Interview: DC Hopkins Lettering With Style

June 23, 2017

We’re in a golden age of comics right now and in an age of geek none of us could have ever imagined, but with the good comes the bad. As our geek news sites become more corporate they tend to focus less on comics and in some cases less on independent creators. My goal is to never shy away from giving a soapbox to those starting out, the independent, the unsung and the creators trying to carve a niche for themselves.

For today’s edition of Lettering with Style I am interviewing the awesome, the amazing (and I maybe bias because he’s lettered for me) DC Hopkins. In case you wanted to know a bit about DC before reading the interview here’s a little something on him.

DC Hopkins is a professional letterer for publishers such as IDW, Lion Forge, BlackMask, Disney, Tor, Red 5, and a staff letterer at AndWorld Design. He is also the Co-host of two fantastic podcasts, Hideous Energy and Eerie, International.

Austin Wilson & Seth T. Hahne

Now let’s get on with that interview.

Marco: So, to start us off I’m going to ask you a question designed to let the reader get to know you a little. What made you fall in love with comics and how did you get your start in this business?

DC: When I was a kid, my mom taught me to read at a very early age. Around the age of two, I was starting to put together small, three-letter words on our refrigerator using these multicolored letter magnets that she bought for me to learn from. This lead to reading those simple “See Spot Run” style books, and my parents struck a deal with me: for every one of those books I would read on my own, they would buy me a comic book issue.

This turned out to be a great motivator and my love of comics began at this point – the bright colors, the dynamic characters, and the genre elements all captured my imagination. The Darkwing Duck cartoon combined with the 1989 Batman film reinforced it even further, and I’ve been a comic reader ever since.

In terms of my start in the business, it’s much like everyone else’s story about breaking in: a ton of false starts, rejections, and grinding away at work until opportunity knocked. I did a lot of work for Bluewater and if the whole Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours thing holds any truth, I got a TON of practice and bad pages out of my system while working there. It was a big learning experience.

Eventually, I started getting bigger and better gigs (and ones that paid too!), and my first big publication was the graphic novel Johnny Hiro: The Skills To Pay The Bills by Fred Chao, published by Tor. A year or two after that, Deron Bennett asked me if I was interested in doing work for his studio, AndWorld Design, and my career really took off from there. Deron offered to teach and mentor me to help me take my work to the next level, and I immediately accepted.

Marco: I recently asked Micah Myers this question and I also asked Marshall Dillon the same question (for two upcoming interviews). Now I don’t plan to ask any other letterers I interview in the future but I will ask you because we’ve worked together and I’m curious as to your answer.

What are some of the misconceptions you’ve run across as a letterer in this business and if you could what’s something you would like to see changed or improved upon when it comes to letterers in this business?

DC: Perhaps the biggest misconception is that the lettering just “happens” or that the writer does it. I’ve yet to meet a letterer who hasn’t experienced the challenge of trying to get the average person to understand exactly what it is that we do. My usual elevator pitch is that I essentially do graphic design for comic books. It’s a little broad and not 100% accurate, but it gets the job done and people start to understand I’m not the writer or illustrator. Beyond that, I think some other common misconceptions are that we write all of the sound effects (we don’t, usually), that balloons are called “bubbles,” and that lettering is just an afterthought tacked on at the end.

Comic book lettering is an art, and something that letterers and editors take very seriously. It’s the backbone of a comic in many ways, and we aim to make the relationship between the visual components and the reader work as seamlessly as possible.

In terms of wanting to see something changed, I think the biggest thing that’s weighed on my mind lately is this idea that “lettering should be invisible.” Deron has written about this for the AndWorld social media pages, and we’ve discussed it a lot. With comic book lettering, there’s been a common comparison to film editing in that if a film is edited properly, you don’t notice it, and that comic lettering should be the same.

While I understand where this thought is coming from since bad lettering can jolt a reader right out of the book, I disagree that lettering shouldn’t be noticed. Good lettering should be noticed, and the reader should enjoy seeing well-balanced placements, and visually striking sound effects, and creative title designs. It’s a vital part of the presentation of the comic, and I love seeing letterers like Deron, Rus Wooton, and Aditya Bidikar put their stamp on a book and take it to another level. Those are just a few of the letterers working right now who are trying to push the boundaries of what lettering can be, and I try to do the same in my work whenever possible.

