Sunday, May 17, 2015

Ask Baba Yaga: How Can I Live With Such A Large Rat?

Vasilissa Most Lovely by Robin Jacques
Although today's question appears fairly specific, there are many variations on this theme - and Baba Yaga's answer gives food for thought (and perhaps explains a thing or two).

Today's timely question and answer (via poet and oracle Taisia Kitaiskaia* of The Hairpin):
(Originally posted at The Hairpin HERE)

"...nightly gnawings at the heart." That does explain why under certain circumstances it can be so difficult to sleep. 

Wishing you all rat free rest this weekend.

What do you think of Baba Yaga's advice?

Want to ask Baba Yaga a question of your own?
You can!
There's now an email address where you can send your questions
directly to Baba Yaga herself.
AskBabaYaga AT gmail DOT com
To encourage Baba Yaga to continue imparting her no-bones-about-it wisdom (ok, there may be some gristle in there... bones too), I suggest we not to leave her box empty... 

Thank you Baba Yaga (& Taisia).


Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. Born in Russia and raised in America, she's had her poems and translations published in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others.

Friday, May 15, 2015

The Garden Ape

Welcome to the point of view of The Garden Ape.

Before I say anything else, take a look:
I was completely taken with this when I first saw this, and it's currently my son's favorite 'magical creature'. This ad, which is part of a promotional campaign for Wonderlijk Wild aka, Miraculously Wild, is an effort to encourage home gardening in Belgium. It was created by Emma & Marc to show the feeling of wonder a child can have exploring the outdoors, even in such an area as your own backyard.
You're probably wondering what on earth (heh) it has to do with fairy tales. Before you accuse me of seeing and relating everything, everywhere to fairy tales (which, I do - and I don't see that to be a problem), when I saw the little boy staring out the window at the ape, I immediately thought of Iron Hans, and of the importance of getting in touch with your 'wild' side. (It also sort of reminds me of a domovoi , if it ever found it's way outside...)

Once I made the connection the ape really looked more like a Wild Man than an ape to me and I have seen it that way ever since.
Now Jack (my son) imagines he sees the ape everywhere in our garden (you'd think only very little kids would respond this way but seven and eight year olds adore this too - which is the perfect age to encourage a little more of the wild-side of exploring) and is even more keen to spend time among the green outside. I only wish we lived in a more lush place (we're currently in the middle of a drought here on the edge of a desert) so he could have more of a 'wild adventure' but we're working on making that happen this summer for him.
The ape is made of felted wool and is completely shot with live-action puppeteering (no CG).

Here's the booklet with tips from The Garden Ape on getting your wild side going. You can download a PDF version HERE (do 'save link as' on the link.) It's in Dutch but it's very visual so if you have kids, this will be great for your family if you'd like to encourage some gardening:

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Bill Willingham on the End of "Fables" and The Power of Folklore

By Nimit Malavia - front view of the wrap-around cover for the final issue of Fables


Note: Just for fun, the first image in this post is the cover for the upcoming, very last issue of Fables, while the last image is of the very first Fables cover. Throughout I've put 'in progress' sketches, some are the designs used and some are ones that were never published until the Special Edition hard covers.

Bill Willingham, creator of the long running comic series Fables, was just at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) a couple of weekends ago, and took some time to talk to The Mary Sue about a few things, including the status of the Fables movie (as far as he knows), how it feels to be at the end of Fables and, among other things, his opinion on the power of folklore. The Mary Sue posted their interview at the beginning of the week and...
I have to share!

So here's what Bill Willingham has to say on fairy tales, mythology and folklore, via The Mary Sue (emphasis in bold is mine):
TMS: I’m always curious why certain nursery rhymes or certain fairytales–stuff that isn’t mythology–
Willingham: Well it’s folklore, and folklore is mythology told by people who stopped being impressed with you. Mythology is “oh the Gods are this and that and mysterious and exciting,” and folklore is “well I’m going to tell you the tale of the Gods, but I’ve been their housekeepers for 600 years, and I know how he used to poop his diapeys. I am not impressed.” There’s a sense of wonder, there’s a sense of justice and absurdity, but not a sense of removal, you’re right in there. This is a story that doesn’t happen to important people far away, it happened to me or my aunt. So I like that, I like the immediacy.
When I was putting Fables together, I like this idea of a hidden community, and it was either going to be mythology characters or fairy tale characters, I liked both. The origin of my love for fairytales was when I discovered that they’re folklore. You know as a kid, fairytales, I liked them but I was not in love with or that impressed by them, it was just ‘these are the things that are available.’ But then, there’s this show Bullwinkle, and within this show there’s a cartoon called “Fractured Fairytales” wherein they take fairy tales and tell them in funny, mocking ways. As a kid I assumed there were rules for everything. So I’m watching this thing about the big bad wolf or something, and I knew this was not how it went, and I expressed my outrage. My mother was there and I said “how can they do this? Aren’t they going to get in trouble? This is not how it happens!” And without knowing the term public domain, she explained the whole thing. “These are folklore, they belong to the folk.”
Folklore–the thing I love about it–is it belongs to everyone, but not in a community. It’s not like we get together and decide what we’re going to do with our ownership of this, we individually own 100% of it. Every single human being who exists. We’re all born rich with this wonderful treasure.

