I told you it’d get ugly…

Next week’s epilogue will be the very, very last strip. To make up for it, it’s a double episode. Be sure to bring a box of tissues.

Responsible adults… As if! Looks like the complete meltdown of moviedom is just around the corner.

NEXT WEEK: Death Unleashed! No more delays. Within seven days from now, Smithee’s MacGuffin will be revealed.

It’s pretty clear by now that everyone at Heavenly Muse Inc. is thoroughly fed up with Smithee’s abusive behavior. Something’s gotta give. Just four more episodes to go… I’ve already finished sketching and I can’t wait for all of you to see how it ends!

Next week, Smithee will be taking extreme measures to prove his point!

For those who don’t know: I’ve started a Facebook fanpage around my upcoming short film Out of Synch. Everyone who joins in will receive special updates and assures himself of the earliest viewing possible! Here’s the link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Out-of-Synch/102874433759

One of the other ideas I had for this episode was for Smithee to ask the God of Pay TV for a “proper” ending to The Sopranos, but that would imply he’s got some form of taste.

I’m going to take a little break with Directorama, but don’t worry: the funny little men in the orange robes will be back real soon to complete the second season story arc. Meanwhile, I’ll be sure to keep posting interesting stuff to keep you entertained. Watch this space for a very special Making Of post on a commercial I’m currently directing. Also, I recently dug up a twenty-year-old comic of mine that I intend to color, translate to English and publish.

For a daily dose of Peet, you can find me on Facebook (I’ll accept any Directorama fan as a friend, as long as you introduce yourself). Current status: I’m re-reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen (who isn’t?).

Of all the posthumous get-togethers I’ve thought up for this strip, this is the one I most eagerly wish to join.

Tex Avery’s quick wit and absurdist invention (especially during his time at MGM) has made me cry of laughter innumerable times, and Chuck Jones‘ Roadrunner is the best Albert Camus-approved antidepressant in the world. Some of you may be less familiar with Ward Kimball, but he’s a personal hero of mine. As the most idiosyncratic of the legendary Nine Old Men, he introduced 50s modernism to Disney, without ever losing a healthy appetetite for old-school “hurt gags” (which his über-modern peers at UPA so despised). Shorts like Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953) and Mars and Beyond (1957) belong to the very best animation ever produced.

Click on the titles for more information on Waltz With Bashir, Persepolis and Wall-E. Honorable mention: Sita Sings the Blues.

As far as Alan Smithee’s soft spot for a certain CGI Barbie is concerned: the less said the better.

Alan Smithee turns out to be quite the connoisseur, doesn’t he?

NEXT WEEK: Smithee’s “poetic musings” on animated films.
Can you see a pattern evolving here?

The two silent greats featured in this week’s strip are, of course, Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati.

NEXT WEEK: Smithee shines a light on foreign films in general. Something tells me that won’t exactly be his cup of tea either…

Happy New Year, everybody!

Fortunately, Hitch is kidding about Uwe Boll’s remake of Armageddon, but with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes rebooting anything from Halloween to The Birds, I certainly wouldn’t rule the possibility out. (Alas, the sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks is already a fact–and it’s not called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.)

Now that all the elements of the new season are in place, expect Directorama to return to its more usual, episodic structure. NEXT WEEK: Luis Bunuel and David Lynch!

I warned you! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Michael Cimino is, of course, the “Last Auteur” whose expansive and overbearing directorial style resulted in the devastating box office and critical bomb Heaven’s Gate (1980), a financial disaster of monumental proportions that brought about the demise of an entire studio.

NEXT WEEK: Let the guessing game begin!

I’m usually not that happy with my own drawings – certainly not right after I’ve finished them – but the facial expressions in this episode turned out pretty nice, I think. After doing quite a bunch of these now, I’ve finally settled on a process I feel confident with. Basically, it goes something like this:

First, I type the text in a Photoshop document with the usual two-strip framework. After fiddling around with the different blocks of text, I get a sense of where I want the characters to be in the frame and how the page should look like. Then, whenever I feel like it (this is oddly enough at once the most delicate and the quickest part of the process), I grab a ballpoint and make little sketches in my Moleskine pocket notebook. These doodles are kinda rough and vary in size and detail, but they nail down the basic emotions and have the playfulness of a first draft. I scan these notebook pages in and, back in Photoshop, use them to compose the artwork. I’ll resize quite a bit, combine different parts of different sketches, or mirror a face. When that’s done, I’ll attach a Cintiq drawing tablet to my MacBook and digitally ink the panels. Finally, I’ll splash color in between the lines on a seperate layer and add film grain.

Strange process, I know… but it works for me.

Merry Christmas everybody! I’m leaving for Denmark tomorrow, but will be back before the next installment.

NEXT WEEK: Smithee will reveal what’s inside his suitcase (sort of), closing the year with a bang.