I’d like to see the scrapers get this one off the wall…

But The Artist is no silent movie.

(some spoilers after the cut.)

The Artist is a film with hardly any sync sound. Dialogue, sound effects, foley, all the stuff that we take for granted in the modern cinematic soundscape are missing. It is, however, saturated in Ludovic Bource’s lush score (along with an uncredited appearance for bits of Bernard Herrmann’s music for Vertigo) to the point where instrumentation starts to take the place of spot effects–the clatter of percussion over shots of typing, for example. There is maybe a couple of minutes where the music too drops away, and we are left with the pictures alone.

These moments, typically, are when director Michel Hazanavicius is at his most playful, dragging out the silence before an audience starts applauding, or messing with our expectations over a gunshot. But for the most part, the film and the music work together. The two scenes where sync sound does appear are almost jarring. It feels weird to hear the click of tap shoes on a floor, the clink of a glass on a table.

This is only to be expected. No-one would dream of sitting through a 100-minute film without sound. Even in the rarified atmosphere of a gallery setting it would be a rare and hardcore art fan that could sit through a completely silent feature-length presentation–and then of course there’s the argument that they are looking at a work of art rather than a film. It’s been proven that we do fill in the gaps with our imagination, and each of us will have a different idea of how George Valentin and Peppy Miller sound in our heads. But sitting in a darkened room with no auditory accompaniment gets difficult very quickly. I’ve sat in on rushes screenings of a ten minute roll, and no-one in the projection room lasted more than five before saying something.

Let’s not forget, of course, that even in the silent era, films came with a live musical accompaniment, something that still happens today for screenings of prestigious restorations. I’m amused by the fact that the newly released Blu-ray of the record of Scott’s sea journey to the South Pole comes with a newly composed score. Does a film called The Great White Silence need music larded all over it? Yes, I know, there’s always the volume knob, but still.

The point is that The Artist focusses on silent film star George Valentin’s refusal to accept the rise of the talkie. His silence becomes a matter of pride, and a cause of his downfall. “Why do you refuse to talk?” his wife says before she leaves him. Tellingly, she doesn’t add “to me”. The meaning is clear. She’s not just talking about the collapse of their marriage. Later, Valentin says, “No-one wants to hear me”. The director, of course, isn’t giving us the chance. And we’re not hearing a word of dialogue, of course–we’re reading them through inter-titles or lip-reading.

The conceit of silence gets a bit over-stretched at times. Clips from Peppy’s talkies are still shown in dumbshow, and Hazanavicius can’t resist breaking the vow in the last few minutes. But for the most part it works. Not just as the loving tribute to the silent era, but as a playful exploration on the synergy of sound of vision. You could argue that Mel Brooks was doing the same thing in 1976 with Silent Movie. But that film is again stuffed full of spot effects and music (and one cleverly done word of dialogue).

No, if you’re after a truly silent film, then I have the goods. My first Straight 8 film: A Silent Film About Sound. What can you hear at 2:03? Because when I first screened it, the whole cinema heard exactly the same thing.

But thank the gods, at least it’s not dark when I travel in now. We’re past the pit of winter, out of the doldrums, and the vicious cold has a sweet spot–beautiful clear skies and stunning sunrises. I love the deep Wedgewood blues graduating down to a warm citrussy orange at the horizon line. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can catch a real stunner.

Getting up early on a Saturday does have its benefits.

The problem started when Spotify, looking to bump its profile and funding, hooked up with Facebook and beefed up its social functions. You’d always been able to share songs with friends using a social sidebar to the right of the main window. Now, that list of friends can expand to include all your Facebook contacts–and you can see what they’re playing too. It encourages an open policy towards your listening habits, allowing you to share your exquisite musical taste with the world.

The Facebook connection is a cause for grumbling, especially as you now need a Facebook account to open a new Spotify account. The two are intertwined at a core level. I’ve had a pop about this myself in the past. But, the sharing functions and privacy settings on both are pretty easy to find and either tweak to your liking or disable completely. I’ve mellowed on the subject over the past year or so. I view Spotify sharing as a way of playing my music extra loudly, so that the whole internet can hear how great I am.

