American Horror Story - My New Favorite show

I've been a bit obsessed with horror this last while. More specifically, I've been obsessed with 'American Horror Story', and it's got me thinking I wanna work on some kinda horror project of my own. No idea what form that will take as yet, but I wanna get some thoughts down on AHS and why it appeals to me so much. (I'm not gonna spoil anything- just noodle for a bit. Also, I haven't watched the third series yet, which is being touted as the best yet- WOOHOO!)

First off, there's plenty of things to complain about. 

It lacks focus. The first season especially just seemed to fling every horror cliche at the wall in the hope that some of it stuck. This often results in narrative dead-ends, dangling story threads and straight-up plot holes, which usually drive me nuts. 

Also, in the second series particularly, they often just forget the scary completely- which should be as big a crime as a comedy forgetting the funny. 

Finally, and this is something I personally don't have much of a problem with, but can see why it would be off-putting to others; lots of stuff is explored that could be viewed as ill-suited to a trashy horror series- I'm talking here about physical and mental disabilities, rape, child abuse etc. This is even harder to justify when one considers the tongue-in-cheek tone of the programme.

But onto the things I like. What first grabbed me is that it is genuinely scary in places. Difficulty-sleeping-scary. For a horror aficionado, it's like a junkie discovering a new variant on a drug they'd long ago built up a near-total tolerance to. It's not important that it is shamelessly retreading old horror themes (and when did you last encounter an effective new horror theme?)- so long as they are handled well and in a reasonably fresh manner, which AHS achieves in spades.

The second thing that got me was the quality of the performances. With the exception of Dylan McDermott (who has the kind of blandly handsome face that makes it hard for me to see him as anyone other than Dylan McDermott) the cast are all impeccable and are given the material to really let rip. As everyone everywhere has noted, Jessica Lange is the undisputed queen, chewing up and spitting out every line she gets, but really everyone else nails their roles too. This is especially important in the second series where, as I mentioned above, the scares are a lot more thin on the ground than in the first. But the quality of the acting and the unfolding mysteries keeps me watching. 

Which leads me on to the structure. The decision to have each season as a self-contained story, complete with new setting, characters and themes, is a masterstroke. Only when I'd started watching it did I realise how tired I'd got of having to 'get into' a series from the beginning, and the attendant compulsion to 'see it through to the end'. For one thing, it's become the way all TV shows are devised, and it's also totally at odds with the way the TV industry in the US works. How many shows have you got invested in, only for the network to pull the plug because viewing figures weren't up to snuff, and you're left with a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion. Or worse, a show that was never meant to last more than one or two seasons is a surprise hit, so the execs attempt to spin it out longer than it was ever meant to be. Watching AHS I was struck by the cleverness of their solution, and surprised that it hadn't been attempted before (to my knowledge, at least).

Also, as I touched on earlier, there's the tone. While I'm sure plenty of people will find the black humour doesn't jive for them with some of the sick shit that happens onscreen, for me it works great. It's just the right mix of the disturbing and camp- anyone who's ever loved a Hammer classic should appreciate what they've done here. It's a pleasant departure from recent trends in horror cinema that tend to go too far in one direction or the other. And as a tacit rebuttal to those who feel that some things are just too serious to address in a show like this- I think you can draw comparisons with how 'South Park' gets laughs. The topics under discussion are not themselves being made fun of (or in this case, being mined for cheap horror-thrills); they're being examined in an unusual, genre-specific manner. For example, when I first saw Abbie (a young girl with Down's Syndrome) appear in the pilot I initially balked, thinking 'Really? They're gonna go there?'- but I quickly realised the horrific elements derived from how other people, including her own mother, treat her.

I could go on about the other triumphs of the series (the roles of women and LBGT characters, undercutting expectations, pacing, production design, lighting...) but I've written enough here I think for now. 

Horror for me is that most delicate of birds; bound by immutable tradition yet open to constant re-interpretation. Extremely common yet extremely difficult to pull off successfully. AHS isn't perfect, but it understands horror, doesn't condescend to its audience and pays its dues to history with swagger and conviction. For that it should be applauded.

Halloween in Church Lane

Forgot to post this back at Halloween, but sure it's better late than never, right?

Used to live in this awesome gaff in Rathmines where going balls-out on the Halloween party was a bit of a tradition. I've moved out, but the party lives on- so to keep my hand in, I did up the party invites for last years bash:

I love doing shit like this. And it's nice that people actually get to see it. And the party was focking ace. As always.

Agile Testing

Merry 2014 earthlings.

So just before Christmas I was approached by a friend who's starting his own consultancy business and needed some art assets generating for his website (which hasn't gone live yet- but if you're interested in agile testing- and who isn't?- you can read his blog: http://mysoftwarequality.wordpress.com/).

It was a simple enough spec- he'd got specific ideas about what he wanted- and by way of payment I got a delicious meal and a brand new Wacom Intuos, so everyone's a winner.

