PRESS RELEASE - January 16, 2008

CARTOONISTS DECLARE JIHAD ON COMEDY CENTRAL SCABS

Syndicated political cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors will issue cartoons ridiculing two figures generally revered by liberals for their political humor: Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report."

Despite not making a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America, Stewart and Colbert have returned to their shows--without writers --in a move that has generated little to no criticism from the liberal press.

Rall and Bors, who write and draw all their own material and are not members of the Writers Guild, decided to team up and deliver a one-two punch, with each of them taking on one of the Comedy Central hosts in cartoons issued by their respective syndicates on the night of Thursday, January 17. The cartoons will also be available at their websites www.tedrall.com and www.mattbors.com

"One naturally hesitates before unleashing the fearsome power of Rall and Bors," said Bors and Rall, "but the stakes are too high, the issues too important, the hypocrisy too hypocritical for us to just put down our pens and tune in to their union-busting, albeit highly amusing, programs."

Rall's cartoon imagines rough and tumble union members from 1938 traveling through a wormhole to encounter Jon Stewart, whom they identify as a "scab." The comic ends with Stewart being carried away on a stretcher after being violently beaten. "Stewart's wry, vaguely left-of-center wit fails to register with the visitors from a more straightforward time," Rall writes in the comic.

"Progressives shouldn't let these scabs off the hook, no matter how hilarious they are," said Rall. "The War on Snarkism starts now!"

Bors' comic deals with Colbert in a parody of his popular segment "The Wørd." This time the word is "Scab" with Colbert remarking, "Writers may be able to hang out all day on their air conditioned sidewalks, but I have a mouth to feed, folks!" while the screen informs us of his ego's lunch break demands. It's something you could almost imagine Colbert saying, with Bors turning the faux-right wing persona back on the host.

"They have no integrity, no morals, and no guts," Bors huffed. "They're funny, sure, but not ha-ha funny. Not after this."

Ted Rall's cartoons are distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while Matt Bors' work is distributed through United Feature Syndicate. They each draw three cartoons a week.

Neither Rall nor Bors will be available for appearances on either of the shows while the strike remains in effect. "We'd rather fight in Bush's wars than cross a picket line," they said in unison.

contact: Matt Bors (mattbors@gmail.com) and Ted Rall (chet@rall.com)

Jon Reed, Winner of Comic Book Idol 3

A few days ago, it was announced that Jon Reed of Alexandria, VA (about a half an hour away from me) won this year's Comic Book Idol at Comic Book Resources. They still haven't run their Q and A with Jon yet (though they did run one with the contest's runner-up here), but I'm putting up the transcript--pure, unmodified, unprettified text. I'll touch it up a bit when I'm further along, but may have to take it down later, depending on the policies of the paper I'm selling the final product story to.

Q: What was your first comic book?

A: You know what, I can't remember the first comic I had but I can say that the first comic that really had an impact on me—that was like the holy grail of comic books—was the Hulk vs. Wolverine comic book, it was an issue of The Hulk where Todd McFarlane drew it—that was like, even as a kid I would obsess over getting that comic book. I did eventually and still have it.

Q: How long have you been drawing comics?

A: As early as I've been in organized school, from kindergarten on. Started as pictures of superheroes and evolved from there—I must have at times tried to put a couple images together to create some kind of narrative but it was mostly just poses.

Q: Is drawing sequential art harder than just still images?

A: Yes, it is a different skillset and no, in that I think each panel should have a design scheme or each panel should be—at least the way I look at comics, the way I want them to be, each panel should be composed so that your eye can look around the panel in a very nice way, in a very logical way. But you know, pin-up stuff is meant to be really flash and catch the eye, in my opinion. It's more about design than storytelling. Both are trying to communicate something.

Q: Do you draw outside of the normal genres, or just superhero stuff?

A: The stories I imagine in my head, that I'll probably never get to in decades, incorporate all kinds of stuff. Regular life, characters that actually wear clothes and don't just wear spandex, but I think comics should exploit what they can, what they can be, and that's really fantastic, over-the-top situation, but I like to give it a grounding in real life. Over the top situations, grounded in some kind of realistic scenario.

Q: What are you reading these days?

