Zombiehamster.com

Regular readers and visitors to these shores (Quick, what’s that behind you? Nothing? Well, you’ve looked away and back again, which now makes you a regular reader.) will know that I have been a long-time admirer of the art of Tom Brown of Copper Age fame.

A few months ago I posted an article in relation to the upcoming ‘Hopeless’ a collaboration between Brown and UK based writer Bryn Colvin. Their unique and simply breathtaking Maine based horror fantasy will simply have you reassessing any existing preconceptions which you may have concerning the genre. The art itself bridges a gap between hyper-realism and the opaqueness of nightmares. We have been treated to several previews via Brown’s Twitter and DeviantArt sites, but finally, it’s time for the release. With an introduction being posted via the new website (www.itisacircle.com ) this weekend, I caught up with both Brown and writer Colvin to ask them a little about this unholy union, and if they have in fact, come for our souls.

• Zombiehamster: ‘Greetings! How do I find you?’
Tom: Well and busy.
Bryn: Slightly garlic flavoured, and not very awake.
ZH: Now that I am very pleased to hear.

• ZH: ‘Can you please elaborate for the ignorant and uninitiated, a little upon the origins of Hopeless’?
Bryn: It’s entirely Tom’s fault.
Tom: Mea Culpa! It is a project that is an outgrowth of a story that I started a long time ago called New England Gothic. The idea was good but it didn’t really come together until the character of Salamandra arrived, and meeting Bryn, and discovering manga.

•ZH : ‘Who are the main characters and can we expect to be following them for some time?’
Bryn/Tom: Salamandra (experimental occultist) Owen (priest’s son), Reverend Davies (priest) Melisandra and Durosimi (Sal’s creepy parents) Annamarie Nightshade (witch) – just to start with, there are a lot of others who turn up along the way and the story arc is HUGE.

• ZH: ‘How would you describe the overall tone of the story? Is this something that you would feel comfortable doing, or would this be a piece of work that you would prefer to lie outside the confines of descriptive categorization?’
Bryn: Gothic, with humour.
Tom: Owing something to the roots of the ‘weird tale’.
Bryn: With tentacles.

• ZH: ‘How many hours a day would you spend on average working on your art and writing? On average, how long would an individual page take you?’
Tom: When I’m producing pages, between eight and thirteen hours a day. An individual page takes me two days due to lunatic amounts of detail.
Bryn: Varies a lot, I usually spend an hour or two writing most days (I also edit and other stuff) a comics page for me takes less than half an hour to write. Frequently a lot less.

• ZH: ‘Are you now dedicated to the artistic media which you work in, or are there any plans to experiment or alternate the existing formats?’
Bryn: I do all sorts – I write smut, and folk songs, sing a lot, am interested in film and theatre. I’ll try anything really.
Tom: I have a long history and deep love for this media and its potential, am also branching out into other forms and formats and as Bryn would say ‘open to suggestion’.

• ZH: ‘There are several glimmers of influence to be found within Hopeless, but it is very much its own beast, what would you cite as having a definite creative influence on you?’
Tom: Mike Mignola, Hayao Miyazaki
Bryn: For Copper Age stuff, my biggest influences would be Neil Gaiman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Tom. He’d written a few scenes when we started and I put in a lot of time trying to emulate his voice. That’s where most of the humour comes from – I don’t think it’s actually mine!

• ZH: ‘I was going to ask if Lovecraft was in there somewhere. I’ve seen some of the images taken from the upcoming story and Cthulhu would be proud. It’s like watching his babies run amok throughout coastal New England.’
Tom: I do confess to being exposed to Lovecraft at a tender age, am much more enthusiastic about the legacy of his work at this point than I am about his original stories. If you look at Lovecraft closely, he’s a very problematic figure.
Bryn: What can I say? Tentacles. Mmm.

• ZH: ‘Are there plans for a hard copy release for those of us who haven’t embraced the digital or onscreen formats yet?’
Yes. (But we haven’t got that organised yet)

• ZH: ‘On that note, what are your feelings on digital comics compared to traditional publications? Do you feel that an equal balance is essential, or do you have a personal favourite?’
Tom: I think the medium is irrelevant and any way the story can get out there is a good thing. I’m actually excited by the possibilities of new format delivery to mobile phones and whatnot. There’s also the environmental impact of it not being made out of dead trees.
Bryn: I’ve been doing ebooks for years, I like the way they democratise things, anyone who wants to play, can.