That's the map that'll be on the homepage representing... uh.... stuff, and he also needed a logo / diagram to illustrate the constituents of being an agile tester:

Overall, I was pretty happy with how the map turned out, as was he, and it was a fun, short, focussed little project. 

Samurai

Hello, no-one.
So as you may or may not know, I've got a bit of an obsession with Samurai. Wanted to do a series of simple, punchy character designs like this one here.

Been fiddling around with this one for a while- had the basic design done a good while ago, but couldn't settle on a colour scheme. After lots of unsuccessful experiments with different styles, eventually decided to keep it as simple as possible, and so that's how I ended up with this.
(Cool story, huh?)

Pimp Deadie

Oh hai.
This is a doodle that got out of control on me. Been ages since I any random illustration work, so it felt good. Colouring on it is perhaps pretty clumsy, but was a nice little exercise to ease me back into using photoshop. Hopefully there'll be more along soon.
kisses

the day everyone became a thief

One day a young scallywag found himself watching an older lad as he snacked on a fine-looking pastry. Hungry, as he was, this frosted treat looked to the young fellow like the most beautiful thing in the world.

'Where did you get that?'

The boy asked, lustily.

'In the bakers.'

The older fellow replied.

'They're terribly expensive of course, but that doesn't matter for, you see, I am a thief.'

The young lad frowned.

'You just take it? Doesn't the baker see you?'

'They never see me; I'm too clever for them'

The older lad said as he brushed the crumbs from his lap.

'And if they do- I just make a run for it. I'm too fast for them too, you see'

The young lad carried these words with him all through town, till his feet (under the shady influence his stomach) had brought him to the market district. He weighed each establishment carefully before selecting one; using not the quality or surface beauty of the produce as his metric, but the likelihood of capture should the worst happen. Eventually he settled on a simple bread bakery located in the busier end of the precinct-which nevertheless was unoccupied, save for the lonely old poltroon who owned the place and who was currently dozing behind the counter.

What struck the young lad as strange, later, was just how easy it had been. He had galloped back across town with his prize- terrified, elated, not daring to look back much less think about what had happened. But now, as he sat chewing the loaf, he reflected that really, he had come by his prize too easily. The thought resurfaced later, as he sat eating a delicious tart he'd rescued from an upmarket french patisserie in a slightly more daring sortie. It was while contemplating his third trip of the day (he was no longer hungry, you understand, but had discovered something wonderful and new that he was good at) that he was approached by one of his fellow urchins:

'Where did you get that pie?'

'It wasn't a pie, it was a fancy tart. And I got it from the market. I'm a thief now.'

And so it happened that our hero had company as he made his third expedition to the market that day.

'Now, you stay here and watch how it's done.'

He arrived back a short time later and only faintly flushed, his mouth half-full of flapjack, and proffering a bagel proudly.

'That looked easy.'

Said the friend, unimpressed

'I bet I could do that- and I'd get something better than a crummy bagel.'

All of which rather dampened our young miscreant's exaltations. The mood continued in this vein when, very soon thereafter, his friend returned with a china plate piled with fresh cream scones.

It is a terrible blow for an aspirant to be cut down so completely, in the very first flush of ambition, our hero thinks, before ruminating for the third time today (ruefully this time) on how very very easy this theft malarky really is. His friend meanwhile, having consumed as many of the scones as his gut would bear, had been open-handedly distributing the balance to those who looked at him askance (of whom there were many; street urchins freely providing delicious pastries not being en vogue at the time). When quizzed on where he came by such delicacies, he would off-handedly declare 'I took it from the market, for I'm a thief', which, of course, set our hero's teeth to gnashing.

It so happened that many of the recipients of these cost-free dainties were themselves en route to the markets; ostensibly to purchase the produce therein in exchange for currency; but now it occurs to them that they too, surely, have the wits and deftness to simply reach out and take what they want, should they choose to do so. Some of these people simply smiled inwardly and dismissed the idea; others did not.

Put simply, by midafternoon the market was a veritable stew of pilferage. The shopkeepers had never seen the like. And they daren't chase after anyone they caught red-handed, since upon their return they'd see that the other thieves had been industriously working their advantage. The old gentleman-baker you may remember from earlier in our story? He was the first to run out of stock. Something that had not happened in his 50 years at the shop. He didn't even have the last of the day's iced treats to bring home to his wife, as was his custom. Locking up the shop early, he took his leave of the market district, trying not to notice they giddy electricity amongst the shoppers, as they gorged themselves on stolen food.

Well now, this has lapsed in a big way hasn't it? Been focussing too much on the 'procrastination' and not enough on the 'creative' innit?
I have been getting back into sitting down to do some work on an evening this last while, but it's rapidly becoming obvious that I need some new hardware. Nevermind, there's always the old-fashioned way- I'm gonna hopefully crank up the postage on here with some straight scans of my hand-drawn stuff over the next while, so you should probably start holding your breath now.