A: I don't read them as much as I should, which is stupid, but I'm kind of a strange guy. I've noticed, talking with other comic book guys, cause I don't really exist that much in the community at all. I just put my head down and draw as much as possible. I'm finding that other people have this vast amount of knowledge, and I find the few artists that I like and try to buy everything they do. I should do more of that but I find that I can just buy a couple of things and slowly digest that over a long period of time. I only have one box of comic books, but each one I think is just a fantastic piece of art so I can't lose.

Q: What creators do you follow?

A: Bill Sieknewicz, Mike Mignola, Simon Bisley, Art Adams, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, I'd like to get more Moebius stuff, Frank Miller. Silvestri. This guy's pretty cool: Richard Corbin, Bachalo. It's weird, with most of those guys if not all of them, it's a period of their career that I enjoy the most and I'm always trying to find something from that period.

Q: What do you think about Frank Miller's jump to film?

A: That freaked me out; I remember I loved the movie RoboCop, I just loved the satire and it was so over-the-top and so making fun of itself but I've noticed that Miller cowrote RoboCop 3, so I guess he's been doing that a while.

Q: On Sienkevicz...?

A: Elektra: Assassin is one of the best, if not the best, comics ever made. I love the Internet for finding this stuff. Something like Superman: Day of Doom or Elektra: Assassin on the Web for $4—it should be on a wall someplace, but it's like $4.

Q: Do you know the details of any assignments yet?

A: None. I just got the e-mail from Jay, the organizer, for the contact info for the other guys, for the editors or whatever from the companies, and they told me that the assignments could be a pin-up, could be four pages, could be a book. I'm trying to take it easy and really look toward the New York trip as the main gift of winning Comic Book Idol 3.

Q: What would be your dream job in comics?

A: Pencilling for a book that I find that's really creative and a great story with great imagery, great iconic imagery, and one that can work off of my strengths

Q: Favorite characters?

A: No, no, I'm at a state now. When I say iconic, I think pulp—pulp covers, pulp magazines, Frank Frazetta. Just real imaginative, you know, you can really get sucked in just by the images themselves. I'd say at this point, if I thought I was really good, yeah, I'd want to draw the biggest books, I guess, but I always gravitated towards smaller characters, you know? Something that rang true was when McFarlane said how great it would be to take a smaller character and do something great with them, like Sienkewicz with Moon Knight. They're not going to give some new guy who doesn't know the ropes the X-Men. Maybe that's it, they allow people to take chances with the smaller characters and the bigger characters, they're like “we can't do that with Wolverine or with Superman,” but with the other guys you can relaly blow their heads back with something imaginative.”

Q: Is there one particular book that you can pull out and get inspired by?

A: Again, I wish I could say I had more stuff, it's so stupid; I buy the same books and I just look at the same books over and over again. I really look at Hellboy as great, and I love the whole story, because it's kind of—it has an underlying premise and I love the dichotomy between how huge the story is and how simply the character approaches the scenario.

Q: When is the New York Con, and is it your idea that you'll have some work to show there?

A: Yes. It's coming up in April, and I'll have work to show one way or another, because I can't say when the assignments are going to come to me, I could do them in two months but maybe they won't get published. My main goal is I'm taking a little bit of a break now and just hit the drawing table harder and smarter than ever before.

Q: Do you think you could do a monthly book?

A: I am shooting to be a good, functioning penciler, that's my goal is to work and work quickly because that will bring me more work. But yeah, I'd like to sit back and just work on one thing for quite a long period of time, but you know I mean—my work, I think, what some people say, is detail heavy. Obviously not like Geoff Darrow or something like that, but a lot of the guys kind of gave off a feel that they were drawing quickly. They probably weren't, but I look at a lot of the Silvestri stuff and some things he was obviously drawing quickly. Long story short, yes I want to draw quick and I want to be able to deliver—there's always going to be a fine line. It will always be my point of view that I have stuff to work on.

You know what looks good? Eric Canate—all I saw was four pages, but it was insane. It looked a little manga-influenced but it looked really insane.

I have been "invited" to protest some shabby movie.

So on the Facebook social networking site, there are groups that you can join, and much like on MySpace or LiveJournal or any other such site, just about anyone can get bored and decide to make a group. The difficulty is that then, you can get invited to join groups.

First of all, with very rare exception, I'm already a part of any group or social club that I have any interest in joining. So for all of you who are my "friends" on social networking sites, I'd like you to consider this quite carefully before asking me to join you on some quest or another.

