Monday, October 26, 2009

Shaolin Cowboy Shall Ride Again


A mysterious, former monk-with-no-name travels the barren wastelands of the earth with a bounty on his head, accompanied by a talking mule named Lord Evelyn Dunkirk Winniferd Esquire the 3rd. A bizarre cast of characters pervades the weird visual world of THE SHAOLIN COWBOY.


GEOFF DARROW, co-creator of BIG GUY and RUSTY THE BOY ROBOT and HARD BOILED (along with Frank Miller), as well as the conceptual designer of the MATRIX trilogy for the WACHOWSKI BROTHERS, has finally announced that he will co-direct SHAOLIN COWBOY as a traditional animated feature along with a soon-to-be-named Japanese director. While he says the film will remain truthful to his highly detailed style (i.e. trash-strewn, corporate labels everywhere, etc.), the real draw of the announcement lies in his decision to go with traditional, hand-drawn animation versus the current trend of CGI . As a fan of his style, I champion the idea that old school is not dead, and that despite the incredible advances of digital animation, it only works when real talent is the motivation behind the tech.

Of course, realizing how long it takes for Geoff to illustrate a page, one can only hope that it doesn't take twice that to animate.


7 comments:

Samax said...

sounds cool. i wish they would bring the comic back... maybe as a series of ogns?

Anonymous said...

This title is what I consider to be an 'Artist's book'--- a visual feast to the illustrator/average consumer, but what S.C. really needs is story.

Just because they redefined the sci-fi genre, doesn't mean they can throw out anything and expect people not to hold them to the same standard of high quality/expectation.

The Infamous RodBuddah said...

Amen! I think with a fresh written approach to the book, the idea of OGN's actually sounds great!

Myron Macklin said...

I agree with Anon.

I thought this "looked" cool enough, but alas, even a beautiful woman must have some substance if she is to be more than a one off...not that I'm into one offs, or, er ah. You know..um *POOF*, I was never here...

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Mdoubble.

Style is great, but substance is EVERYTHING. Comic artists/creators need to keep that in mind like a COMMON track:

"I've seen brothas slammin' Her, and takin' Her to the sewer/ But Imma take it back, hoping that sh*t'll stop/ cuz what I'm talking bout y'all is Hip hop"

Just make that subtle substitution, and watch the game change!

The Infamous RodBuddah said...

Damn.

I thought I took it there! Thanks for chiming in, folks! I think we can ALL agree that while it looks good, it's gotta read good as well...

That's what we're all striving for here in the underground literary set.

Jay Potts said...

This sounds impressive and ambitious. I almost pity those poor animators, and envy their optometrists and orthopedic surgeons.

- JEP