Some people disagree, however. Celebrity statistician Ben Goldacre got his panties in a reef knot last week on Twitter, and later on his blog, when he realised that Spotify’s sharing functions were switched on by default. This started an impassioned debate which was joined by celebrity writer Graheme Linehan and celebrity commentator Charlie Brooker, who both agreed that it was a debacle. Linehan loftily declared that he could no longer in all concsience recommend Spotify to his friends, while Brooker got a whole Guardian article out of it. Spotify replied to Goldacre explaining all the ways with which he could keep his musical choices private, a response that he magnanimously put on his blog and then roundly ignored in favour of more stomping around and yelling.

The problem, as far as I can see, is one of context. If I broadcast the fact that I’m indulging in a Sunday Afternoon Manilowfest, there’s unlikely to be more than a few raised eyebrows. If Brooker, Linehan or Goldacre do it then it’s ammunition for snarks and giggles. It’s a way into a bit of the celebrities’ soul, an insight into what they’re really like. Put that way, you can see why they’d be worried.

But the way they went about it yanked my chain until it went twang. Linehan and Brooker are long-time enthusiasts of Spotify, regularly sharing tracks. Brooker’s playlist of the music that went into Screenwipe and Newswipe has nearly 10, 000 subscribers, myself included. I find it hard to believe that two such tech-savvy dudes wouldn’t know how to google up privacy settings. Goldacre was at pains to point out that he was supposed to be working while he was blathering about Spotify on Twitter, even exhorting his followers to tell him to get back to work. That’s not just displacement activity, Ben. That’s playing to the crowd.

The final straw for me was when Goldacre and Linehan piously declared that a ton of people had responded and thought that there wasn’t really a problem, which in their opinion made it even more of a problem. We care about our privacy, and you’re wrong not to care about yours. Well, hang on, boys. You’re taking one issue and conflating it with another.

The vast majority of people out there don’t give a stuff about privacy on Facebook or Twitter. They will happily post pictures of themselves in all kinds of compromising positions, and let unguarded comments out that could get them into trouble. That stuff happens. To say that your choice of music could do the same is stretching the case more than a little. Ben included some examples of situations where he considered there might be a problem:

- you’re a politician who’s just been caught out and might be sacked. do you expect journalists to be able to see and write about what you’re listening to that evening, or will you find that humiliating, and surprising?

- you’ve just been dumped, in vituperative circumstances. do you want your ex-partners friends who are angry with you to know if you’re listening to party music, or sad music?

- you’ve got a “sex mix” like the bloke off Peep Show, and you didn’t know you were sharing that fact or its contents with the world. do you find that embarrassing? and can you see that if you don’t, some other people might?

- you’ve gone home with someone. do you want everyone to be able to see that you put on your sex mix, or a string of francoise hardy records, followed by “let’s get it on” by marvin gaye?

(shonky capitalisation is Ben’s own)

I’ll leave those there, and simply make the point that number one on Ben’s list again talks about a public figure.

I’m a bit worried about the guy, to be honest. Because the idea of playing something just to cheer yourself after a breakup and screw what other people think has never occurred. Because the idea of putting up a playlist called Sex Mix and it not necessarily being something you put on while you’re having sex has slipped past him.

In the process of his Spotify rant, Ben has let slip rather more about himself than he should; not just his musical tastes but something of his character. I’ll be honest–the whole situation is, to me, amusing blog bait. There are lots of problems and concerns with privacy on the internet. But playing your music too loudly, especially when it’s easy to switch that function off, is not one of them.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to put together a Sex Mix. Lots of Norwegian death metal and free jazz.

(oh, and if you’re wondering how tricky it is to control your privacy settings on Spotify, allow me to show you mine, if you’ll excuse the obvious cognitive dissonance. I choose to publish my playlists, but keep Facebook out of the loop.)

The above is the first thing you’ll see when you hit up the preferences. Easy, eh?

Famous bloody last words.

The following week, we reconvened at the Oxo Tower, and considered the route over coffee and bacon rolls. Sticking to the South Bank seemed to be a route with an excess of fiddle, and we wanted to stay near the river if we could. I’d borrowed TLC’s nice camera, and was keen to get some nice riverside pics.

The plan, then. South Bank as far as Tate Modern. Cross the Millennium Bridge, then take the North Bank past Tower Bridge and up to Greenwich through Docklands, before the final push past the 02. Piece of peasy.