Today, one of my very well-intentioned friends from the Ohio Valley College chapter of my life, invited me to "join a group" which was all about boycotting this upcoming family film, "The Golden Compass." Apparently it's based on a book by an avowed atheist and one of its sequels involves kids killing God so that they can, in the words of the petitioner, "do as they please." I don't know whether to trust these petitioners' interpretation of a film that they haven't and won't watch, based on a book that they haven't and won't read, but I'll take their word for it, just for the sake of argument.

I won't watch this film, by the way--but because it looks poorly done and dull, and becuase I dislike Nicole Kidman. This "protest" tempted me to buy a ticket to it, though, and sneak into something more appealing, just to increase the flick's box-office take.

Anyhow, here's my position on this: if you don't like a movie, then ignore it. It's a movie. Except for in very, very exceptional circumstances (read: Star Wars, or a mainstream Disney animated flick), it's not like the movie's hype machine will reach out and take over the entire world. People who want to make a big stink about these things not only do harm to their own "cause" by calling much, much more attention to the object of their attack than would naturally come by the studio's ad budget. Beyond that, killing God is not exactly unique to this work. God's death is referenced or seen, directly or indirectly, in works as disparate as Garth Ennis's classic graphic novel series "Preacher" and Douglas Adams' science-fiction-comedy classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can't keep an idea out of circulation; it's like herding cats. The best you can do is face the idea head on and attempt to debate it. If your idea is better, more compelling and more powerful than those you oppose, you'll be fine.

Last, but not even remotely close to least, is the fact that you cannot claim you're being discriminated against when you in fact have been controlling the message for ages. Hollywood is gunshy and terrified of anything that might offend church groups, and positively wets themselves over the opportunity to cater to them. To bitch about "The Golden Compass" while trying to spread the good word about "The Chronicles of Narnia," is hypocritical, just like it's ridiculous to claim that the political affiliations of reporters (generally liberal) somehow biases the news that's vetted by their editors (largely conservative), publishers (almost exclusively conservative) and corporate parents (inherently conservative). Not that it's ever stopped the religious right from making the claim.

Go now, all of you, in peace.

Vulgar talk with director Bryan Johnson

By Russell Burlingame

Onondaga Community College Overview
Entertainment Editor

Photos courtesy of View Askew Productions

Remember that time your friend from school got you a job setting up the Pepsi display at Wegman’s? Well, imagine your friend is independent film guru Kevin Smith. What kind of job would you be asking for then? For Bryan Johnson—comic shop clerk and now writer/director of his own feature film—that little favor was a shot to break into show business.

Smith and his production company, View Askew Productions, bankrolled Johnson’s film and after years in development hell and delays to accommodate other releases by the studio (including Smith’s own Chasing Amy and Dogma), Vulgar finally saw the light of day at the Toronto Film Festival…and was promptly snatched up for distribution by Lions Gate Pictures.

Based on the cross-dressing clown whose face is the View Askew logo, Johnson’s movie follows the story of Flappy the Clown, played by Brian Christopher O’Halloran of Clerks fame. Flappy is a down-on-his-luck clown who’s just barely scraping by performing at children’s parties and decides that he might be able to make some extra cash if he were to start performing as Vulgar, the transvestite clown at stag parties. His first time out for the Vulgar schtick, though, finds Flappy anally raped by a dirty old man and his two middle-aged sons.

Time passes and Flappy is over his financial crisis when he becomes the much-loved clown on a children’s television show…only to find his tormentors have returned with a video tape, blackmailing him and threatening to show the world his fishnet-clad clown show. What to do, what to do? Well, I'm not gonna tell you. The movie comes out in about a year; start watching the small, local theaters for its release! Until then, here's what Johnson has to say about the flick, some other upcoming projects, and being attached to Kevin Smith like Jimmy Olsen to Superman.

Overview: You've been given a handful of cities where the flick is definitely opening. Other than those, have you been given any ideas at all?

Bryan Johnson: No, All we've been told is that we're guaranteed 11 or 12 cities and if it does well in those markets most likely it will go wider.


O: I mean, is this going to be strictly arthouse, or will there be a reconsideration if the picture starts building a reputation and grossing some real money?

BJ: I imagine that this will only see screens in arthouse theatres. It doesn't have the production value people are used to seeing in multiplexes and doesn't have the appeal of say a Blair Witch Project that it can use as a means to overcome that hurdle.

O: Do you think that the film's edgy content will make it harder to appeal to a wide
audience?