Jehanzeb Hasan & Mauricio Caballero

Marco: Let’s talk about AndWorld Design and your start there. What’s it like working for and with a lettering and design studio? Also tell us a bit about how you approach a book when you’re brought on board.

DC: Oh man, AndWorld is the best. Deron is everything you could hope for in a boss in that he’s super nice and laid back, but extremely driven and ambitious. He’s constantly pushing for us to put out our best possible work, and is very hands-on when it comes to suggesting tweaks and adjustments so that our pages go out in top form. With Deron at the helm, working for the studio is a breeze. There are roughly 7 or 8 of us, and we run the gamut across different styles and skills. Some of us work exclusively on design work, some do primarily manga, while others do a combination of everything.

I’ve jumped at every opportunity to learn from Deron on working with each of these skills, and because of that I’ve learned how to letter manga which is a completely different animal altogether. Since we’re not a brick-and-mortar studio, we communicate mostly using Slack and email and stay connected easily. It’s a lot of fun being a part of a larger team.

In terms of my approach on an AndWorld book, it’s mostly the same as a freelance book I’d work on my own, with the biggest difference being that Deron is there as a facilitator. He’s already worked with the clients and gathered all the necessary materials we need to work on the project. If the client has very specific ideas and directions in terms of style, he’ll send that over to us, otherwise the first step is landing on what style we’ll be using for the project. I’ll letter a few panels with what I’m thinking would mesh well with the book stylistically and send it over to Deron. He’ll then make suggestions or alterations if needed and then we’ll communicate it to the client and run from there.

Marco: What are you working on presently? If you’re able to tell us and what do you have coming down the pipeline? Also do you have any other comic book pursuits outside of lettering?

DC: Right now I’m doing a lot of work through AndWorld on some fun Lion Forge projects, primarily ACCELL for their “Catalyst Prime” universe. The universe that Joe Illidge and co. are building over there is super (no pun intended) interesting, and I love that diversity and representation is a HUGE part of it, not just when it comes to race, but also sexual orientation and characters with intellectual disabilities in the case of SUPERB. I’m also working on THE CASTOFFS for their Roar imprint which is a blast. And VOLTRON is coming back soon so we’re working on volume 2 of that.

Beyond AndWorld stuff, I’m working on a bunch of other freelance projects at the moment, but most of it is under wraps in terms of announcements until a later date. I’m doing a larger graphic novel for Dynamite which should be out later this year, and I’m also the letterer on the ongoing series HELM which was just nominated in the Best Digital Comic category at this year’s Eisner Awards.

I have many other goals and pursuits in comics, but they’re all pretty much connected to lettering and design in some way. The biggest one is the desire to learn how to hand letter and translate that into creating and customizing my own fonts. It’s time consuming though, and a big part of the modern lettering industry in 2017 is that you have to push completed pages out as quickly as possible, leaving little room for extracurricular stuff, even as it relates to lettering. But in terms of writing or illustrating or editing comics…nah. I’m a letterer, and I love being a letterer.

Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, & Leno Carvalho

Marco: All good things must end and as sad as I am to have to wrap this up I’m going to give you a moment to PIMP YOUR WORK! This is your time to shine and to tell the readers why they should check out the books you’re working on, what you have coming up and anything else you have whether in comics or outside. So, have at it!

DC: Besides the stuff I mentioned above, people should also check out the DARKWING DUCK comic book that we did over at Joe Books/Disney. As I mentioned in the question about how I got into comics at an early age, Darkwing was a big part of that, so it was a surreal dream come true to work with Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani on that one. There are two trades out now that collect the entire run.

Beyond that, I lettered most of the recently collected THE RIFT series for Red 5 and had a lot of fun on that one too. Over at Alterna Comics, they’ve been getting a lot of buzz on their newsprint line, and one of the big hits has been TRESPASSER which I lettered and did the logo for. Justin M. Ryan wrote that one and he has been one of my favorite creators to work with so far in my career. Not only is he a fantastic writer, but he understands and respects the lettering process in a huge way. Publishers should take note of him and snag him now while they still can!