Those of you who know the area are probably already wincing at our blatant lack of understanding of basic London geography. We were aiming for the wiggly bit of the Thames that fans of Eastenders know very well. The bit with the whacking great peninsula in the middle. And we were planning on sticking to the river, going the long way round. Couldn’t be that much of a detour, right?

Off we jolly well trotted, with a brief stop at Tate Modern because you know, Tate Modern. And we needed a wee. Then across the Millennium Bridge, with St. Paul’s glowing ahead of us in the late morning sun. Funny, I’m not religious in the slightest, but I love churches. Something about faith transcending earthly matters, creating the divine here on earth. Framed between two office buildings, the view is deliberately awe-inspiring. It gets me every time.

Along Cannon Street and Mansion House, hitting the Thames Walk properly for the first time, and the gloomy skies that had greeted us that morning were beginning to clear. Chinks of blue in the grey were a cheering sight, and spurred us on. The river was still and calm, and two military boats on exercise scudded past, engines howling. That’s the way to travel. The big machine guns mounted on the prow gave us pause. You could do some damage to a busy South Bank with that pair of cannons if you felt the urge.

Round the Tower Of London and past Tower Bridge, and the tourists began to thin out, replaced by joggers. Lots of joggers. Hundreds of ‘em. We felt like we were the slowest things on that side of the Thames as the path nudged us away from the river and into the quiet streets of Wapping. Lots of lovely refurbed warehouses that we couldn’t have afforded if we mortgaged our souls.

An old hydraulic power plant housed some site-specific art. Doorways to nowhere, including one up a tree. A nice idea, but Dom and I were more interested in the building, which had retained its dignity despite losing the turbine hall to a restaurant. It had been cleaned up a little, but not enough to lose the interest.

Lunchtime was beckoning at about the same time as our dogs started barking. Coincidence and luck took over and guided our steps to The Grapes on Narrow Street. This is a pub with history. Dickens used to drink in here, and so did I when we had a friend that lived just round the corner. The boules ground we used to play in was still there, sadly neglected. It seemed far away and a lifetime ago. A lovely pub, but like most of the area, eerily quiet.

Dogs quietened, we took to the river again. A southerly track now, down past Canary Wharf and the huge workings at Westferry Circus. Pilings too thick to get your arms around, the foundation for yet another massive building that the area doesn’t really need. That soon-to-filled gap offered a little breathing space in a very built-up bit of the Smoke.

In and out of Westferry Road, prototypical East London with prototypical East London humour on display. The river beckoned through gaps in the buildings, but we had to get past the Northern and Steel building, home of the Daily Star, before we were back on the backside. It was quieter now, past three o’clock, and the joggers that had dodged past us were long gone. Back west, back at their desks. The only company was a scruffy gathering of cormorants, flapping their wings at passing clippers. Alright darlin’, nice prow.

One more stop to relieve feet, thighs and “ease the pressure”. The Ferry Inn, round the corner from Island Gardens and the old Greenwich river crossing was empty apart from the sweet barmaid who offered me a choice of glasses for my Jack, and a couple of geezers on the other side of the bar trying to puzzle out the video jukebox. Sounds Of The Seventies. The landlord came in and began writing up the food menu. He wasn’t sure how to spell “mussels”. The geezers were making a right meal out of that one, if you’ll pardon my French. It was a nice place to hang, but time was hurrying us on.

The elegant ramparts of Greenwich loomed on the other side of the river, and we had to cross again. Underneath this time. The Greenwich Foot Tunnel was deep and long, and my thighs complained at every one of the hundred-odd steps it took to get up and down. The lifts, of course, weren’t working. Dom mused on how loud it would be to rev up a motorbike down in the echoing chamber. The first job, I reminded him, would be to get the bugger down the twisting stairwell. It was hard enough walking it. You might manage a monkey bike, but a Harley would be out of the question.

Back out into sunlight and building work. The Cutty Sark is having a refurb, and the whole dockside area is in chaos. The old girl stood aloof from these worldly affairs, her spars and prow thrust up proud against a sky that by now was a flawless blue. We picked our way through the construction onto the river, and past the palladian arcades of Greenwich College. This was quintessential London, history rich in the air like a perfume. Something with roses in it.

