Arrakis... Dune... Desert Planet...

December 23, 2010 5:17 PM

Bill Sienkiewicz's David Lynch's Frank Herbert's DUNE.
posted by Artw (44 comments total)

(via io9, though they lose big points for "This sandworm is almost at Ben Templesmith levels of madness. ")
posted by Artw at 5:23 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I watched Dune a couple of months ago and you know what? It wasn't that bad, it wasn't that bad at all. Atleast it doesn't insists upon itself like the Godfather movies.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:32 PM on December 23, 2010

Dammit, Artw, I just finally finished reading the Encyclopedia. I HAVE SHIT TO DO.
posted by cortex at 5:35 PM on December 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Scanning over those pages, it makes the look of Dune late-Danish Modern rather than early-Steampunk. Which is how the books always felt to me.
posted by bendybendy at 5:36 PM on December 23, 2010

The opening in particular is way too voiceover heavy, and then ending where it rains is idiotic, but still I love the movie Dune - always have done, always will.

The Extended Edition or whatever it's called is horrible though. All copies of that should be tracked down and burned.
posted by Artw at 5:38 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is this like Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie: The Book by Norman Mailer?
posted by Gator at 5:48 PM on December 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Dammit, Artw, I just finally finished reading the Encyclopedia.

Interested parties might note that this peculiar book was the subject of an FPP a few months ago.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:53 PM on December 23, 2010

Ha, I was just thinking about posting this. It was actually one of the links in a previous Dune megapost, but to a different different site which also has links for downloading in PDF or zipped JPGs. (The Megaupload ones seem to work, anyway.)

And as always, this Ralph Macchio is not that Ralph Macchio.
posted by kmz at 6:08 PM on December 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Damnit, is there a Chrome extension to save all images on page? I want to read through this but I really don't have the time right now.
posted by SirOmega at 6:13 PM on December 23, 2010

The opening in particular is way too voiceover heavy, and then ending where it rains is idiotic, but still I love the movie Dune - always have done, always will.

Yeah, I can't deny I likes that movie lots. I'd love it if Lynch went and did a directors cut, but it seems like he's to busy disowning whenever he doesn't talk about it.

I just got done reading the Dune and Dune Messiah recently and it just reafirmed how awesome those books are. I've read up through the fourth but I distinctly remember after the second I just wasn't digging them.

I kind of wonder now why Lynch did some things the way he did. The Guild Navigators are actually humanoid, more or less like Abe Sapien.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:14 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Quite nice, but have you seen Walt Simonson's, Ridley Scott's, H.R. Gieger's Alien?
posted by Chuckles at 6:21 PM on December 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

That was my first exposure to Alien, Chuckles, as a young boy, and it so terrified me that I steered clear of the movie for seven years,
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:22 PM on December 23, 2010

Aiiie!
posted by Artw at 6:27 PM on December 23, 2010

Pew pew girl loves you.
posted by grobstein at 6:46 PM on December 23, 2010 [10 favorites]

@Chuckles,

I don't suppose you have a .cbz file of that Alien comic do you?
posted by mister-m at 6:46 PM on December 23, 2010

I came for the Dune, I stayed for Pew-Pew Girl.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:54 PM on December 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Not much of anybody seemed to have noticed when Sienkiewicz drew 20 or so issues of the New Mutants for Marvel back in the 80's, but I've always loved his style. I still have all those, in baggies, in the attic.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:05 PM on December 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

I'll never get any cool points for this, except maybe here....

Years ago I thought I should collect something. All I could come up with was Dune books.
I have
THE DUNE STORYBOOK
THE ILLUSTRATED DUNE
THE DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA
THE MAKING OF DUNE

next to each other on my bookcase.

I keep hoping that someday some Dune-lover who is more sincere -- and rich --than myself will offer me a reasonably large (or medium) pile of cash for them.
posted by cccorlew at 7:11 PM on December 23, 2010

Yay Grantbridge Street, worth stopping by often.
posted by marxchivist at 7:16 PM on December 23, 2010

Dammit, Devil's Ranger, I noticed and that is why Warlock was one of my favorite characters for exactly the issues Sienkiewicz drew and least for everyone he appeared In after.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:20 PM on December 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

Not much of anybody seemed to have noticed when Sienkiewicz drew 20 or so issues of the New Mutants for Marvel back in the 80's, but I've always loved his style.