I’m also the letterer on the ongoing TART series written by Kevin Joseph. Kevin is another amazing guy who is insanely passionate about making comics, and the work he does over at Kechal Comics showcases that. And last but not least, I’d be remiss to not mention the digital comics I’ve lettered for you, Marco, over at Atomic Rex! We’ve worked on some truly outstanding stories there with some incredibly talented artists and it’s one of the first places I point people toward when it comes to checking out great free comics content online.

And finally, one last thing. I co-host/produce two podcasts hosted at over at FanOff, one called HIDEOUS ENERGY about comic books and another called EERIE, INTERNATIONAL about the horror genre.

I’ve been recording podcasts for about 8 years now and it’s become such an important part of my week, creatively speaking. Through HIDEOUS ENERGY, my co-host (Austin Wilson, writer of Magnetic Press’ RE•PRO•DUCT: SELF APPLIED) and I have also been able to make some free digital comics people can check out via our Patreon
and IMGUR.

And that’s the end of that. I want to thank DC Hopkins for letting me interview him and I hope you all enjoyed this edition of Lettering with Style. Check out his website and don’t forget to follow DC via twitter.

Kevin Joseph & Ludovic Sallé

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Krysten Ritter Shares Poster From ‘The Defenders’

Aric Sweeny

June 23, 2017

Krysten Ritter, Jessica Jones herself, has shared a new poster from The Defenders. Check it out below.

The show unites Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist all on the screen together for the first time in television history. Following each character’s individual season, or seasons, The Defenders will be a wrap up of Netflix’s MCU phase one.

“Marvel’s The Defenders” follows Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. A quartet of singular heroes with one common goal – to save New York City. This is the story of four solitary figures, burdened with their own personal challenges, who realize they just might be stronger when teamed together.”

Are you excited for the show? Comment below, let us know.

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Let’s Talk About The Use Of Sound In BABY DRIVER

Anthony Composto - EIC

June 23, 2017

Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver opens everywhere June 28th, and there are a hundred reasons why you need to go see it. There’s the sharp and quick-witted dialogue that audiences have come to expect from Wright. There’s his patented camerawork and editing that creates a visual experience few filmmakers today can match. The chase scenes are about some of the best ever put to film. And you have to appreciate the standout performances from the veteran actors and newbies alike. But the real reason to see Baby Driver – the reason everyone is going to be talking about – is the sound. This is hands down one of the best uses of sound/music in a movie ever.

*Warning – Mild Spoilers Ahead For Baby Driver*
(But Nothing That Ruins The Plot)

Ansel Elgort plays Baby, a getaway driver working to pay off some debt. Baby is one of the best in the biz, but he comes with a quirk: he’s constantly listening to music. “Constantly” as in every waking moment (unless he has to speak to someone). The music very much becomes a character in itself, and Wright weaves it in so seamlessly with the story that there’s no way the film doesn’t receive a nomination for Best Sound Mixing and/or Editing. The music blends with the environment so that not a single sound is wasted. Car sounds, people talking, construction, explosions, even ATM machines, all play in tune with Baby’s music. The city of Atlanta becomes a symphony.

Shooting script cover art by Oscar Wright.

So why the emphasis on the sound? On a simple level, Baby is just trying to drown out his tinnitus. On a slightly deeper level, he wants to remember his mom, an amateur singer who introduced him to music. But by the film’s end, you realize that it was always so much deeper than even that. Wright used the music and sound to tell the audience who Baby was, and how his story was going to play out, from the start.

We meet Baby in the film’s opening scene during a bank heist. He’s sitting in the getaway car – a boosted red Subaru – while Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal, and Eliza González go to work. He’s jamming out to “Bellbottoms” by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. And by “jamming out,” I mean jamming the f*ck out. Dancing, singing at the top of his lungs, the whole nine yards. In that moment, thanks to the music, we know who Baby is. He’s calm, cool, and composed when other drivers would be anxious. He’s groovy.