             


Thank you Bill! I want to cheer in response to that last part in particular.

He goes on to talk about criticism, using the "a cat can look at a king" saying, which fits well on this theme. Here he's talking about how the internet has affected expression of ideas, feedback and how that's a good thing (the middle man and gatekeepers are often cut out) and a bad thing (the lack of manners and being able to converse civilly is being shown to be seriously lacking.)

Willingham: There’s an old saying I used to love, “a cat can look at a king.” Which is, there’s no person that’s so great that the great unwashed masses are physically unable to see them, the peasant and the king still share some commonality. And now with the Internet, that is the case. What we’re trying to do is figure out the rules of life now, because the Internet has changed everything. So we’ve come up with notions and spread wacky ideas. The notion that ‘I can dress this way but you shouldn’t be looking at me,’ in my mind that’s nonsense because a cat can look at a king. Anyone can look at anyone. And yet that’s a thing we’re wrestling with now, but we’re not really wrestling with that, we’re wrestling with ‘it’s a whole new world, and we’ve lost manners along the way and we’re beginning to perceive that we need them.’ But to call them manners and etiquette and things like that is kind of old fogey, so we’re coming up with new terms...

You can read the rest of his response and ideas about the internet, and how they affect creators in the interview - definitely worth it, if you're a writer, artist or working the public in any way.

You can read the whole article HERE, which isn't at all your standard interview at all. I also really like how he talked about his approach when beginning to work with the first, and very quickly the main or key artist, Mark Buckingham on Fables. Willingham's 'version' of the Hippocratic oath, "first, tell the story", which was the golden first pass editing rule for any script or idea. I love it.
Re the Fables movie - as far as he knows, it's still happening but has had issues with the script so there's a new writer on board now (I do't know if it's the same one that was announced not long ago, or if this has happened since). Most importantly, he has great respect for the writer and is happy to see them on board. But no other new details.

                     
The Guardian also had a nice and personal summary and tribute to the end of the Fables series and Willinghams' work, which you can find HERE. Here are some extracted highlights:

By the end of this month, after 13 years of stories, Bill Willingham’s multiple award-winning series, Fables, will reach its 150th and final issue. What a long, strange, sweet, weird, sad, rambunctious, irreverent, wistful and elating ride it has been.
Besides the series itself, there have the spin-offs: the 50 issues of Jack of Fables, two volumes of Cinderella adventures, 33 issues of Fairest, The Wolf Among Us and Werewolves of the Heartland and 1001 Nights of Snowfall and Peter and Max and The Last Castle.
...The idea was so brilliantly simple it was immediately complex. In Fables, there has been a coup d’état across the realms of the imagination, orchestrated by The Adversary. The huddled masses of familiar faces – Cinderella and Snow White, Little Boy Blue and Prince Charming, the Wicked Witch and Bluebeard – find sanctuary in our world. Made glamorous by their magic, they create a safe haven for themselves in New York and an upstate hideaway for the Three Little Pigs, Chicken Little, Reynard the Fox and Tom Thumb (who’s dating Thumbelina, OMG) and all the other Fables who wouldn’t quite manage to pass themselves off as “mundanes” if you met them in Central Park.
The genius of Fables was to be as expansive as the fairytales themselves. The first few issues were a gumshoe detective mystery, with Bigby Wolf, who used to be both big and bad, trying to solve the mystery of Rose Red’s death. Then it shifted to political thriller, to comedy, to romance, to caper, to horror, to metafictional gallimaufry, to tragedy, to farce, to elegy, to slapstick.
Its success has demonstrated the resilience of fairytales themselves – I can imagine editorial meetings where they might have said “Can we really stretch Cinderella into a covert Modesty Blaize figure without the sexism? Or the Frog Prince, can he be a bit like Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin? And that crazy badger, Brock – OK to make him a religious fanatic?” They stretched it and stretched it and it did not break.
I want to include more, but you really should read it in context for yourself. There's enough of a summary for those familiar with most to be reminded and enough of the plot to catch you up if you missed some of the big stuff, but it still leaves plenty to be surprised by.

