I'm trying to get back into the groove with Cora, after taking too much time away from it. One of the important things with a long and time consuming project like this one is to live with the story; it's something I did when writing and drawing Rose and Isabel. The need to be constantly thinking about the story, running scenarios and ideas through my head as they come to me. This can happen anywhere and anytime -- any idea that is good gets written down in the notebook - this really saved me on Rose and Isabel; ideas that I had come up with months to years before were all there for me to cherry-pick from.
On a related note, here are some of the books, essays and films that are inspiring me as I write the Cora story:
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
Star Wars - A New Hope
The Searchers (John Ford)
Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat)
Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
Outer Dark (Cormac McCarthy)
The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner) - also known as the "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis"
The Horse Whisperer (Robert Redford/Robert Richardson [DP])
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That reminds me, I really want to pick upBLOOD MERIDIAN. Did I read that it inspired THE PROPOSITION? That was a great freakin' movie.
Thanks for the list.
The Proposition was a fantastic movie, I gotta agree with Monkeyfeather on that one. I actually thought about and came up with a couple of questions for your next boarding post:
1) What are your opinions on spoon feeding the audience vs. giving them enough credit to add 2 and 2 to make 4 - such as in Wall-E, where his treads are old and worn, he looks at fresh treads on another Wall-E and we cut to him moving along with new treads. Cutting out the whole, taking his treads off, putting the new ones on etc. When and where do you find that it is perhaps, almost important to spoon feed the audience, if at all?
2) This question may just be a simple case of inexperience, but here goes: During my student film, after 4 months of story revising, I changed the ending in the last couple weeks and decided to stick with it. Now, it almost seems as though my original one was much better and that the reason I changed it was due to the fact that just because it was *new* it was better (not realizing that at the time). How do you catch yourself from falling into this trap?
Thanks, and look forward to your next post!!
R.
Hey Ted,
Thanks for the providing the list of literature and movies that inspired Cora. I will netflix the movies that I have not seen.
From the list, I understand the inspirations from story and visualization aspect. From past conversations, I understand that Love and Rockets was another source of inspiration from graphic novel standpoint.
But, what are your inspirations from Portrait paintings or photographers in the Fine Arts. The strength of Cora as well as R&I are the transitional expressions where the personalities are complex and distinct (definately not singular). I really like John Singer Sargent. A friend of mine told me to check out Velaquez. I also like Modigliani. For photographers, I like Lee Miller, Ruth Bernard, and any of the great shots of Jazz musicians from the 50s/60s/70s.
BR,
cK
cK - some of the comic storytellers that inspire me are Los Bros Hernandez (Love and Rockets), Chris Ware, Seth, and Craig Thompson.
And a few others off the top of my head (too many to mention them all):
Photographers: William Gottlieb, Henri Cartier-Bresson, weegee, Bernice Abbott
Fine Artists/Painters: Francis Bacon, De Chirico, Schiele, Klimt, Mucha, Andrew Wyeth, Toulouse Lautrec
Illustrators: Joe DeMers, Coby Whitmore, Joe Bowler, Al Parker, Jon Whitcomb, Skip Leipke
Ted,
Thanks for the information. In my younger days, I skipped a lot of artists by just focusing a few well known ones. Also, you get biased how art is organized in museums and its notes which is at times are similar to Robert Parker's wines notes and rating system.
It is just a hobby but I am interested to reexamine art in a serious way.
On this blogosphere, people who I admire from character/portraits are Nick Sung, Ronnie Del Carmen and of course, your work in Cora and R&I!!!!
cK
The searchers of Ford for the colors and the scope of sceneries.
And the once in West for everything else... great references for your work!
G'Day Ted,
Still loving Cora, forcing myself to read it slower to get the great mood that is there.
So glad to hear you liked the Proposition, I can still remember a lady walking out when I went to see it at the flicks.
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