He's the only one who seemed to understand how to draw Warlock.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:22 PM on December 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

Sienkiewicz is so great. I got to meet him at The Dallas Fantasy Fair back in the late 80s. He was nice even to the gawky teen fanboy that I was (note: I am no longer a teen). Stray Toasters had just hit the stores and it blew my mind to pieces. That was 1988-- the same year that the Alan Moore/Sienkiewicz collaboration in Brought To Light came out-- which also blew my mind. Thanks, Bill!

It was (and is) really interesting to watch his style evolve from the New Mutants days (concurrent to when he did 'Dune') to Elektra: Assassin (I've got the complete run, signed by Sienkiewicz!) and then explode four years later with Stray Toasters. Sienkiewicz's work really made me realize what Harvey Pekar said so concisely: "Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures." Thanks again, Bill.

And thank you, Artw, for giving me the opportunity to unleash my Inner Fanboy!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:30 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sienkiewicz's work on The Shadow was superlative as well.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:38 PM on December 23, 2010

He's the only one who seemed to understand how to draw Warlock.

Only because Marvel never tried to bag Ralph Steadman.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 7:42 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

All I'm telling you is that the Spice Harvester and the Spice Lifter were the two coolest toys you could possibly own, except for, perhaps, the original full-size H.R. Geiger Alien action fig.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:48 PM on December 23, 2010

Did anyone else try the Dune board game? I remember it reminding me of Axis & Allies.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:52 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I met Sienkiewicz at one of the Comics & Sequential Art shows in Toronto around 1990. To be honost, felt like he was just there to cash in. If I recall, I think he had a couple of the pages from Big Numbers #3 there, and that was pretty cool.

Not nearly as cool as this though:

In January 2009 I bought an eBay item listed as BIG NUMBERS #1 & 2 + RARE UNPUBLISHED XEROX Alan Moore, [...]

I decided that it was at least worth investigating, and bought the item for $49.99, and was also the only bidder.

Then he posted it online: Big Numbers #3.
With Alan Moore's permission, but presumably not the permission of either possible artist (Seinkiewicz or Al Columbia).
posted by Chuckles at 7:56 PM on December 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Not much of anybody seemed to have noticed when Sienkiewicz drew 20 or so issues of the New Mutants for Marvel back in the 80's, but I've always loved his style.

That run convinced me he was a god among comic book artists.

I have tried repeatedly to get the Herbert estate to sell me the rights to do a graphic novel adaptation of Dune (that ignores all previous adaptation attempts) and an ongoing series (Dune: Tales of the Bene Gesserit), and the artist I was going to contract, if he was available, was Bill. Bill is an artist who happens to draw comic books, which is actually kind of rare in comics.
posted by effwerd at 8:48 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did anyone else try the Dune board game? I remember it reminding me of Axis & Allies.

The Dune board game is one of the classics. I'd say it's more Cosmic Encounter-ish than A&A-like though, even though they're both Avalon Hill. There's all the different factions with their own unique powers.

There's also the part where I'd be up to playing Dune in an instant but I try to avoid A&A like the plague.
posted by kmz at 8:59 PM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not much of anybody seemed to have noticed when Sienkiewicz drew 20 or so issues of the New Mutants

Oh, fuck you, phannboi. Billy the Sink's run on New Mutants is one of the premiere, enduring examples of artist's mismatch to content, ever. You could virtually hear Chris Claremont gasping to keep up.

Not too long before, Bill S. started out as a Neal Adams wannabe, as so many had (Byrne, Aparo), and branched out, in Sienkiewicz' example, waaaaaaaaaaay out. I think that he really reached his apotheosis in Big Numbers, and flamed out in that (and brought Alan Moore's career to a screeching halt, for a while, as Moore had big plans for that series, which will never be finished, and floundered around for a while in work-for-hire stuff). Since then, he's done some stuff in mainstream comics, but not come nearly as close as he did in the eighties to really ripping the panels open, never to be closed. Sic transit gloria comics., you know.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:34 PM on December 23, 2010

Demon Bear!
posted by Artw at 10:51 PM on December 23, 2010

"Elektra: Assassin" was the best limited series of the year.