As Greenwich faded behind us, the landscape changed again. Urbanity became plain urban, and our path became one of ugly, neglected wharfside. Pieces of old barge rotted in the sunshine. A suicide pact of old shopping trolleys lay like robot bones at the bottom of a dock, exposed by the tide. We were alone now, and the colour of the sky was starting to deepen.

This was a strange place. The rules of geography stopped making sense. We made steady progress, but the signs to the Barrier kept telling us that we were getting further away. By now, we had been walking for four hours. We were tired, and yet still babbling happily to each other. Dom was on graf-spotting duty, and found a fake Banksy rat that I would have dismissed as an errant red paint splurge. He has the eye for such things.

Now, finally, as the light went golden, we started making progress. A detour away from the river brought us to another old haunt; a bridge over Commercial Way where Dom had waited for extraction during the worst part of his day filming 24 Hours In London. A cold Sunday morning, dog tired and bone weary, watching the traffic stream by and trying to stay awake while running a camera. Was it synchronistic that he came to it again in a similar physical state? I like to think it has a pleasing symmetry about it.

The landscape flattened and tidied, the refurbs of the Millennium years carving wide boulevards through new patches of grassland. The 02 loomed in the distance, a flying saucer grounded on a godforsaken spit of land, taking over the view and the surroundings. Everything felt civilised now, somehow Scandinavian. Clean-lined buildings, blonde wood teamed with enamelled splashes of colour. I was reminded of provincial Sweden. The same sense of calm, the same air of the jazz-age future of old pulp novels and album covers.

We were close now. There was a thrum in the air, deep bass tones vibrating off our ribcages. We buzzed like tuning forks in the thickening light of late afternoon. One more stop would have been great, but the nearest pub, the Anchor And Hope, oozed menace. Dodgy characters dipped their heads together in pockets of gloom, casting baleful glances at the door. There were footballer’s rides in the car park–a Bentley and a Jag. Dom and I speculated as to the nasty contents of their boots. Probably best not to find out.

And finally, a line of chrome warrior’s helmets came into sight, low sun glinting off their high sides. A squadron of colossi, waiting in ranks for the moment when their city would need them to rear of out river bottom mud, and defend us all. They were bigger than I expected, and cleaner, and prouder. It would take one heck of a big wave to shrug these boys aside. Half past four, with the sky aflame, we had reached our destination. We were both quiet for a while, just looking at the line of giants blocking the mouth of the river.

There was nothing else for it, then. We had to turn round and start back the way we came. The half-mile walk to Charlton station was uphill, and painful. We weren’t having fun anymore. We had spent time with titans. Everything else was bound to feel a bit flat.

On the train ride back into town for a restorative pint and some Thai food, Dom dozed sweetly while I watched the sky outside bruise to darkness. It had been a day of psychogeography and old memories, of familiar roads and new ones. Even as the tops of my thighs and my feet screamed at me, I was thinking about the next one. A glutton for punishment, sure. But also greedy for wonder.

The session beer is one that will allow you to drink through an evening or afternoon (or perhaps both, he muses dreamily) without becoming too blasted to find your feet with both hands. The purpose of social drinking is not to devolve into a drooling mess on the pavement. If you think that’s the case then come back and see me when you’re not fifteen or a depressed accountant.

The session beer can be a lager; in fact, in the summer, I will happily tip back a Budweiser Budvar, Staropramen or Amstel or two or seven.  I, like most right-thinking Englishmen, try to go easy on Stella Artois. Despite the sophisticated advertising, there’s something about the stuff that transmutes into rageahol in the stomachs of our stout yeomanry and… Well, there’s a reason it’s commonly called Wifebeater. Perhaps it’s French revenge for Waterloo or something.

For me, though, finding the perfect session beer is a tricky prospect. I loves me the ales, and finding the right one that will sustain and nurture the conversation over an evening (or an afternoon and an evening, he woozily dreams) is surprisingly tricky. The example of Stella is surprisingly useful. At 5.2% ABV, it’s that bit stronger than the average. I couldn’t spend a session on anything stronger than 5%, and over a period of time would probably drop down to 4.5. This brings us into the realm of the lighter, golden ales and milds. These are beers that this country does exceedingly well, and most popular bitters fall into this category. Think Bombardier, Old Speckled Hen, London Pride. These are all fine brews and have been boon companions for quite some time.