• ZH: ‘Aside from www.itisacircle.com, are there any places where people can check out more of your work, both together and individually?’ (*Whispers* that’s where you do the plugging!’)
www.hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com – fictional newspaper for Hopeless.
Tom on deviant art – www.copperage.deviantart.com
And Serendipity – http://www.serendipityartsales.net/Brown_T_Index.html
Merchandise is at www.zazzle.com/copperage
Bryn’s erotica is at www.loveyoudivine.com and her music videos are at www.youtube.com/mistressnimue

• ZH: ‘What do you soundtrack your working days to? Or are you both only able to work in silence?’
Tom: Bryn and a steady diet of Amanda Palmer and Dir en Grey
Bryn: We use skype so I’m doing most of my music practice while Tom listens and passes comment – is good to have an audience. I tend not to have music on when I’m working, but otherwise mostly it’s folk and rock for me. Currently Show of Hands are my main obsession.

• ZH: ‘What would your cinematic preferences be and do you find yourself occasionally seeing things that you find thinking to yourself would work within the Hopeless universe, even in diluted and reimagined ways?’
Bryn: I like dark, weird, surprising. But mostly I am limited to films I can take my 7 year old son to!
Tom: Going back to Hayao Miyazake and we’d like Guillermo Del Toro as a director.

• ZH: ‘You seem to both have a great knowledge of demonology and mythology, where does this stem from and is it a major factor within Hopeless?’
Tom: I know nothing about demonology at all! It’s more fun to make things up. A lot of grounding and interest in mythology and archetype.
Bryn: Yep, mostly the demons are invented. I grew up exposed to paganism and folklore, and between those two fascinations, I’ve picked up a lot of stories. I love myths, and magical things, and I have done all kinds of peculiar stuff, so have a sense of what some of it feels like!

Hopeless is now live and available HERE

A wonderful talk by the delightful Neil Gaiman. It’s close to two hours long and so you might want to put the kettle on beforehand. Click the bottom right hand link for fullscreen. If it resizes and is removing some of the picture, escape and click the fullscreen link again. Enjoy.

How the hell has a week passed so quickly? I don’t remember either being consulted, or being asked permission. It is possible that I am just not keeping track of the days as well as I should, and for someone who is quite obsessed with time, this is peculiar in itself.

So were where we? Well, last I wrote, we were leaving the Amanda Palmer concert in Dublin. As I had decided to stay out, it was uncertain where I would end up that evening. Half an hour later, at the behest of my concert going companions, I found myself in a metal bar, for metallic people. At first it was quiet, and my tie was getting glances which I attributed to tie jealousy. I felt oddly out of place, for about five minutes, then remembering how much metal I actually know, it transpired that I wasn’t completely out of my depth.

Drinks were had and one of the highlights of the evening manifested in meeting a rather enamoured cage fighter called Woody, who made me proposals that I haven’t heard the like of since I watched all of Oz back to back. The man was made like a hairy tree stuffed with sausages; luckily, one of the aforementioned companions distracted him by taking up the challenge of an arm wrestling match (and losing).

I woke up in a strange bed, in a strange house, in a strange part of town, after a grand total of about three hours sleep. No one I knew was around and so I did what I usually do when I wake up horrifically early in someone else’s house, I looked for a discarded book somewhere around the living room, to pass the time until the others re-emerged. It’s a feeling that never really leaves you, early morning in stranger’s houses; thankfully, I didn’t have any regrettable sexual experiences thrown into the bargain.

Much driving in the sun later, we returned to Dublin after a quick trip to Greystones, for me to collect my things, as I had decided to return to Galway that night in dire need of my own bed. We were attending a Neil Gaiman reading, alongside an Amanda Palmer performance in Chapters bookstore that afternoon. Knowing this was free, we did the smart thing and arrived about three hours before it was due to start. This had the pleasant result of getting a spot right in front of the couches where the reading was due to take place.

It was delayed slightly, but nobody seemed to mind, the crowd however, was swelling to gargantuan proportions. It ended up with people being turned away as well over 500 attendees converged onto the store. As with the concert description, there is little point in me verbalising how great I think Neil Gaiman is, if you have ever read any of his work, you already know this. Ditto Amanda Palmer (just replace read with heard).

There are any number of youtube clips on the reading, none of which are of a quality that I would be happy with posting here. I was using someone else’s camera for the event and I have requested the pictures and footage taken to be forwarded to me, but have not yet received them (you know who you are, feel the guilt you deserve to feel).

The readings were humourous, eloquent and thoroughly entertaining, the songs equally so. It was well worth the backside paralysing few hours spent sitting on a shop floor. I left a happy man. Unfortunately, due to the amount of people, they announced that they could not stop to take photos with people, and could only sign one item each. This made it all the more special that I had a few moments to chat with each the night before.

One of my companions “rescued” (ie. Stole) one of the performance pieces (a poster sized photograph for the book), then brought it up to Amanda Palmer to sign, she seemed unimpressed, which was very reasonable under the circumstances. Dude, if you are going to steal stuff from artists at live events, well and good, but asking them to sign it before you leave? Wow, I am both affronted and in great admiration all at once.

Many hours of uncomfortable travelling followed, on a bus where none of the reading lights would work. I arrived back in Galway, seriously deprived of a decent night’s sleep, which I subsequently received.

In short, after the tenuously structured month of numbers and cabin fever, I found myself some enjoyment again. Since my return I have been working on several things of note, none of which I shall note right now.

Anyone fancy an arm wrestle?

(Nb: Pictures will follow, once I have significantly guilted the parties involved into forwarding them)

An hour was spent wandering aimlessly around Dublin, observing the sights and smelling the piddle. When I arrived at the venue the queue was insane. I had not expected to see a sold out notice, with stragglers pleading for tickets and offering up to three times the face value. Amanda Palmer fans seem to be loyal and plentiful; this may be due to her consistent online presence and apparent joy at taking every available opportunity to converse and spend time with her fans. The crowd ranged from straightened fringes and tight jeans to aging music press people. Metallers, goths, punks, emos, burlesque performers, suits and preppies all seemed to be attending. It was really refreshing to see such a variety of attendees, it actually got me all excited again and my exhaustion was for the time being, forgotten.

Once inside the venue, we marvelled at its layout. Very dark and very red. A series of tiered seating ran from a tiny stage up to a tiny bar, with each group of seats having an individual table, everything in plush red upholstery. This was the perfect setting; it tied in with her new Twin Peaks themed concept of “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” a 2008 album and upcoming book, but more on that later. Amanda Came out and sang an acapellla version of “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”, which wowed everyone, before discarding her dress to storm into “Astronaut”. Almost two hours of music followed, all of it remarkable. There is little point in me attempting to fill you in on all of the aspects of this performer, as she does it very eloquently on her blog which you can read here. I will merely say that it was an amazing show. She has a gleeful mania about her when she plays that separates her from a great deal of her contemporaries and her uniqueness comes across in her live shows wonderfully. Enthusiastic and talented, if there is any justice, 2009 will be a great year for her.

I would love to go into a detailed description of the show, but I hate to slip into lengthy and superfluous detailing when, if you want to, you can always either watch the clips, or read the artists blogs. This is accompanied by the fact that it is insanely hard to review a live show without falling into the pitfalls of endless clichés and overused metaphors.

Highlights of the set for me included, “Ampersand”, “Half Jack”, “A Few of My Favourite Things”, “I Google You” and of course “Oasis”. She also treated us to “Trout Heart Replica”, “Colour Blind”, “Dear Old House” and “I Want You, But I Don’t Need You”. I have included a few clips from the show, this is not my footage as in my sleep deprived state of departure I had forgotten my camera (which I am now having surgically grafted to my arm, like a friendly Tetsuo).

Incidentally, Neil Gaiman was sitting at the table in front of us. After the show I summoned up the nerve to say a quick hello. This quick hello turned into a brief chat and I was very grateful to have had the chance to meet a charming and gracious person of whom I have a great deal of admiration for. I got to tell him that I was greatly looking forward to his reading the following day and he was saying how equally excited he was because it was the first time that himself and Amanda had attempted this performance format.

Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman have just collaborated on a book called “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” which consists of photographs of almost twenty different incarnations of AP. To be more specific, it consists of photographs of their corpses, with a short story being the death of each one, written by Mr. Gaiman. The reading was to be held in Chapters bookstore in Dublin, the following afternoon. Amanda would be performing a solo ukulele set as well.

After the show, Amanda was by the door, greeting, talking and signing various things for people. She seemed exhausted, but committed to standing there until everyone who wanted to say “hey” got to do so.

I have not included these pictures so that you can all look at an out of focus blurry fanboy phone pic, but check out the guy in the background.