Excellent, entertaining, playful and magnificent, this is a fantastic movie that builds on its successful predecessors while bringing in some fresh ideas. The film develops a few key, interconnected themes from the earlier movies, ranging from the dangers of weaponising science, to exploring the essence of the superhero. Is Tony Stark Iron Man, or is it the otherway round? And …
Writing Journal: The Struggle to Write
This weekend’s writing sessions were very hard. I spent too much time trying to think my way back into the story. That’s the trouble with writing just at weekends, the five day gaps between sessions clutter up with work, family and other commitments, clambering across my exhausted mind like a babble of oblivious toddlers. Or an invasion of impetuous orcs. …
Only Connect: Fantastic Futurism
“Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday.” So announced Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s in his 1909 ‘Fondazione e Manifest del Futurismo’ (The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism). Along with all other forces of Modernism the Futurists were both agents and reflections of the change in Western …
Fantastic Sketches: Barry Windsor Smith
The true skill of an artist is revealed by the bare lines of their drawing. It might be a finished pencil piece, a working sketch for painting, or the pencils for a comic book, waiting for the inker to carve their black definitions and the colourist to splash the tones. A decent artist’s talents lie naked amongst the interplay between …