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MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “A Dangerous Method” (2012)

Posted by Rick Trembles on August 22, 2017
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

Another Harlequin Romance from David Cronenberg, this time more of a blab-fest than usual which, considering the topic at hand & presuming much of its historical dialog must’ve been transcribed verbatim, begs the question; why not just read all of Freud & Yung’s zingers straight from the horse’s mouth like the mounds of essays & biographies they had to have been be gleaned from, instead of dry talking heads delivering lines? After all, plenty screen time’s even devoted to their letter-writing campaigns, as in; we’re actually made to watch ‘em write & read the mail they send each other! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2012 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigarillo!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

NOTE: If you like this original Motion Picture Purgatory artwork I have many, many more being offered as perks for sale on the crowdfunding page for my newest animated cartoon “Building 108: Barnacle Bill the Tailor”! Pick & choose from the list provided in the campaign perks description section HERE

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “Winsor McCay” (2011)

Posted by Rick Trembles on August 14, 2017
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

Animation is lotsa work! Case in point; check out this heap of paper drawings that pre-Disney animation genius Winsor (Little Nemo in Slumberland) McCay had to amass while creating his groundbreaking early experiments before it was done on sheets of acetate! I was a fan of McCay’s comic strips at an early age & was completely blown away when I saw his animations for the first time! It was instrumental in getting me into making animation of my own! There’s a DIY aspect to primitive animation such as McCay’s that was encouraging to a kid like me compared to the prohibitively expensive assembly-line stuff that defined the medium by the time I was growing up. Despite the insane amount of work it takes, once you try your hand at it & see something you’ve drawn come to life, it’s completely addictive! So much so, that after all these years I’m STILL making animation! But like I said, it’s a lot of work, which takes time, & time is money! So please check out our crowdfunding page for our latest animation project HERE where you can also view my short animated cartoon from last year for free! And see some behind-the-scenes preliminary art HERE! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2011 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “The Real McCay!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function)

NOTE: If you like this original Motion Picture Purgatory artwork, I have many, many more being offered as perks for sale on the crowdfunding page from which you can pick & choose HERE

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

SNUBDOM BLOG: “Building 108 Crowdfunding Campaign”

Posted by Rick Trembles on August 11, 2017
Posted in: Snubdom Blog. Leave a Comment

I made the first Building 108 cartoon entirely by myself in 2016. This time around I’m teaming up with artist Raphaele Bard. I got to know Raph in 2015 at the Montreal “Dump & Draw” comic jams she puts on every Saturday night at a bar near my place called Notre Dame Des Quilles. Local cartoonists take over a table near the can, drink lotsa beer & either doodle inside their own sketchbooks or contribute to exquisite corpse comic strips that get passed around. In fact, over time we’ve amassed so many pages of these improvised stories that we collected them all into a hundred-page book being made available as a perk on our crowdfunding page. Last year, silkscreen master & cartoonist Simon Bossé asked me to contribute to Journal L’Étiquette, the massive newsprint comics paper he puts out periodically with the place he works at, Brasserie Dunham. I drew my contribution at NDQ & asked Raph to colour it because her palette & technique are exquisite. The only requisite was that the story had to do with beer. Your wish is my command, Simon. It only took me ten-and-a-half beers to draw. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Raph is gonna kill me for this but I found these loose inspirational sketches she did for the next Building 108 so much fun that I had to share them. She’s a professional storyboard artist, some of her work can be seen on Teletoon as we speak, & it shows, with these quick studies she just tossed off in a couple minutes while brainstorming. Here’s a background art idea for a sperm bank crime scene sequence we’re planning:

And here are some ideas she had for a sequence that’s gonna take place in a snooty fashion shop called Callipygian’s (look it up, it means “having well-shaped buttocks”) which is run by, what else, pigeons with nice butts. Get it? “Pygian’s”?

And it completely blows my mind that renowned oil painter Peter Ferguson contributed to our list of perks with this one-of-a-kind painting of the dilapidated house that our post-apocalyptic mutant characters live in. You can own your own beautiful signed gicleé print of it if you contribute to our campaign!

Here are my extremely loose thumbnail sketches detailing the whole new “Building 108: Barnacle Bill The Tailor” show scene-by-scene. But don’t look too closely, now! No spoilers allowed!