It’s an increasingly popular market, made more so by government duty breaks on beers at or around 2.8%–the Aussie “light beer”. Savvy brewers are keying into the need by brewing new products or, slightly worryingly, reformulating old brand names. Sam Smith’s popular “man in box” lager Alpine underwent this change recently, dropping from 4.5 to the new light maximum. A shame. Like meeting an old mate for a drink and finding out he’s gone teetotal.

Back to beers and ales. It’s still difficult to find a decent mild outside beer festivals, which is a shame. I think Rudgate’s Ruby Mild would be perfect for a late autumn or winter evening in a pub with a roaring log fire and a few too many portly gents with beards. It’s a soothing, nurturing pint. I can’t drink stouts over a full session, though. Too weighty. Like drinking soup. Cold, bitter soup.

I’m wary of the trend towards heavily hopped beer as well. A decent IPA is a splendid thing, but the bitterness of the hops builds up over time and becomes actively unpleasant. They can also be deceptively strong, so it’s always worth checking your pump clips. Thornbridge’s Jaipur is deliciously gluggable, but at 6.9% it’ll keel you over in short order.

I think the big problem for me is that I am incessantly curious and greedy when it comes to beer. I love the idea of research and play, and would happily drink halves all night if I was in a pub with a serious collection of real ales, just so i could try out more of them. However. There are certain beers that I will come back to again and again. Here, for your delight and deletion, are my top five session beers that you can find in a broad sampling of British pubs. These are as good in a warm pub on a chilly November evening as they are on a bask in a beer garden in high summer.

TRIBUTE (St Austell’s): Unlike their corporate shill neighbours Sharp’s, Cornwall’s St Austell Brewery are keeping it real. Tribute is a delightful drop, subtly lemony and elderflower-scented, but with that clean, lager-like finish that really makes you fancy just one more.

LANDLORD (Timothy Taylor): Hoppy and sharp, but without going overboard. A real throat-opener.

DISCOVERY (Fuller’s): A blonde beer with surprisingly complex flavours, gently bitter but eminently gluggable. This is the one I’d choose to have with food. As an accompaniment to a decent burger or a curry it doesn’t get much better.

OXFORD GOLD (Brakspear): I’m enormously fond of this beer. Citrus and hop flavour are melded together in a way that just bursts on the tongue. This stuff never fails to cheer me up. Sunshine in a glass.

MR CHUBB’S LUNCHTIME BITTER: (West Berkshire): OK, I’m stretching the remit a bit here, as you’re unlikely to find this unless you’re drinking around Reading and environs. But if you do come across Mr. Chubb’s, try it. It’s the very definition of the cheeky lunchtime pint. Not too heavy, but flavoursome and mouthfilling. The darkest beer of the lot, and if you’re a fan of Pride, Bombardier or Hen this one is right up your street.

There’s plenty more session beers out there for your drinking pleasure. Bubbling under on the list are Young’s London Gold and Morland’s new kid on the block, Old Golden Hen. Both will do you proud on a night or afternoon out. Any suggestions, Readership?

(For more on why we call a trip to the pub a session, and for some pointers on what Americans call a sesh beer, check out this post over at the Beer Advocate that set me off in the first place).

Which means that to everyone in Holland, the big reveal at the end of The Empire Strikes Back must have been no surprise at all.

Guess what the Dutch for “sister” is?

>

The Barsoom books are the Rosetta Stone of science fiction. They are the origin of pulp SF imagery and storylines that still get used today. Without Barsoom, there would be no Flash Gordon. No Flash Gordon, no Star Wars. No Star Wars, no Avatar. It’s that simple. Andrew Stanton elaborates:

“Because the subject matter was written so long ago, it was also a bit of an origin of those kinds of stories–a comic book before there were comic books, an adventure story before that became a genre of its own.”

Disney and Pixar aren’t mucking around with this one. Taking liberties with the ur-text from which a very large pool of genre storytelling has sprung would be tantamount to falling on your sword in front of a huge arena full of screaming fanbois. It’s good to see then that script duties are shared out between Stanton, fellow Pixar alumnus Mark Andrews (whose Brave, coming out this summer also looks like something of a must-see) and Pulitzer-Prize winning fabulist Michael Chabon.

