Today’s shows: Necessary Monsters / The films of Park Chan-Wook

February 25, 2010 — Web comics month

Today on Resonance FM:

Strip! – Necessary Monsters

Cowboy 13 does his thing in the start of the three page epilogue to volume one of Necessary Monsters by Sean Azzopardi and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey

Concluding webcomics month on the show, Alex Fitch catches up with artist Sean Azzopardi and writer Daniel Merlin Goodbrey as the first series of their epic webcomic Necessary Monsters comes to its conclusion after a total of 125 pages serialised over two years. The series mixes a ‘black ops’ style spy thriller with the tropes of modern horror films and bizarre characters with ultra violence to maximum effect. Alex talks to Daniel and Sean about the progression of the strip, the various ways it’s been published and their collaborations with another webcomics creator – Douglas Noble – on a zombie western (The Rule of Death) and surrealistic thriller (Sightings of Wallace Sendek) respectively.

5pm 25/02/10, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast online tonight…

Links: Read Necessary Monsters online from page one, with more info about the cast of characters here
Reviews of chapters one and two and three and four on the Forbidden Planet International blog
Read an illustrated article on the construction of a page of the strip at www.comicmonsters.com

Sean’s website – www.phatcatz.org.uk
Daniel’s website – www.e-merl.com

Listen to Alex’s 2008 interviews with Sean and Daniel

Also – Lucky Cat: The films of Park Chan-Wook

Song Kang-ho and Kim Ok-bin in the film Thirst by Park Chan-Wook

Today’s episode of Resonance FM’s Asian culture show is a Park Chan-Wook special to coincide with the UK DVD release of the Korean auteur’s vampire film Thirst. Zoë Baxter is joined in the studio by Mira Stout (author of bestselling novel “One Thousand Chestnut Trees”, playwright, and film critic) and Alex Fitch (broadcaster and assistant editor of Electric Sheep film magazine) to discuss Thirst and Chan-Wook’s oeuvre.
Korean tea and snacks will be sampled for the Dim Sum Lunchbox.

7pm 25/02/10, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast online soon at www.luckykitty.blogspot.com…

Links: Wikipedia pages on Thirst and Park Chan-Wook

Listen to Alex’s appearance on Lucky Cat last year regarding the films of Tetsuya Nakashima
Listen to Alex’s 2008 interview with Park Chan-Wook, also available as an interview in Wheel Me Out magazine

Recommended events:

Five years of the Forbidden Planet International blog

The Forbidden Planet International blog celebrates its 5th birthday today and is an invaluable source of comics book and genre film news and reviews and a great friend of this blog. If you’ve never visited it before – and why not, it’s the 31st most influential blog in the UK according to Cision – now’s as good a time as any, with the latest post seeing the blog writers choosing their favourite authors and other recent posts include animation by Dylan Mercer, a review of Norwegian graphic novelist Jason’s latest book, info on Grant Morrison and Stephen Fry’s TV project and much, much more.

Web: www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog
RSS feed: www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/feed/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/fpinternational

Comic book signings

Thursday 25th February, 6pm, Andy Diggle and Jock will be signing ‘The Losers’ – a great Graphic Novel just about to become a great movie.

Saturday 27th February, 1pm meet Pat Mills and Clint Langley signing ‘ABC Warriors: Volgan War Vol.2’

Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR

Drawn Out and Painted Pink, an exhibition of cartoons by Kate Charlesworth and David Shenton

Throughout February 2010 The Drill Hall will be hosting and housing Drawn Out & Painted Pink, a cartoon exhibition by Kate Charlesworth and David Shenton documenting LGBT history from the 1970s to now.

“Like the best foreign correspondents (only funnier) their cartoons and comic strips have painted a devastatingly accurate self-portrait of LGBT life in the UK… They’ve got us bang to rights in the ways we were, the ways we are and the ways we could be. These are social documents of the highest order.”
Ellen Galford

The Drill Hall, Bloomsbury, West End, London WC1E 7EX