SPECTATORS - Part 69, dudes!
Plus, BKV rambles about Stanley Kubrick.
Hey, are you planning to see Barbie and/or Oppenheimer in an actual movie theater this month?
Brian here, and when we launched Spectators in the ancient past of 525 days ago, lots of us (including our protagonist Val) were cautiously returning to public filmgoing for the first time since March of 2020. I never dreamed that many of us would be back to eating Junior Mints in semi-packed, mostly maskless houses this quickly, but it’s been fucking great to regularly see movies on the big screen again.
I caught an old classic for the first time this past Saturday, but more on that after today’s new pages from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks. Apologies to you pervy numerologists that this 69th installment isn’t particularly smutty, but you nevertheless get a spectacular new double-page spread from Niko, and the promise/threat of much more graphic sex to come…
Thanks as always to Fonografiks for the lovely work on my alphabet soup this week.
And congrats to him, Fiona Staples, and everyone at Image Comics for Saga Volume Ten being named a finalist for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic.
The Hugos are the highest honor in science fiction/fantasy, and more importantly, they give out the absolute most badass trophy (with a uniquely sculpted base each year!), one that Saga Volume One was lucky enough to bring home in 2013:
It’s a tremendous honor for Saga to be nominated again a decade later, and a joy to still be telling this story with the same friends and for the same endlessly supportive publisher as when our unreal journey began.
Speaking of decades, I’ve now known Niko Henrichon for more than two of them, and he remains one of the most generous people I’ve ever met.
Each month, Niko gives away a page of hand-painted Spectators art (a few of which are still available for purchase over at Essential Sequential) to one of you paid subscribers, and next week, he’ll be mailing out this emotional moment to one of you lucky members of The Tower:
If you want a shot at winning, you don’t have to comment in our weekly chat threads or anything (though we welcome your participation!), just subscribe at the monthly or annual level, and you’ll be automatically entered in this contest every month.
The Tower’s generous contributions directly support our ongoing work on this 300-plus-page epic, many thanks again.
How’d you like this swell pen from an amazing Stanley Kubrick exhibit (more pics below) that I caught at the Design Museum in the UK back in 2019?
All you have to do to be entered in this giveaway is answer our question of the week: What’s your favorite Kubrick film?
If you’ve never seen one or just don’t like the guy’s work, no judgment, feel free to instead tell us about any other movies you’re thinking about spectating this summer.
Kubrick’s my all-time favorite director, but there are a handful of his early works that I never saw, mostly because Kubrick himself felt they were somehow compromised.
But this past weekend, Spartacus was playing on the big screen as part of an American Cinematheque series celebrating the Golden Age of 70mm filmmaking, so I decided to finally watch this three-hour film that Kubrick himself “virtually disowned.”
Before I get to my snap judgments about this piece of cinema history from 1960, I hope you’ll agree that attempting to “rank” any form of art is always pointless and counterproductive…
…and yet, lists are totally awesome, so, as of last Friday (before I saw Spartacus), here were:
BKV’S TOP 10 FAVE KUBRICK JOINTS
The Shining - I know, I know, figures that the dummy who helped make Under the Dome would downvote this vastly superior adaptation of Stephen King, but I promise this seemingly low ranking is only because of how highly I regard Kubrick’s other movies. I mean, it’s obviously one of the greatest horror movies ever (even if I prefer the book, one of the greatest novels about being a novelist). Anyway, just be glad I reluctantly bumped the fantastic Killer’s Kiss off this Top Ten to make room for ol’ Jack Torrance.
Lolita - Because of the disturbing subject matter, I’d avoided this one for a long time, but finally watched after hearing director David Lynch describe how much he loves it. Like a Lynch film, Lolita is pitch black and deeply strange, but also oddly hilarious. (Weird that it opens with a cringe-y joke about Spartacus though, which felt a little like when Spielberg ill-advisedly referenced Jaws at the start of 1941.)
A Clockwork Orange - The rare adaptation that I love even more than the (extraordinary) source material. Funnish Fact: In my script for Saga Chapter 54, I suggested to Fiona that the otherworldly device Hazel uses to play her beloved “Fartbox” album might take inspiration from the weird futuristic mini-cassette player Alex used to listen to Beethoven in Clockwork.