So how does the film look? The watch word was realism. There’s enough craziness going on in the story that the settings need to have an air of authenticity. VFX gurus Sue Rowe and Eamonn Butler were on hand to explain how they took location footage shot in Utah and seamlessly layered in alien detail–cities carved out of the rock, structures and sculpture rearing out of the dust and heat-haze. Producer Jim Morris added:

“As much as possible, we decided to shoot in actual locations and minimise the amount of digital set creation, so that the audience always feel like they are grounded in real places. We hope that this will add an additional air of authenticity that will heighten the believability and realism of the film.”

Another element to that believability, of course, is buying into the idea that the majority of the cast are nine-foot tall green monsters with four arms and tusks. The performance capture that Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton and the rest of the cast underwent to underpin the character animation was hampered by the fact that they were not just wearing camera headsets and sexy marker jumpsuits–they were also on stilts. In the middle of a Utah desert during the hot season. Meanwhile Taylor Kitsch had to cope with a brutal training regime and a massive amount of wirework to get across the idea that he can jump tall buildings in a single bound in the light gravity of Mars.

At the Q&A Kitsch, Sue Rowe and Eamonn Butler were modest but proud at their version of the Martian chronicle of the adventures of John Carter. But they were unanimous in their praise of the driving force of the film, Andrew Stanton. His excitement and enthusiasm for the stories that he’d loved as a boy rubbed off on the rest of the cast and crew.

And it shows in the finished product–or at least the clips that we saw last night. There were truly epic landscapes and huge battle scenes, but humour too, and a lightness of touch that comes straight out of the Pixar school of storytelling. It’s a tale of high adventure and derring-do, an unashamed swashbuckler with the scale of the most sweeping of historical dramas. Like those, John Carter is grounded in a world with a history and texture that feels right, solid and ancient. It doesn’t feel made-up, weirdly enough. It feels researched.

The feel at the Q&A was that John Carter is a labour of love for everyone involved. I can only concur. Find Barsoom at the right age and it gets under your skin. Will this unashamedly retro piece of SF resonate with modern audiences? Well, it doesn’t have to be reticent about its sources–this is the real deal, the mother lode. On the evidence of what I’ve seen thus far, John Carter holds true to that pedigree and is rightfully proud of it.

John Carter hits cinema screens on March 10th. Many thanks to Luke at ShowFilmFirst for the tickets.

I wasn’t alone. Ashes hit its funding target with a week and a bit to spare, and earned another $6K in the process. It was a win for all concerned, a triumph of the self-funded, self-published model.

Yeah. About that.

A shock announcement last week saw DiCampi fire Broxton from the project, citing that old chestnut, creative differences. She’s hustling to find a new artist before a self-imposed Valentine’s Day deadline, whilst offering refunds to those who signed on because of Jimmy, a rising star in the comics world. It’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’re going to see Ashes at all.

Recriminations are flying as both sides have issued long (and frankly pretty self-serving) statements. The whole thing is devolving into a he said/she said spat that the comics press are lapping up and which is doing neither party any favours. The average punter that laid down their money in good faith have been left bewildered and saddened. Speaking as one of them, I don’t want my money back. I just want the book I supported as a fan of the creative team behind it.

Questions have also been raised about Kickstarter’s financial model, as worst-case scenarios are bounced around. It depends on a good faith agreement between backer and artist. You pay your money, you get your object. Standard financial transaction. But if for whatever reason the creative team behind that object cannot deliver–then what? Understandably, people are angry as they see the money they plonked down vanishing in a puff of smoke, despite Alex’s assurances of February refunds.

There’s always a risk of getting scammed in these kind of deals. But those expressing surprise at Ashes falling over a cliff clearly don’t have much of a handle on comics history, which is thick with stories of projects started and abandoned, or never seen at all. This is the kind of thing that publishers deal with all the time, but we don’t see it. If the book never gets published, we never get to buy it. And let’s not even get started on the film world, whose financial model is skewed towards nothing ever getting made at all.

Unfortunately, Kickstarter has enabled us to buy things before they’re finished. Sometimes, before they’re even properly started. We’re exposing ourselves to the risk that backers of creative endeavours have endured for centuries with no real understanding of what’s involved.

Let’s go back to the idea of creative differences, which sounds like a euphemism for ego trip. A spat over a silly minor detail. That’s not true. Any artistic endeavour (one that’s worth doing, anyway) is murderously hard work. It’s something that takes over your whole life. If you see something going wrong with that project, you will fight like crazy to put it back together. Any project, be it film, novel, comic, play, macramé kitten panorama, will have a huge crisis at some point in its gestation. If it doesn’t, then the people involved just don’t care enough.

For a project like Ashes, that was (god I’m already referring to it in the past tense) being put together by just two people, the pressure must have been immense. No support network, no crew to keep you on track. Just you and the work.

It doesn’t take much for things to spin out of control. A misinterpreted email. A sideways, unthinking comment. Acts of god; just look at the collapse of Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film. Factor in the money at stake, and I’m not surprised Ashes started sliding. If anything, I’m impressed that it stayed together so long.

The future of Ashes seems hazy at best, but I would hate to see it evaporate. Personally, I think the February 14th deadline to sign on a new artist seems arbitrary and rushed. I’m happy to wait a little longer to see who Alex can get onto the project. My primary interest as a backer is to see this book made. I want it to be worth the heartbreak.

This is a story that anyone involved in crowd-funded and self-published creative works should be watching really closely. A salutary example of what can happen when tensions come to a head at precisely the wrong moment.

Further reading. Jimmy’s final statement is up at The Comics Beat. I recommend reading the comments too, for some clarifications.

Alex’s final statement is up on the Ashes Kickstarter page, but is currently only viewable to backers. It’ll be all over the comics press pretty quickly, so I’ll take the liberty of printing it below.

The future of Ashes is very much in doubt. I have reached out to two artists and am waiting to hear back, but both are stars and are likely too busy. I’m also leaving Saturday morning for a 10-day film shoot, so will be incommunicado until February 2nd.

At this point I am so tired of everything. I just want to give you all your money back and end it. But if I do, that’s the end for the book, and probably for Valentine and any future work by me. It will never be published. I will never be published. There is nobody to step in and fund a book like this other than you all, and though the Kickstarter was a wonderful experience it was also an incredibly gruelling, all-consuming one, and I don’t think I have it in me to do it again.

Anyway. My statement in rebuttal of James’, below. Warning: it’s quite long.

****

I am sad that James continues to seek attention for being asked to leave my book. I cannot see how this will benefit him, me, or the book.

James completed 10 pages of finished art for the book, and 10 pages of sketch inks. Even as he turned in pages in bits and pieces, he was extremely resistant to notes on them or discussion of revision… or even showing me pencils before delivering a final piece. This became worse rather than better as the Kickstarter funding rose and publicity around the book grew. James’ tone in emails became actively aggressive and abusive towards me. It was almost like dealing with a schizophrenic or a bipolar person. Any polite request to look again at something was furiously turned down.

It got to the point where, after a particularly bad disagreement in late November, about 85% of the way through the Kickstarter, I had resigned myself to not saying a single thing about pages he turned in, and I would just let my book be drawn however he wanted it to be drawn, even if it meant the book I had worked so long to bring to life became a disappointment to me. At the same time he was sending these aggressive emails (and not drawing more of the book), I was working 4-6 hours a day on the Kickstarter by myself to raise tens of thousands of dollars to support him — a condition he required in order to take the book on.

So, aside from interacting with backers, the Kickstarter generally for me was a complete misery. Did I express to Jimmy my unhappiness? Yes, but — and maybe this is part of being a female — when a man shouts at you whenever you say “um, I’d like some say in the way the script I wrote is drawn” or “hm, the way you’ve changed this from the script isn’t really going to work in the context of the scene”, you stop saying the thing that gets you shouted at.

Everything came to a head a week after the Kickstarter ended, when something delightful happened — I was contacted by a large US business magazine, who wanted to commission James and I to do a two-page comic about our Kickstarter experience. What an opportunity! First, it paid well. REALLY well. And as James had said he was very short on cash and had no other work on the horizon, this news was well received by him. (James at this point was also pressuring me to send him all the Kickstarter money in advance, rather than in tranches as he finished chapters. This made me very nervous, but I agreed and began the process of withdrawing the Kickstarter money from Amazon Payments. Luckily, he never got round to invoicing me).