As Baby Driver progresses, we learn that our hero records everyday sounds and voices and mixes them together to make sick tracks like this one:

So Baby isn’t only a fan of music, but he also creates it. He’s not just an outsider looking in; he’s one with the music.

And therein lies the rub. Look at the first page of the Baby Driver script, which Edgar Wright shared:

First page of ‘Baby Driver’ script. These quotes are not actually in movie.

A post shared by Edgar Wright (@edgar_wright) on Feb 2, 2017 at 11:29am PST

“You are the music while the music lasts.” We’ve established that Baby is one with the music, but how long will that last? Well his music never ends, remember? He plays it constantly. It just keeps going, and that implies how he wants to live. He just wants to move forward, blending in with the symphony of the world as his music does. The script’s second quote echoes this sentiment as well. It’s a line from “Baby Driver,” the song from which the film borrows its title, which is all about a man who “hit[s] the road” and is gone. To further this point, the soundtrack places a heavy emphasis on jazz, which is infamously about freedom and living without restrictions.

And there you have it. We just broke down the essence of Baby Driver while only barely discussing the plot or characters. That’s why the use of sound and music in the film is so masterful. Wright takes a visual medium and uses audio to make his point. You can close your eyes and still hear a story about freedom, and about breaking off the shackles of your life. You can join the symphony of the world around you, if you only listen and go with your groove.

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Season Two of ‘F Is For Family’ Is A Roaring Success And A Vast Improvement Over The First

Anthony Caruso

June 23, 2017

F is for Family is one of those rare Netflix shows that seems to fly under most people’s radar. The first season, consisting of six episodes, debuted quietly on December 18^th, 2015 to generally favorable reviews, but besides myself, I personally knew only one other friend who watched it. Compare that to Netflix’s other animated comedy, the critically acclaimed BoJack Horseman, which everybody seems to know about even if they’ve never seen it. While both are made for adults, perhaps it’s BoJack’s slightly more intelligent, far less vulgar sensibilities that give it a broader appeal compared to F is for Family’s truly vulgar and loud brand of comedy.

Despite its boorish brand of humor, however, there is a flowing sentimentality that serves as an undercurrent beneath the surface of F is for Family, in addition to something truly relatable about its main character, Frank Murphy. Both of these traits are on full display in season two, which premiered on May 30^th, and help to make the comedy’s sophomore year a roaring success.

Continue

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It’s Official: Daniel Day-Lewis Is Retiring From Acting

Jonathan Bruce

June 23, 2017

Sir Daniel Day-Lewis is done with acting.

The 60-year old actor says he is retiring after his next film, according to reports.

Leslie Dart, Day-Lewis’ publicist, confirms the news in a statement “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years,” she says. “This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”

His final film will be Phantom Thread, which Paul Thomas Anderson is directing. Both previously worked together ten years ago on There Will Be Blood. Little is known about Phantom Thread, other than it being a drama in the fashion industry.

Known as the “English De Niro”, Day-Lewis is seen as one of the finest actors of all time. He’s known for devoting himself to his roles, as well as refusing to break character. In addition, he doesn’t like to discuss his private life and grants few interviews.

Starting in the theatre, Day-Lewis soon made the jump to feature films in the 1980s, winning supporting roles in Gandhi and The Bounty. A Room With A View would make him into a leading man. By 1989, his role as paralyzed writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot made him a superstar. This is the film in which Day-Lewis began the process of method acting, such as staying in a wheelchair and learning to type with his foot. He went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor.

In the 1990s, Day-Lewis became a sex symbol for his performance as Hawkeye in The Last Of the Mohicans. He would follow that up with playing a troubled attorney in Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence. His next work was a wrongly imprisoned convict In The Name Of The Father. After making The Crucible and The Boxer, he would take a leave of absence from acting and took up shoemaking.

In 2002, Day-Lewis would make a comeback with Scorsese on Gangs of New York. His role was that of murderous gang leader Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. The film was a success, and Day-Lewis received another Best Actor nomination.

Day-Lewis would earn his second Best Actor trophy for playing antisocial oil magnate Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. The film is though to be one of the greatest films of the 2000s. After that, he did not appear onscreen for two years until starring in the 2009 adaptation of the musical Nine.

