-floor graphic design studio in college. And there he was: stood over his carefully drawn comic pages, which he'd dropped onto the floor. Paint-caked jam jar of filthy water in one hand, paintbrush in the other, pages between his feet. Maurice was flicking and splattering dirty water and gouche all over them! It was like Brett had invaded A-Deck. I said hello, and he looked up with his characteristically mad grin of satisfaction.

Ahh... Good times! I wonder what ever happened to the comic?

More on Friday - enjoy the weekend - a spread the word about the comic? Hardly anyone reads it!