So please visit our official crowdfunding page HERE where you can view the first Building 108 cartoon in it’s full three-minute entirety made available for the first time since it opened for Anna Biller’s fantastic “The Love Witch” back at Fantasia Fest 2016. Plus you can read lots of info about what we’re aiming to do story-wise, who we’re gonna get as voice actors, & check out all the insane perks we’ve set up for you. We’re offering to have you pie us in the face full of live worms for crying out loud! And someone already paid for Raph to get one! Doesn’t anybody want ME to get a noggin fulla creepy-crawlies?

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “Virus” (1999)

Posted by Rick Trembles on June 6, 2017
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

An electricity-shaped alien life-form invades a radar ship & takes control of its machine-shop & computers so it can build itself into an army of robots that include human zombie body parts! “The more the technology becomes familiar to people the more they’re going to be able to put names to what these artifacts are; like with stop-motion & its jerky quality. That was not visible to the lion’s share of the public, say, when The Lost World was released (in 1925)” -Virus special effects artist Phil Tippet on CGI (which was used in this film) versus his former field of expertise stop-motion animation, from an interview with Stephen Bissette in Animato Magazine, #35, summer 1996. Indeed, a clever press preview of the original Lost World’s creature footage had the New York Times actually contemplate the possibility that its dinosaurs might have been brought to life via some secret spiritist methods of “ectoplasm & other things unknown to most minds”! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 1999 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Technocratic Terror Traumatizes Rootin’ Tootin’ Troubleshooters!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

SNUBDOM BLOG: “Boredom Abolishing” (1979)

Posted by Rick Trembles on May 22, 2017
Posted in: Snubdom Blog. Leave a Comment

As much as getting published in the high school paper was thrilling (the first person to ever publish my comix was its editor Brian Topp; runner-up for the federal leadership of the NDP in 2012), by the time I was being flung out into “the real world” I knew I needed a new gig! And Montreal’s premiere scene-report punk mag Surfin’ Bird was loose enough to run my crap! I did a comic for their second issue about jerking off to Charlie’s Angels & then submitted this drug-addled stream-of-consciousness one for their third & final! The title “Boredom Abolishing” was also the name of a song by my first punk band The Electric Vomit & on the second page you can tell I was starting to grow outta The Sex Pistols & becoming obsessed with No Wave by declaring my fandom for The Contortions! “Normality is an illusion, for teenagers it’s confusion” was a lyric from Boredom Abolishing. Gee, can you tell I was still a teenager when I drew this? (To see the pages full-sized, click on them to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

SNUBOM BLOG: Canadian Golden Age Cartoonist Jack Tremblay @ Fantasticon!

Posted by Rick Trembles on March 30, 2017
Posted in: Snubdom Blog. 4 comments

This Sunday I’ll be accompanying Canadian Golden Age Cartoonist & “Giants of the North” Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Doug Wright Award winner JACK TREMBLAY at the FantastiCon comics convention taking place from 11 am to 1 pm at Collège André-Grasset, 1001 Boul Crémazie Est, Montreal. We’ll have a table & he’ll be signing prints. More info HERE

BTW, WHO’D LIKE TO REPRINT SOME RARELY SEEN 50-YEAR-OLD CANADIANA?

Hey, this year is not only the 150th birthday of Canada but it’s also gonna be the 50th birthday of a series of gorgeous little Canadiana books my father wrote & drew in honour of Canada’s 100th birthday just in time for Expo ’67! They’re compact, about 6 X 6.5 inches, around 14 pages each, & heavily illustrated in full colour in his whimsical post-Canadian-Golden-Age-Comics style (he was inducted into the Giants of the North Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame by Seth in 2014). Last year, I had interested a Montreal publisher in possibly reprinting these in time for Canada’s Birthday Celebrations, which will probably be in full effect by this summer, but they recently apologized & told me they wouldn’t be able to handle the printing specs. They’re more used to text-only projects. Would anybody out there be interested in such a project, or know who I could try to reach to get something like this happening? The company that originally published them, Brunswick Press, is long gone. In fact, they went outta business back in the sixties without publishing or sending back the original artwork for my father’s last instalment in the series! Would I ever like to dig THAT stuff up! Contact me for more info!

Here’s a full sample of one of Jack Tremblay’s Beaver Books from Brunswick Press, “THE BIRTH OF HOCKEY,” followed by the cover art for his others.

SNUBDOM BLOG: “Exquisitely Corpsed Concoction of Cretins” fridge magnets!