BJ: Yes. As evidenced by the walkouts in Toronto it's kind of easy to see that it's not a film for everyone. At points it's fairly intense and the language is—how shall I say?—somewhat blue? I don't think the walkouts (which were about 35-40 for the first screening and less than 10 for the second) are a reflection of the film's quality but on its content. Hell, I walked out of The Preacher’s Wife because I was bored out of my skull. That doesn't mean it wasn't a movie that many people enjoyed. Vulgar won't ever pull in the mainstream audience but I'm not exactly floored by that.

O: Do you currently have any expectations as to what your MPAA rating will be?

BJ: I always believed it would receive an R because there is no nudity or heavy duty violence. When Clerks went up against the MPAA for language it won and I thought the same would hold true for Vulgar. Turns out that it could possibly be ruled an NC-17 for SITUATIONAL language, whatever that means. Personally I don't see the difference if one of the characters in Vulgar says the word fuck or it's said in say, The Big Lebowski. It's the same word right? What does it matter if the situations aren't?

O: There was one article recently that said the picture wasn't as disturbing as it sounds from the one anal-rape sequence that everyone keeps talking about. Any reaction to that statement?

BJ: I never thought the film was all that disturbing and the rape wasn't intended as a shock-o-rama. I do feel however that is contains of the most entertaining rape (never thought you'd see rape and entertaining in the same sentence huh?) sequences in recent history. It's very dark and not laugh out loud funny but there's no denying that there are comedic elements present. Most of the film while very quirky has a theme that many people find kind of sweet. On the other end of the spectrum there are people who approach me and tell me it was the most fucked up movie they've ever seen. You have to take my opinion with a grain of salt though. First I'm biased since I've seen the movie about 150 times and I'm also completely desensitized from being an avid viewer of "reality TV." I'm talking Faces Of Death reality not Survivor reality.

O: Who was the easiest performer to work with on Vulgar?

BJ: That's a tough one because all the actors were very easy to get along with. In terms of main characters I'd have to Matthew Maher who played Gino Fanelli. We had a great time rehearsing and he had a whole back story to the character which I believe helped in his performance. Ethan Suplee was also great. He was really into the script from the get-go—even the first draft, which was considerably darker. For as many days as he put in, O'Halloran was also unbelievably easy to work with. He worked almost every day, wasn't receiving a dime for his trouble, yet remained totally focused the entire time.

O: What kind of other projects are you going to be pursuing now that Vulgar's been sold?

BJ: I have a few things in the works. I have three screenplays that I'm currently working on. Two are horror and the other one is kind of a

Catcher in the Rye meets Leaving Las Vegas. I'm also working on the first Non-Kevin-Smith scripted Clerks comic.

O: Wow…your own Clerks comic. What are your thoughts on the Steve-Dave and Walt one-shot comic that Smith says he's working on? You get to pick up checks on that stuff?
(Editor’s Note: Steve-Dave and Walt are characters in Smith’s films played by Johnson and old friend Walter Flanagan)

BJ: I think it's cool being in the comics and dig the fact that the two characters have enough cult appeal to carry their own book. As far as payola, sadly no.

O: Even though Clerks’ devotees will certainly get you a readership, it’s still a Kevin Smith concept. Any fear that with your cameos in the Jersey flicks and the presence of Brian O'Halloran in your picture that you'll be seen by the film community as "Kevin Smith's Pal, Bryan Johnson?"

BJ: Let's face it, right now that's who I am. The only way I was able to make this film was based on nepotism. The way I look at it is everybody at one time or another gets someone they know a job. It's just that my friend was able to secure me a really cool, hard to get job. If I was utterly devoid of talent I don't think Kevin would have had the faith in me to hand over the budget. The flick also never would have gotten to the Toronto Film Fest or picked up by Lion's Gate. My belief is that anyone who makes statement to the effect of "he's only where he is because he knows Kevin Smith" is in essence a jealous little bitch because no fest or distribution company picks up a movie that's crap simply because of who the writer/director knows. In time I'm sure the film community (whoever they are, I'm certainly not a citizen) will judge me on my work rather than who I know.

O: Speaking of Bryan Johnson, is that your real name? I find it interesting that when Dogma had so much to do with John Hughes' Shermer-based movies, the guy who Smith hangs with just happens to have the same name as the nerd in The Breakfast Club.

BJ: I'm the original. Born Bryan Lee Johnson on December 7th 1967.

O: Tell ‘em, Steve-Dave