If you wondered what happened to the Fairest series, that wrapped with Issue #33, concentrating on the baddest bad girl in Willingham's universe: Goldilocks. There's a great interview about it HERE.

The Fables comic series finishes in JULY this year (currently scheduled for release July 22nd) with the giant 150th - aka FINAL - issue. Here's the official write-up:
Fables final issue #150: Written by Bill Willingham, art by Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Andrew Pepoy, Mark Schultz, Gene Ha, Neal Adams and others, wraparound cover by Nimit Malavia. 
Final issue. It's the final trade paperback volume of Fables! No, wait -- it's Fables #150, the grand finale of the best-selling, award-winning comic book series! And it's also an original graphic novel in the tradition of 1001 Nights of Snowfall! Yes, it's all this and more! Join us for 150 -- that's, right, 150! -- pages of new stories starring your favorite Fables, all from the mind of Bill Willingham. It all starts with an 80-page lead story illustrated by series regulars Mark Buckingham and Steve Leialoha, plus stories illustrated by Mark Schultz, Gene Ha, Neal Adams, Andrew Pepoy and many more! 
The final bows for Boy Blue, Stinky, Lake and more in this once-in-a-lifetime issue that also features a foldout cover by Nimit Malavia that opens into a four-panel mural! It's even got metallic ink! 
160 pages, $17.99, in stores on July 22. 
Note: Fables artists featured above are: Top of post - Nimit Malavia, Joao Ruas - winged monkey versions and the 100th issue versions, James Jean - all the rest.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Advertising: A Very Different Take On "The Tortoise and the Hare" for Transport for London Ad

This is a completely different take on Aesop's fable. Usually you see it with portrayed with (essentially) a laugh track - this... notsomuch. 

This is a sobering modern retelling, released in March this year (2015).

And it's very effective.
Here's the double-up poster - hare one way with a warning and a tortoise the other with an affirmation
                                   
                                               A not very healthy-looking hare
A happy looking tortoise
                  

In case you hadn't guessed, the campaign is, indeed, marketed at teens, with the idea of #ThinkSlow

I hate that we seem to need these sorts of PSAs at all, but I'd rather put up with PSAs, knowing they might even save one life, than have the alternative.
Pippa MacSherry, head of marketing operational at TfL, said the work is a natural extension of the long-running ‘Don’t let your friendship die on the road’ campaign. 
“By encouraging a more considered approach to crossing the road, we hope to reduce the number of pedestrian road related collisions. The campaign updates and re-imagines the classic tale of the hare and the tortoise – to show how ‘slow’ wins out,” she said.
Ed Palmer, managing partner at M&C Saatchi, commented: “It’s perilously easy to patronise and finger wag with this audience. Putting a modern twist on a well-known fable allows us to land our message without resorting to the more well-trodden type of cautionary tale to which this audience has become inured. The creative approach was to make safe roadside behaviour more appealing and aspirational for this audience.” 
The campaign will run across video-on-demand, cinema and social from early March and builds on neuro-scientific research which suggests the target age range is less likely to exercise restraint.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Advertising: Mercedes Benz's "Fable"


Stories about speed: what comes to mind? Pretty much just one, in my experience: The Tortoise and the Hare.

Although it's been out for a good couple of months now I only caught it on TV about a week ago and thought I should investigate further for you. This is the Mercedes Benz take on Aesop's well known fable, and they do a stellar job, I have to say.

Here's the ad (see if you can see the cameos by other common Aesop animals throughout):
Poor raven! (Nice story touch, though, I have to say.)

This was an ad that premiered at the Super Bowl in February this year (2015) and the company loved their characters so much they set up Twitter accounts to show the rivalry  - and character differences, and jokes and 'specialized products' - between the contestants.

Here are a few of their photos and you can find the witty repartee HERE for the Tortoise's half, and HERE for the Hare's.

I'm going to include the making-of video as well because, for those filmmakers and storytellers out there, I want you to see what a difference the on-location of an actual forest, with weather, makes, as well as this beautiful scene-building sequence made of a bunch of different elements, broken down so you can see them all added in a little magical sequence of it's own. (Animation buffs, you'll like this whole video too.)

The storybook scene building sequence begins around the 40 second mark and they show you the on-location forest and weather stuff a bit later.

Enjoy!

(You can read and see a whole lot more from the behind-the-scenes process HERE.)
And as a bonus, here are some fun screen shots: