Cool News
Dave McKean gets his mitts on S.F. Said's VARJAK PAW!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with news of yet another book property being picked up. We've had CELL, THE SPARROW, BLACK HOLE and many more announced in the last week or so and we have one more after this, another Stephen King connection. As an illustrator Dave McKean did art for King's Fourth Dark Tower book, WIZARD & GLASS, but film fans will know him as the director of MIRRORMASK.
Again working with the Jim Henson Co. McKean will adapt the book VARJAK PAW along with author S.F. Said. The story follows a Mesopotamian blue kitten who goes on a journey to save his family and along the way discovers he is part of a "mystical tradition of magical martial arts." Yep, Kung Fu Kitty. Henson Co. also optioned the second book in the line, THE OUTLAW VARJAK PAW.
McKean loves him fantastical stories about a young family member going out to save the adult family members, no? Given his visual style I'm gonna stay optimistic about this one. Even if it fails completely, it'll at least be different than the average family crap that is churned out every weekend.
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My first first. Had to do it...
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i believe that makes you the worst
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Maybe if The Shaggy Dog discovered he is part of a "mystical tradition of magical martial arts" I could actually get excited. This sounds like great fun.
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Well, I suppose if anything is going to get my butt into the theater, it's gonna be a flick about a ACTION PACKED FIGHT FEST STARRING AN ANGRY PUSSY!!!!!....And thus, hope it's not too hairy! - - - George, the 7th Chicken!!!!
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He's not just the guy who illustrated one Stephen King book. He's one of the most influential illustrators of the past 15 or 20 years. There's a whole generation of Photoshop artists still copying what he was doing on a color copier for the Sandman covers. His style of collage art has become a genre of its own, but nobody does it as well as him - sometimes you can't even tell what medium he's working in. Before that, in the late '80s, he had that string of fully painted comics (like Arkham Asylum and Black Orchid) back when that was unusual, but dropped that style and started doing incredible line drawings when he finally wrote his own series CAGES. Then of course there are his children's books with Neil Gaiman, one of which (Coraline) is Henry Selick's next movie. I really liked MIRRORMASK and I'm excited to see what he can do with a decent budget. But come on Quint, you're a comic nerd, aren't you? Give Dave McKean proper credit, the guy is a legend.
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Varjack Paw is an excellent kids book. The artwork is all done by DaveMcKean, so it makes a lot of sense for him to bring it to life on screen. Excellent news.
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another one on the obvious misses
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There were several artists (living and dead) that influenced McKean's style. They were not illustrators. One was the late Joseph Cornell who influenced many artists - he did these remarkable assemblages that clearly affected McKean's work. Next are the Starn Twins who layered photographs and created effects that McKean appropriated, and lastly, there was Joel Peter Witkin who took the sideshow circus folks and placed them in even more bizarre settings. McKean was the first comic book artist to use these influences in a manner that was fresh for that pre-digitized time.
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I finally got around to seeing MIRRORMASK about a week ago. The plot was very lazy, but the cinematography was good and considering the pitifully small budget, McKean did a damn good job.
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...but is Varjak's name a direct reference to Breakfast at Tiffany's?
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