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Warren's Pub Table: [Closed] REMAKE/REMODEL: The Ghost Exterminator
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CommentAuthorwarrenellis
- CommentTimeJun 21st 2009
There was, way back in the mists of... 2007... a recurrent meme among several comics art blogs. Reclaiming characters from their owners, I guess it could be broadly described as... people were reimagining abused characters (chiefly Supergirl) as artistic call-and-response various places, chiefly LiveJournal. In the aftermath of that, I did a similar thing on old messageboard The Engine, called REMAKE/REMODEL. They were embraced as technical exercises, bits of fun, ways to get the brain moving. I think most people's favourite was the dear late Mike Wieringo's wondrous retro-aristo Buck Rogers...
I thought it might be an interesting thing to bring back here. So, once a week, I'll call a character, and you art types here can post images of your reinterpretation of that character. Photography and digital art is also fine, before anyone asks.
The point is REinterpretation: remake/remodel.
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Jess Nevins speaks:Ghost Exterminator. The Ghost Exterminator was created by Gelett Burgess and appeared in Cosmopolitan and possibly a few other magazines from 1904 through 1906.
The Exterminator is Hoku Tamanochi, a Japanese San Franciscan who uses an ancient Japanese formula and his family's traditional skills to exorcise the ghosts of San Francisco. Hoku sprays the ghosts with an ancient Japanese powder when he finds them; this turns them semi-solid, and he then uses a bellows to capture them. He then seals them in bottles, thus permanently trapping them.
Hoku is (unwillingly, at first) teamed up with the nameless narrator, who is Hoku's friend. The narrator analyzes the powder and creates a special compound of his own that does the same thing. He then begins stealing Hoku's business (some friend, eh?) and making an additional profit by selling the ghosts, which he can reconstitute with the help of radium. The narrator eventually fumbles things and Hoku is forced to save him. The Exterminator stories follow this pattern: the narrator gets greedy and is initially successful in using Hoku's ideas and methods, but eventually something goes wrong and Hoku is forced to ride in at the last minute and save the day.
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Your task, as ever, is to re-invent that into something a 21st Century audience could enjoy.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with, but bear in mind this is an ART thread. No pen-portraits. This is ART ONLY. Posting just a bunch of text, or a scribble and a vast number of words, will get the thread closed and your account banned.
You have one week. Go.
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Excellent. I couldn't come up with anything interesting for last week's thread but this seems right up my alley.
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Cosmo was a different kind of read back in the day, clearly...
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skipped last week's but this one sounds fun.
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Might have to sit this one out...I just found out that my publisher shaved 4 weeks off of my current book deadline, due to an accounting error. So now I have 6 weeks to illustrate and colour 40 pages of a graphic novel (a really lame, non violent graphic novel version of the Trojan Horse story, for kids) instead of the 10 weeks that I thought I had.
We'll see, hopefully I can slip something in because I don't want to miss out on any of these.
(It's my new drug, and more addictive than good tattoos.) -
This one sounds interesting. My brain is fried so I currently have zero ideas, but, I must say, I love that he was an Asian-American character from the early 20th century.
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CommentAuthorPaul Sizer
- CommentTimeJun 21st 2009
I'm driving all over Michigan this week, doing comic workshops for kids, but this one is just TOO good to pass up. Many ideas percolating, car time will be used well for sussing out which idea gets used. More as it happens... -
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Ha! It's a killer character this week and am also off and busy - Glastonbury festival here we come. Here's a quick one.
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I won't have time to finish this right now, so I'll upload the half-finished sketch in order to convince myself to accept the illusion that someone would like to see it finished. That way, I probably will finish it later today... Hopefully. Loving the Remake challenges, even though I'm not very good so far at properly transposing the ideas. Practice makes... better!
PS: Yes, my notepad seems to have very translucent paper. -
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CommentAuthor3millionyears
- CommentTimeJun 22nd 2009
@Yoav
Love the jar catching idea! -
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CommentAuthorharris-ejaz
- CommentTimeJun 22nd 2009
this should be fun. -
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Gah, Yoav. That's fantastic, and illustrates perfectly what's wrong with my own remodels... I'm not applying any creative re-thinking of the concept of the characters, I'm just drawing what I see described with minor additions/ changes.
I think I'll have to redo my idea, though I will finish the one I've started, just because it's good practice in drawing.
EDIT: I have an idea that's more of a proper remodel, so I'll get back to that later. Actually kind of excited about it. ( I LOVE THIS THREAD!!) -
- CommentAuthorKen Miller
- CommentTimeJun 22nd 2009 edited
@Yoav - brilliant entry. Enjoy Glastonbury!
The exterior of Hoku's modern-day offices.
Okay, I put ghost symbols where the 'o's were in the logo. And now it's occurred to me that, in my effort to make the ghosts nice and round (to resemble 'o's), I've gone and made the bloody spooks look a bit like sperm. Oh well... -
@Yoav: Bloody awesome stuff. The bottle on the arrow is neat, also I really like the optical sight. Would it be possible to get a desktop sized version?
@Ken Miller: Oooh the O ghosts are cool.
I really like this character. Just reading the description makes me want to bust out some maps of San Francisco and start writing stuff for the character. -
Jesus Yoav, nothing like raising the bar on the first post. :D
@Ken Miller Nice logo. -
@ Ken Miller - Thanks. Are you going to be as prolific this week? Like the direction.
@ Ginja - Wow. Thanks for the request:
1280 x 1024
1680 x 1050
@ 3 million years - cheers
@ Magnulus - I'm pretty new on this thread and have been battling to push away from the character and do something a bit different. Looking forward to seeing what you do.
@ kperkins - Ha! I think I'm going to do quick ones more often! -
Japanese wife informs that neither Hoku nor Tamanochi is. Oddly though, Hoku is Hawaiian for star. Abe no Seimei is the most famous practitioner of onmyoodoo which would encompass extermination of ghosts.
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- CommentAuthorKen Miller
- CommentTimeJun 22nd 2009
@Yoav
Don't know if I'm going to be as prolific this week: I'm worn out!
@kperkins
Glad you like the logo. -
Yoav : Oh, I just realised that what I said was a bit unclear: I meant that you illustrated perfectly what was MISSING from my own concept, namely the creative remodel. You did that very well, I didn't. I was reading my post again after you answered and realised that it seemed like I was deliberately trying to offend you or something. I wasn't. The highest of praise goes to you. ^_^
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@ Magnulus - Mate. Totally didn't see any offense in your comment. It was so complimentary! Was agreeing with you that the Remake/Remodel thread is a tough challenge, I've been trying to find the "creative remodel" too and, hopefully, am starting to get my head around it. No worries! Words - a fickle mistress - lets just draw.