So, the business magazine commission. It paid GREAT, wasn’t much work, and was going to get copied and cross posted to the moon. Great exposure for our book! And potentially leading to a lot more work for both of us. I turned around a script quickly, and it was approved by the magazine’s editor. They loved it! I sent the script to James. Unfortunately by this point his ego or whatever had gotten so out of hand he was completely unable to listen to and/or respect anything I said. James took a long time to draw the two pages, causing worried queries from the editor, and the sketch he finally turned in took a lot of liberties with the script (as he had been doing with Ashes). The editor was displeased. I was forced into an intermediary role, as furthermore the editor did not hit it off with James and basically didn’t want to speak to him. I consulted with the editor at length about what he wanted (basically, he wanted the script drawn as written) and I worked out some notes to give James so he could quickly turn around an amended sketch for approval.

James ignores the notes and several days later sends a sketch which departs even more radically from the script. The client hates it and emails me, basically going “WTF?!”… print deadline was mere days away at this point. I have long email conversations with Jimmy, basically guiding him through taking his first sketch, changing some transitional elements, and making it work. Basically, I am trying to make it fast and easy for James to get a new sketch in as I can see this gig evaporating before my eyes. James is like OK GREAT! and then sends in a third pencil sketch, on the day of print deadline, that ignores all the notes. All he had to do to make this client happy was just to draw the script they approved. A client who had already said they loved what I do and wanted to give me (and therefore James) more work. When I point this out to him, he becomes extraordinairily aggressive, telling me he is 100% in charge of all visuals for my projects and I have no say whatsoever in what he draws or how he draws it.

Folks, I cried. I’m a girl. I do that sometimes. I completely broke down in front of the laptop. Not only was James making the execution of a book I had gone to Herculean lengths to get off the ground into a living nightmare of abuse where I felt afraid to email him about pages, he had just totally destroyed an easy gig with a major, major client because he would not draw the approved script. And then he abuses me via email about it, after I say I am finding a new artist for the 2-pager so I can try to save it. I cried, poured myself a glass of wine, went and found my big girl pants, and told James I would need to find someone else for Ashes.

As for the contract, we did take an investment from an outside source. James was asked about this and approved it before the investment was finalised. I then drew up a contract addressing the division of ownership in the completed book, not the script, which remains 100% copyright me. If James does not complete the book, he does not come into his share of it. The finished graphic novel’s ownership was always meant to be shared with the artist, in recognition of the tremendous amount of work and commitment the artist would have to provide to complete the book. This is only fair. What Jimmy seems to think he has — something for no work — is not fair, nor in the spirit or letter of the contract.

James says that the $3k to Valentine was a surprise. If so, he hasn’t read our Kickstarter project’s own project page, which has said as follows since launch: “If in some crazy world we manage to raise more than our minimum, the first thing that will happen is Jimmy will get a raise, so he can go from Sainsbury’s Value Meals to Taste the Difference. Then any excess money beyond that will go towards publishing the long-awaited trade of Alex’s webcomic Valentine “.

As for the big business magazine gig, thanks to some really lovely people helping me out on Twitter, I got in touch with Pia Guerra who worked all night and nailed the sketch on the first go — she drew a wonderful sketch that the client loved. However after all the drama with James they had decided to drop the piece from the magazine as we had missed the first print deadline. We may still have it in their digital edition; I am waiting to hear.

Once again, I’d like to apologise to our backers for all this drama. I had hoped that the creative split could be handled quietly and professionally but it appears that will not be the case now. I hope you will forgive me and understand why I had to find a way out of a situation where I felt bullied.

Staircase-III stopped us in our tracks. Do Ho Suh’s huge sculpture is a representation of the stairwell to his Manhattan apartment, hanging about ten feet off the floor. There are clear nods to Rachel Whiteread in the casting of an architectural feature, but the use of sheer cherry-red nylon gives the piece all kinds of different connotations. I pass a few staircases in Soho every working day that glow with that kind of colour.

But somehow there’s no feeling of threat or sleaze. Unlike most dark-lit stairwells, you can see exactly where this one leads. Dom called it a Stairway To Heaven, and you can see what he means. Don’t forget, in China the colour red signifies good fortune.

Staircase-III has a room all to itself and it was full of people, gazing up with smiles on their faces. I love this piece. It’s warm, optimistic and dare I say it–sexy?