Pipeline and Sundry: Asterix at the Movies, Harmony’s Soundtrack, New Comics!
The Next Asterix Movie (Trailer)
I don’t think I ever posted the movie trailer for this December’s Asterix movie. So here it is:
Obviously, it’s too early to tell whether it will be good or not, but there’s something about the animation in that trailer that’s bothering me. The skin looks too much like plastic, like these are action figures acting things out.
One possible problem is that not being able to see Getafix’s mouth moving as he talks under that beard is troublesome. The other thing I noticed is that all the acting happens directly to the camera. There’s not enough stuff working side or side, or just off the axis of the rigging of the models the CGI is using.
I’ll keep an open mind, though. This is just a trailer. It’s inconclusive, by its very nature. No need to worry yet.
The lighting is great and the staging looks superb, though. I look forward to catching this one on Blu-ray at some point.
Animating With Uderzo and Goscinny
This is exciting, though I fear we’ll never see it in English.
Patrick Cohen worked as an animator in the Idefix Studios in the 1970s. That’s the company Goscinny and Uderzo set up to do their own animation projects. It didn’t last terribly long. Cohen is now telling stories from his time there in a graphic novel, supplemented by a bunch of text pages with more stories.
I’d love to read this one. It’s available now in French.
There’s a video to go along with this that has a lot of archival footage from the studio and some animation examples in it. Again, it’s all in French, but it’s fun to skip through and see some of the artists at work.
Sound and Comics
That cover creeps me out.
The fourth book in Mathieu Reynes’ “Harmony” series just came out in France last week. To accompany it, the Bratislava Orchestra recorded a soundtrack to listen to as you read it. It’s available as a YouTube playlist (possible spoilers in the accompanying images), or on the Harmony website, where you can find soundtracks for the first three albums, as well.
This Week’s Big Releases
Europe Comics released a bunch of books this week. Two in particular are of interest to me:
Glorious Summers hits its third volume this week. Four are already out with a fifth on the way for Christmas time. I’ve reviewed Volume 1 and Volume 2 previously…
Invincible v1 also is out now. I’m half waiting for a press release where Skybound asks them to change their name, but for now it seems safe. It’s an amazing and interesting book with creative uses of the comic book format. I plan on having a full review of it out shortly. Stay tuned…
October’s Big Release
It’s official and it’s available for pre-order today:
It will be available on October 17. Expect my review around October 18th or so…
Yes, it’s the grand finale of Jose-Luis Munuera’s series, which makes me a little sad. But I can’t wait to read this one. I haven’t been this excited for a new comic in a long time.
Oh sweet! An Imbattable translation! Before spending money on a digital English translation I’ll wait some more for a Dutch physical edition (can’t believe it doesn’t exist already), but I’m happy that I’m able to read it now!
“I’m half waiting for a press release where Skybound asks them to change their name, but for now it seems safe.”
Wouldn’t that be free publicity? 😉 No, I don’t know squat about how companies deal with these kind of these things. Could it end up costing Europe Comics a lot of money if it turns out they can’t use this title?
I have a feeling that if Skybound filed paperwork on this to defend their trademark, Europe Comics or Dupuis would just change the name. It would cost them some money to re-letter the files, but that’s about it. I don’t think there’d be a penalty or additional costs past whatever legal fees would be necessary to settle things.
But, yes, it would be free publicity and I’d love it for this book. =) (It’s the old Barbara Streisand effect in action.)
That’s good then.
Yeah, this comic definitely deserves a large audience! One of the best gag comics I’ve seen.
Re: Invincible. I don’t think Robert Kirkman has much to worry from these guys.
Watching the Asterix trailer, I just realized something very sad. Most, if not all of the French original voice actors are probably dead at this point and we are now falling victim of that nasty american trend that the voice work is now done by “name” actors so they can promote the movie, instead of traditionally trained theater actors who used to do it until, I don’t know, the nineties or something like that. They used to have that unmistakable quality, that depth, that instant recognizability that, in my opinion, is now lost.
Strangely enough we don’t hear Asterix talk in this clip, so a quick internet search later, it seems that Roger Carel, the legendary voice actor who used to BE Asterix is still alive but he’s 91 and apparently he retired from Asterix in 2014. That’s a real shame, for us French people he used to be Kermit from the Muppets, C3PO, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Alf, Benny Hill, Kaa and countless others. He also had a solid movie career way back when he was younger. He’s our Mel Blanc, Times Ten, if you will. Wonder who’s doing the voice in this one.
Btw on which album is this based?
The problem with trademarks is that you have to defend them. If someone comes in with a comic book named “Invincible” when you have a trademark on the title “Invincible” for a comic book, you need to do something about it or you risk losing it. Doesn’t even matter if it’s a big publisher or not. Or, hey, maybe they’ve already worked out something behind the scenes and we’ll never know….
The name actor thing in animated movies is particularly frustrating to me. True story: I was once a member of an APA about animation in the early 90s. I wrote one of my articles for that APA on the scourge of “big name Hollywood actors” being given the starring roles in animated films for no good reason other than name recognition. Abilities, be damned.
Sadly, it’s the norm now. There’s no going back. Pity.
Carel sounds like a great guy. That’s an impressive variety of voices to come out of his mouth.
This movie is not based on any book, in particular. It’s a new story. They might lift gags or subplots from a book somewhere, but it’s all about Getafix being the Bus Factor of 1. (Hmmm, sounds like a familiar topic….)