Posted by Rick Trembles on March 24, 2017
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In the early 90’s. Montreal artists Rick Trembles & Eric Braun invited dozens of local & international cartoonists to contribute a drawing of a creature for an Exquisite Corpse-style comic book. Each artist’s creature had three sections that could be combined with those of other artists, allowing for many possible combinations. The original artwork has now been turned into magnets, so you can mix & match these creatures on your own fridge door! There are two different series of Distroboto magnets, each featuring different artists. And there are two full critters per $2 pack, each one split in three, but you never know which of these crazy “Cretins” you’re gonna get with your purchase so collect them all!  © 1993/1995 The Artists.

Official launch at the Distroboto “Sweet 16” benefit party this Sunday, March 26 at Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent, Montreal)! Featuring  OSB (1-speed bike), GMACKRR, fourthousandblackbirds & Alexandre St-Onge! $8 suggested donation! A CKUT co-presentation.

From the Distroboto press release: “Celebrating 16 years of Montreal’s unique art vending machine network with a party & concert where the project began back in winter 2001, the evening will also launch a crowdfunding campaign to help this non-profit project stay alive & to upgrade the machines! About Distroboto: Since 2001, these unique art vending machines have sold over 100,000 works from more than 1200 different artists from around the world! It is open to submissions year-round & the artists keep nearly all the revenue. Distroboto is run by Arcmtl, a non-profit arts promotion & preservation organization.” For more info go to distroboto.com

NOTE: ALL PROCEEDS FROM EXQUISITELY CORPSED CONCOCTION OF CRETINS FRIDGE MAGNETS WILL GO TOWARDS KEEPING DISTROBOTO ALIVE!

Pictured below: The original comics that accompanied the print version of “Exquisitely Corpsed Concoction of Cretins” number 1 (1993) & number 2 (1995). The contents within these pages, made up of a multitude of odd creatures by varying artists, each had to be hand-sliced in three! Now you can experience the same sensation via fridge magnets!

Pictured below: Sculptures by Rick Trembles from the original photo shoot for the front cover of the print version of “Exquisitely Corpsed Concoction of Cretins” number 2 (1995).

Pictured below: The only two existing print versions of “Exquisitely Corpsed Concoction of Cretins” left from Rick Trembles’ personal collection.

Pictured below: Sample animated GIF of “Exquisitely Corpsed Concoction of Cretins” by Rupert Bottenberg & Daniel Clowes from the rare out-of-print version which you can now obtain as Distroboto fridge magnets currently on sale now!

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “Van Helsing” (2004)

Posted by Rick Trembles on October 17, 2016
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN! Dracula’s minions morph from hot tarts to naked screaming nippleless bat-women at the blink of an eye (offending protuberances & orifices smoothed off for the action figures)! Silly-putty CGI jaws stretch to ridiculous proportions! The crux of the story has Drac experimenting with werewolf extracts & Frankenstein’s recipe to help birth his undead wives’ offspring (technically they’re born dead so they need a kickstart)! Monster-killer Van Helsing & his Vatican friar sidekick inventor team up with tight-corseted Transylvanian Kate Beckinsale to battle the evildoers (she says “oh my gawt” in her silly fake accent so much you’d think it was the laziest of catchphrases)! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2004 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Resurgence Convergence Divergence!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

van_helsing

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “Sorority Row” (2009)

Posted by Rick Trembles on October 14, 2016
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN! A handful of foul-mouthed college girls think a corpse tossed down a well has come back to haunt & murder them one-by-one in a dark hooded cloak! Film hedges its bets by turning into a comedy towards the third act attempting to rescue its ineptness as a horror flick! Supposedly based on House on Sorority Row (1983)! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2009 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Phi Beta Krappa! As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

sorority_row

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: “The Saragossa Manuscript” (1965)

Posted by Rick Trembles on October 13, 2016
Posted in: Motion Picture Purgatory. Leave a Comment

HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN! Based on an early 19th century novel, this 3-hour Polish B&W 1965 masterpiece by Wojciech Has has been restored by Francis Ford Coppola & Martin Scorcese & praised by David Lynch, Luis Bunuel & Lars von Trier!  Dedicated to one of the film’s earliest rabid fans Jerry Garcia! In the heat of battle during the Napoleonic wars an officer discovers an ancient manuscript among the ruins & starts reading! His eventual captor puts aside their differences to become equally enthralled! Storybook comes to life via exquisite performances in a labyrinthine narrative filled with ghosts, buxom bisexual temptresses, demon-possessed madmen, magic potions, breathtaking period set pieces, rotting zombies & Dali-like surrealistic imagery following a captain’s trials & tribulations on his journey through purgatory! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2009 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Meta Within Meta Inside Of Meta On Top Of Meta!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

the_saragossa_manuscript

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.