Day-Lewis went on to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. The film was a major hit, and he would win his third Best Actor statuette. He is the only actor to achieve such a record. In 2014, he became a Knight of the British Empire.

Phantom Thread arrives in theatres on December 25, 2017.

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Millenials and Digital Comics: What Makes Webcomics Important?

Elliott Dunstan

June 22, 2017

Webcomics, as a medium, are pretty young. The first online comic (according to T. Campbell) was Hans Bjordahl’s Where the Buffalo Roam in 1991, and there are webcomics still running today that have been around for most of webcomic history. The medium is 26 years old – about the average age for Millenials.

That isn’t a coincidence, either. The popularity of webcomics ties into millenial identity, such as it is. It’s not just 20-somethings writing them, or reading them. However, just like crowd-funding, social media, and cheery nihilism, it’s all part of the package.

So what makes webcomics so important? And what accounts for their sudden explosion in popularity over the last ten years?

1. We Don’t Trust Corporations Anymore

Ten years ago, the stock market crashed, and Millenials – largely children and teenagers at the time – learned a valuable lesson. Corporations, banks, and the government were not family members. They have their own interests at heart.

The stock market crash isn’t the only thing affecting this particular Millenial outlook, of course. Between Occupy Wall Street, Green Day’s American Idiot album, and the revelations of both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, the world of the 2000s is a lot more cynical than the previous century.

What’s the relevance to webcomics? It means it doesn’t matter what the brand is on the comic book – Marvel, DC, Image or Dark Horse. McDonald’s has already noted a distinct lack of millenial brand loyalty. Instead, independent comic authors are capturing more and more of our attention. We’re more prone to trust individual people – and as a result, webcomic personalities like David Willis make upwards of 5,000 dollars a month.

2. We Don’t Have Any Money

It’s no secret that Millenials are also known as ‘Generation Screwed‘. We have less money than our parents and fewer prospects. Most of us have resigned ourselves to never having a house, never having a car, and probably struggling under crushing student debt for the rest of our life. This is particularly noticeable in the continental US, where you find young adults using GoFundMe and YouCaring to pay such things like hospital fees, rent, and grocery bills.

With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why Millenials do things like torrent movies and music. But webcomics are an entirely different beast. Webcomics, by their very nature, are free; they’re passion projects, started on whims and put online out of a desire to share. You don’t have to pay anything to read a webcomic. Instead, because of things like Patreon and Kickstarter, those rare times when you do have an extra buck or five, you can throw it at a creator. Even better, when people with a few extra bucks help support a creator, everybody benefits.

This has a pretty direct effect on what people will make and draw, too. It’s hard to imagine comics like the fantastical, feminist fairytale Blindsprings or the cheeky, sarcastic Rock Paper Cynic being picked up by mainstream publishers, but both comics are fully funded by Patreon. Instead of the marketing logic that gets things like Teen Titans and Young Justice cancelled for appealing too much to girls, the popularity of webcomics is pretty easy to gage: if people like it, they’ll let you know.

Some of the art of Kadi Fedoruk’s fantasy comic ‘Blindsprings’.

3. We’re More Interested in Hearing People’s #OwnVoices

Recently, AfterShock Comics published a new series, Alters, introducing ‘the world’s first transgender superhero‘. The critical reaction to the series, however, was decidedly mixed. This is in pretty sharp contrast to Paul Jenkins’ pride that he worked with trans women to write the story. So what went wrong?

No one thing, really. It’s just that Alters, groundbreaking for a comic by a mainstream publisher, isn’t nearly as ambitious when compared to webcomics. KhaosKomix by Tab Kimpton started in 2006 and told the story of a trans girl in 2008. Assigned Male Comics by Sophie Labelle (who is openly transgender) has been running since 2014. Labelle has actually garnered enough attention from hate groups to have her Facebook hacked and replaced with Nazi imagery.

