As anyone who knows me is already aware, much of my work is inspired by the great films that I’ve seen over the years.  And while truly great movies like “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, “Nosferatu” and  “A Touch of Evil” have inspired me to put pen to paper (or brush to canvas), so too have lesser appreciated, but no less fabulous, films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Suspiria” and “Mad Max”.  I’m a fan of the great movie genres –blaxploitation (”Shaft”, “Black Gestapo”, “Trouble Man”), the 60’s biker films (”Wild Angels”, “Born Losers”, “Hell’s Belles”), and horror films- both good (”Halloween”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, “The Exorcist”) and just plain crazy (”Night of the Lepus”, “Frogs”, “Excorcist II”). But there’s a special place in my heart for the exploitaion film. “Reefer Madness”, “High School Confidential”, “Angel”, “Hollywood Vice”- these are films that grab your lapels and demand you watch them.  And certainly among the brightest stars of the B movie/ exploitation genre is the great Russ Meyer.

Along with superstars like John Waters, Doris Wishman, William Castle, Tom Laughlin, Herschel Gordon Lewis and Arch Hall Sr, Russ Meyer has done as much as anyone to shape my world view (much to my parent’s chagrin). The panel above is from my book, Vatican Hustle.  Any sharp-eyed Russ Meyer fan will recognize the Pope’s line as an homage to the greatest line in one of Meyer’s greatest films, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”. While attending an ultra chic, swinging 60’s industry party, Z-Man Bartell (AKA Superwoman) is so utterly enthralled with his scene that he feels compelled to blurt out to no one in particular, “This is my happening! And it freaks me out!”. Well, given the opportunity to do a graphic novel I felt I would have been remiss if I didn’t include a nod to the awesome RM!

Another thing I like about this panel is the reference to Moxie Cola. I don’t know if anyone reading this is from New England. I am not and so had never tasted Moxie Cola. That is, until I was visiting my good friend Dave “Slaughterhouse” Gillis and his family in Maine.  Dave, a child of Maine, warned me about the bottle of Moxie that I was about to buy at a little shop in his town.  He said it was an aquired taste and that I might regret buying it. So, gentleman that he is (despite his nickname), he bought it and gave me the first sip. To describe Moxie Cola as being an aquired taste was, at best, an understatement. It’s a bit like drinking tar, fire and hatred. If Hell had a taste, it would be sort of like Moxie Cola…maybe a little fruitier. Anyway, I was glad to be able to incorporate these two cultural touchstones into the pages of my book. If you’re not hip to Russ Meyer, hit the dvd store pronto! And if you’ve managed to avoid the siren’s call of Moxie, consider yourself lucky and don’t look back.

“A giant in French comics, Trondheim  has always been a marvelous observer of the extraordinary little moments in everyday existence. All rendered in the simple but expressive and versatile style that has always been one of his greatest strengths.
Verdict: Recommended for those who appreciate low-key but charming autobiographical comics.”

 Library Journal

“Trondheim’s third collection of musings on his personal life maintains its predecessors’ high caliber of narrative and art.  All of which entails swimming with sharks, coping with giant spiders, obsessing about consumerism while engaging in gadget lust, watching the family cat prey on a bird, and lots more equally engaging and ironic adventures.”

Booklist

“For connoisseurs of serious literature and film as well as graphic novels.”
says Booklist of Naomi Nowak’s new Graylight.

Lewis Trondheim’s newest entry in his comics blog collection of Little Nothings (vol.3: Uneasy Happiness) gets these words from Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter:

“It’s one of the few series that vaults to the head of the reading pile whenever it shows up in the mailbox. For whatever reason, Trondheim’s diary comics play to a number of things I nearly always find enjoyable in comics: an acerbic and idiosyncratic world view, pretty pictures, frequent gags, places I’ve never visited, comics industry backstage anecdotes made real. It’s smart and well-executed, and I always laugh despite myself at least once — in this volume it was the punchline to the strip about how cool it might be to be a caveman.
We don’t really have anything else like this comic right now, not in North America, not someone this talented working this particular territory with such reliable clarity.”

Now, if only he would review our other books… mumblmumbl.

I’ll be honest, I can’t think of anything more fun to draw then some one tromping through the woods… and as a result you’ll find many a panel of Tesana + crew doing just that.  Besides it being the perfect excuse to scribble trees and live vicariously through my characters (because lets face it, running around outside is so much more fun then sitting at a big dumb desk) it’s also a great device to visually express complete aimlessness and further establish that the characters are lost and out of their element. 

.  … but mostly I just like drawing trees.   

                               SHE’S       COMING      SOON,    Y’ALL     GET      READY!

PRE-ORDER  A HOME for Mr.EASTER HERE!

  p.s. thanks for all those lovely comments and support for the book and NBM!

       HURRAY  COMICS!

“The Year of Loving Dangerously is just the second book I’ve read of Ted Rall’s, the first being his account of his travels along the Silk Road in Silk Road to Ruin. I quite enjoyed the latter, how he combined his memories of the trip with accurate descriptions of the people and political climes of the countries he visited along the Silk Road. This book didn’t disappoint, either. A graphic memoir that presents this one particular year, a year of many hardships to Ted Rall, realistically and often humorously, it shows what a person can do if he or she doesn’t give up when faced with a seemingly insurmountable roadblock. Though Rall considered suicide at one point in the book, he fortunately toughed it out and carried on. This story gives hope to us all.”

So says Curled Up with a Good Book

The next one, from Andrew Wheeler, is more nuanced:

“Rall’s story of the summer of 1984 is worthy of a graphic novel.” He starts to say but: “It does have a tendency to come across as bragging. But Rall’s dialogue and narration keep the story flowing, and Callejo (artist of Bluesman) draws a lot of very attractive women in and out of bed with the young Ted Rall. I still have the feeling that Rall is telling this story in a very slanted way — that he’s very carefully chosen how to present this time in his life to make himself look as glamorous and positive as possible — but it’s a very readable graphic memoir that will make all men close to Rall’s age either remember their own youth fondly or wish fervently that they’d been more “active” back in the day.”
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

And there have been some much more scathing reviews of late on that note of Rall just showing off, including Rob Clough on The Comics Journal’s site where the art was also criticized which surprises us:

“A book that was all over the place: frequently entertaining, often baffling and contradicting itself at any number of turns.  If only it had been Rall’s own hand depicting these events, then this messiness might have held a greater appeal.”

 Most love the art but some just can’t get into the more realistic style Callejo chose, apparently. Also, interesting that all women who reviewed this, and there were many, didn’t see Rall as bragging, in fact they admired his survival skills!

The very popular daily strip for Librarians “Unshelved” recommends The Big Khan.

And this book, by the way, has gone back to press!