SPECTATORS - Part Seven
Twenty-seven pages down...
Oh boy, the Monday after daylight savings! Are you also filled with pep and joie de vivre this fine afternoon?
A reminder that we’ll try to brighten your week with FREE new comic pages every Monday, and bonus content for our paid subscribers in The Tower (and sometimes the rest of you when we’re feeling generous) every Friday, so if you haven’t been getting those weekly missives, please check your inbox’s you-know-what filter—especially because those things seem to hate our periodically naughty subject matter—and add us to your contacts.
Or just try the swell new Substack app? Up to you.
For now, more Spectators! Here’s a brief recap of what happened to professional television recapper Val moments after she was brutally shot to death:
And now, after 25 harrowing pages inside the same Manhattan theater (the longest single scene I think I’ve ever written), our eventually epic graphic novel begins to open up…
Next Monday, a new character joins our tale.
How was your weekend?
Human Son and I saw The Batman, our first movie in a theater together since Pixar’s Onward on March 7, 2020, when a nervous young talent agent was giving away free tickets outside the (sadly since shuttered) Sherman Oaks Arclight, begging parents worried about this weird Covid thing to come inside and support one of their clients’ new projects.
Anyway, it was awesome to finally be back in the dark with the kid two years later, and we both thought the movie was great. I particularly loved the score, my favorite superhero soundtrack in a very long time. Man, I can’t think of many creators in any medium with the relentless ingenuity, skill and range of composer Michael Giacchino.
When I started working as a baby writer on LOST, I saw a rough cut of the first episode I had helped work on, and was convinced that I had completely broken the show. The performances were brilliant as always, cinematography was breathtaking, editing was taut…but everything still felt off. Another writer finally explained, “Relax, there’s no Giacchino yet.”
As a viewer, I’d loved the show’s wholly unique music, but I had no idea how much heavy lifting that score did, not just elevating the story, but sometimes completely transforming entire scenes.
Cool to hear that Michael is doing more directing, since he’s already been one of our best storytellers for a very long time…
Any music recommendations from YOU?
Your recent (or recently discovered) new favorites welcome in the comments, thanks.
Here’s a current replay addiction of mine:
Free comics AND music? Isn’t your Monday better already, Garfield?
Later this week, the unstoppable Niko Henrichon will be back with another eye-opening artistic autopsy (or Artopsy, as coined by triumphantly returned letterer/designer/portmanteau-creator Fonografiks), so if you haven’t already, why not join our merry Tower?
Not the planet, not spinning,
Brian
Wow. Those colors, and the lack of, are amazing! Thanks again!
New - Bonobo's new album Fragments
Old - Headhunters era Herbie Hancock, especially Secrets
Wow, can't wait to see where this story will go from there - I am really enjoying the slow pace this keeps unfolding week by week! Also, I can totally see how LOST without the score would feel very, very different, thanks for that behind-the-scenes-peek! Bit of a left-field-question: I distinctly remember an episode of Top Chef with all of you LOST writers as guest judges but I have since found no reference to it anywhere online. That did really happen, right? Seeing how both shows are/were extremely popular I find it odd that I can't even find the season or episode mentioned anywhere.