Quite simply, comics aren’t keeping pace with the stories being told in webcomics, especially ones written by diverse authors about their own experiences. It’s all well and good to set out to write a trans story for a comic book. In fact, it’s great! But the first step is to realize that for Millenials, half-hearted, single-faceted representation isn’t enough anymore. When queer creators have the ability and medium to make their voices heard, we can’t be satisfied with the glacial pace of mainstream representation.

Another example of this is the newest Beauty and the Beast movie. There was a lot of kerfuffle about LeFou being the ‘first gay Disney character’, and his ‘big gay moment’ which entailed about 5 seconds of him dancing with another man. Without webcomics, this might be a big deal. But when it takes 30 seconds to find in-depth stories about gay men – whether sci-fi robot/human love, or gay dads raising a kid – LeFou being gay is a lot less interesting.

Webcomics and the Digital Age

Webcomics as a medium didn’t originate as something for the ‘new generation’ – but that’s what they’ve become. As part of the growing world of online media, they’re an unavoidable part of the new digital age. That puts them right alongside podcasts, fanfiction, and Youtube videos as an evolved form of storytelling that uses the Internet to its advantage.

It’s not obvious if this is a bubble that’ll pop in the next few decades, or if these are around to stay. In the meantime – take your pick. There’s plenty to choose from.

Please leave your thoughts below!

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Money, Murder, and Mammon: ‘The Black Monday Murders’ Vol. 1

Joshua Versalle

June 22, 2017

Are you looking for something different in the world of comic books? Have you had enough of capes and masks to last you for years? Are you always saying that you wish someone would combine True Detective, Wall Street, and Dynasty? If so, then The Black Monday Murders may be for you.

Paying In Blood

After a brief flashback to the stock market crash of 1929, The Black Monday Murders opens with the murder of filthy rich banker Daniel Rothschild. His body is found in an elaborate, occult crime scene surrounded by symbols representing a mysterious, magical power. Daniel was one of the heads of Caina-Kankrin, the largest investment bank in the world, and a member of a secret cabal that has something to do with money, magic, and blood.

Cast of Characters

Investigating Daniel’s murder is Theodore Dumas, an NYPD detective fresh off a suspension for gunning down a serial killer. He is working with Dr. Tyler Gaddis, professor of economics, to figure out what the symbols mean.

The prime suspect in the murder is Viktor Eresko, one of the heads of Kankrin, the Russian side of banking giant Caina-Kankrin. Viktor is familiar with the mysterious symbols and their magic, using them at one point to command a lawyer who irked him to bash his own head into a table until he dies.

Returning from a mysterious exile to take over the spot left by her deceased twin Daniel is Grigoria Rothschild. Grigoria is no stranger to the arcane herself, judging by her companion Abby, who appears to be a spirit of some kind that speaks only in the language of the runes.

Layers and Layers

The first issue makes us think we are exploring a murder mystery, but as we make it through each of the next three issues, more is revealed about this world and more questions are introduced: What is the relationship of the four families that run Caina-Kankrin? How does money relate to the supernatural elements of the story? What exactly is Abby, the ghostly familiar of the Rothschild family?

BMM Abby — Is she a murderous ghost, or a ghostly murderer?

Creative Team

The illustrations by Tomm Coker and the coloring by Michael Garland are dark and expressive while remaining understated, perfect for the noirish feel of most of the book.

Writer Jonathan Hickman, as he often does, uses not only typical comic book panels, but also text pieces in the form of journal entries, newspaper articles, and transcripts to give a fuller understanding of the world we are visiting.

The Black Monday Murders is written by Jonathan Hickman (East of West, Pax Romana) and illustrated by Tomm Coker (Daredevil Noir, Undying Love). You can pick up Vol. 1, reprinting issues 1-4, from Image Comics.

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Anime Music Recommendations: Radwimps

David Harada

June 22, 2017

The band Radwimps has always been popular in Japan, even expanding their reach across certain parts of Europe. Yet prior to the release of Kimi no Na ha, Radwimps had virtually no prior involvement in the anime scene. This was probably due to the fact that Radwimps had no need for it due to their popularity in Japan. Extra publicity could never be a negative though, or could it?

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRfHcp2GjVI[/embedyt]

Radwimps Coming to America

With Kimi no Na ha’s release and introduction to America, Radwimps finally gained traction in the United States. Normally this would be seen as a positive for the renowned rock band. However, with the United States release of Kimi no Na ha came an opportunity for a dubbed title. With this English adaptation, the band also deemed an English translation of the songs was necessary. Normally this wouldn’t raise as much of an alarm, but with dubs being a mainstay for casual and non-anime viewers it does cause a problem. Having been relatively unknown in the United States, the poorly adapted song could possibly negatively influence their image. What needs to be recognized is that despite the English songs being poorly done, it shouldn’t cause a negative view on the group.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LwwObssPno[/embedyt]

Still Hope

Despite having the double release in English and Japanese there is still hope that fans of the movie will listen to their Japanese music. Having been designed for the Japanese release, the music deserves to be listened to in this fashion. However, even if the music from Kimi no Na ha was listened to in English, Radwimps has many exceptional songs in Japanese. With this in mind, please listen to Radwimps as their music truly is great.

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‘Fargo’ Season 3, Episode 10: “Somebody to Love”

Joseph Rejent

June 22, 2017

For about 20 minutes, “Somebody to Love” is a normal episode of Fargo… and then suddenly it isn’t.

Everything about the beginning works, in large part due to the direction of Keith Gordon. This season saw a bleaker color palette than ghosts of Fargo past, but Gordon manages to make this jaundice livelier, particularly with the choreographed movements of the hitmen. Their blocking makes them move in unison like ballet dancers when they approach Emmit, and later, on their journey to the meeting place with Nikki, the way the camera follows them somehow makes it feel like an army of predatory birds is converging on the two avengers. The elevator ride up is choked with tension, and the shootout Wrench has with Varga’s henchmen evokes Malvo storming Tripoli’s hideout in the first season.

But once Emmit wakes up on his dining room floor with the Sisyphus stamp stuck to his forehead, everything starts to fall apart. And not in the fun, Fargo way, where the levee breaks and all the surmounting chaos suddenly envelops all characters involved. It’s as though when Emmit wakes up, he is waking up in a universe where Fargo is no longer thematically cohesive, and suddenly is a little too impressed with its own intelligence.

Admittedly, the cracks were showing a little bit during the shootout sequence. Why did Wrench allow Meemo to live in the previous episode if he was just going to gun him down here? Taking out Varga’s top guy seems like a pretty sound plan, when you have him cornered in a room with a silenced pistol to the back of the head. Sure, it might have made Varga more resistant to meeting with Nikki again, but what choice did he have? Surely, even in this encounter, he wasn’t going to let Nikki get away. The fact that she then allows Varga to escape makes the entire scheme fall a little flat, as well, but both of these things are forgivable. Much of what comes after is not.

Emmit wakes up, gets in his car, and then, somehow perfectly according to Nikki’s plan, he breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, when she planted the stamp on his head, she tampered with his gas tank or something in that vein, so this isn’t too much of a stretch. But Emmit confronted Ray in his own home, where, as far as Nikki can tell, he murdered him. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Nikki to do the same to Emmit, rather than some contrived plot to get him on a road when anyone could interfere at any moment?

Nikki starts off the season setting up schemes and then derailing them due to some sort of emotional impulse, in typical Fargo/Coen fashion. But after everything that happens with Ray, she’s different. Her time with Wrench turns her into an operator, someone capable of nearly taking out Varga, who is, for the most part, a criminal mastermind. How is she capable of this and yet simultaneously stupid enough to try to kill Emmit in a public area? By having her act in this way, Noah Hawley and the other writers are actively walking back huge swaths of the way she developed through the season.

Which is to say nothing of the more glaring issue, which is that she dies gunning down a police officer. Her interaction with Paul Marrane in the bowling alley granted her a new lease on life, and made her an agent acting in the name of divine justice. Having this collapse with her killing an innocent person doesn’t feel like the clever genre or trope subversion Hawley seems to think it is; instead, it is as though the character is once again taking an axe to her own development. This does not feel intentional, as though there is an observation being made about how people never change. Instead, it is almost as though the writers couldn’t think of anything better to do with the character, and thought the visual spectacle of a Justified homage would somehow remedy this. It felt abrupt and random, as much of Fargo does. But here, it did not work.

Compounding the issue further is the abrupt time-skip, another Fargo staple which normally works in beautiful, unexpected ways. Instead, it comes across as nonsensical that Wrench would wait five years to execute someone to avenge a woman he knew for three months. Maybe he really loved Nikki, and maybe he was in hiding after the police got hold of his picture, sure, but this seems like an extravagant amount of time for him to wait. The only reason for this is so it’s recent enough for Gloria to reference it when she meets Varga again, and for Sy to be sitting there at the table without it feeling like a cheat. But it feels like a cheat anyway.

Having Wrench kill Emmit is unsatisfying for a few reasons. Truth, and how untruth is often perceived as truth anyway, was an important theme of the season. To Nikki, the truth was that Emmit tricked and then murdered Ray, even if this isn’t actually what happened. In turn, it can be supposed that Wrench believed Emmit somehow killed Nikki, and this is why he shoots him. But Wrench was always an “intruder” in this season; the only reason he didn’t feel out of place was because he felt like an externalization of Nikki’s desire to lash out violently against the forces which had made her feel powerless while taking away the man she loved. So to have him play such a crucial role after she’s gone is less like watching a functional human engage in logical behavior, and more like seeing a major character get strangled by another’s severed arm. It falls utterly flat.

Wrench and Nikki were a great pair, and each felt like the culmination of the other’s arc of development. This episode squandered that, as it did with much of the rest of the season’s thematic underpinnings. Perhaps most egregious is that we never got a shot of two kittens together after Nikki’s death. That, at least, would have alleviated some of the pain of this utterly dysfunctional hour of television.

As for the final scene, Peter and the Wolf finally confronted each other… and Hawley elected to leave it up to the viewer whether or not justice won the day, or whether Varga escaped to continue his terrifying binges as a free man. The problem is, once again, much of the thematic framework of the season feels squandered in doing so. Varga recalling the line about pitchfork peasants is supposed to underscore the idea here, but instead it calls to mind how everything about the season felt like setup for his downfall. And vaguely alluding to quantum physics seven episodes ago is not laying down the proper groundwork to “resolve” the story with a Schrödinger’s wolf. (This might have worked better if Gloria’s “actualization” hadn’t happened in the previous episode, if she herself still felt like something that may or may not exist.)

Perhaps, had the rest of the hour felt less like a disaster, this ending would have been a pleasant surprise. Hawley describes Fargo as “a tragedy with a happy ending,” and to end the season with Gloria eating with her son, or putting him to bed, while reciting some monologue about the inner good of human beings would have felt like a retread. Fargo has been there, and it has certainly done that. The fact that it was willing to take a risk like this shows tremendous creativity. But for the first time in the show’s history, it felt like the risks it was taking weren’t paying off. I spent the entire season defending this season to its detractors, but honestly, at the end, it felt like the show set out to prove me wrong.

I adore Fargo, and aside from the finale and all scenes involving Moe Dammik (who, along with Winnie, never got any kind of conclusion), I thought it was brilliant. Despite the frustration with how it ended, I hope Hawley takes a few years off and then returns to it. Maybe returning to the series with a fresh mind will prevent future installments from imploding the way this one did.

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Harrison Ford Calls Returning To Deckard Fun In ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Featurette

Erik Amaya

June 22, 2017

In a recently released Blade Runner 2049 featurette, Harrison Ford calls returning to Rick Deckard “fun;” comparing it to trying on old clothes. But for director Denis Villenuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins, the film is a chance to extend the world. According to producer Ridley Scott, “there is always more story to tell.” And actor Ryan Gosling wanted to be part of that.

The film takes place decades after Scott’s original Blade Runner. Gosling’s Officer K hunts synthetic humans. But a case brings him to Rick Deckard, who must return to Los Angeles after thirty years in the wilderness. Well, the sort of adobe wilderness only Villeneuve can create. Ana De Armas, MacKenzie Davis, Sylvia Hoeks also star.

Blade Runner 2049 opens on October 6th.

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