That his relation to Alan Moore was turned upside down was made explicit in "Brought to Light".
posted by dragonsi55 at 4:20 AM on December 24, 2010

Halloween Jack - what the hell? Not sure what I said to deserve the bolder "fuck you." I'm not a big comic collector, or anything - I just noticed how far and away superior those NM issues were back when. I don't keep up with them as any matter of course, and if I inadvertently made some sort of insulting comment because I'm ignorant about the arc of his career, I'm sorry. I just thought that they maybe didn't get the attention they deserved at the time because they were so far above the average for Marvel mags of that era. I'll stay far away from comic/graphic novel threads from now on, I assure you.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:23 AM on December 24, 2010

I may have been a wee bit emphatic, DR (I'd had drinks when I made that comment), and I didn't want to scare you away from comics threads forever, but my point still stands--Bill Sienkiewicz' contributions to New Mutants (and the Elektra: Assassin miniseries that he did with Frank Miller) was far from unremarked upon at the time. Didn't mean to insult you, though.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:06 AM on December 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

What no love for Moon Knight?
posted by jeffen at 6:42 AM on December 24, 2010

Don't forget the Dune Re-Edition.
posted by Evilspork at 7:25 AM on December 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've still got the first 20 or so issues of Moon Knight, in mylar, in the attic.
posted by adamrice at 9:15 AM on December 24, 2010

Did anyone else try the Dune board game? I remember it reminding me of Axis & Allies.

It was pretty interesting, with each player choosing one of the factions (House Atreides, Harkonnen, Navigators Guild, etc) and getting a special power or rule-bender based on their side. I remember the funniest one was the Bene Gesserit - at the beginning of the game, the Bene would write down one of the other player factions playing that game. At the end of the game, if the faction they wrote down won, the Bene reveal that they had been organizing that faction's ascent for the last several thousand years, and the Bene actually win the game for puppetmastering it all. Ultimate dick move.
posted by FatherDagon at 9:21 AM on December 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

That's like the best special move ever!
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on December 24, 2010

Didn't mean to insult you, though.

Cool -- thanks. We all have things we're passionate about - I get like that in music threads. I am by no means a comic/graphic novel junkie or even aficionado - things just catch my eye sometimes. Back in the 80s, for some reason, I just happened to be near a comic shop on a pretty much daily basis, so after not having looked at them for years, I stuck my head in and started buying things just as a diversion. It just so happened that this brief foray into comics (I had been an avid Marvel reader in my youth in the 60's and 70s -- used to own Avengers #1 and sold it to make repairs on a bass guitar -- ugh) coincided with Sienkiewicz's also apparently brief tenure at Marvel. I thought those New Mutants were pretty amazing, so I snapped them all up as they came out. One day, he vanished without a trace, and I didn't really seek his stuff out again, though I should have, in retrospect. He's really amazing to me.

If it really was some sort of singular event that set the comics world on its head, I had no idea, and maybe it was just Marvel that failed to notice or take advantage of what they had there. I'm obviously oblivious to the terms of his employ at Marvel and why it didn't last -- I've always been idly curious, but seeing as how that was pre-internet days for me, I just didn't have the wherewithal to follow up.

The full-page panels in the linked Dune strip are also strictly fantastic. He has/had a thing he does/did that's pretty unique.

Sorry about the derail, Artw.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:11 AM on December 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

On the downside his painted stuff may be indirectly responsible for some of the worst excesses of 2000ads 90s brown period.
posted by Artw at 10:19 AM on December 24, 2010

Devils Rancher, I think that Bill S. just got burned out. As far as I can tell, his last comics work before he pulled out of comics for many years and did other commercial work was Big Numbers, which was meant to be Alan Moore's next big project after Watchmen. Sienkiewicz quit after completing two issues and starting a third; Sienkiewicz's assistant, Al Columbia (now a well-regarded artist in his own right), never completed an issue and destroyed what artwork he had done; and Alan Moore, although he eventually finished From Hell (which he'd started previously), did very little other original work of his own for several years, instead doing work-for-hire for Image before getting back into the groove and creating several books for America's Best Comics. It's like the Comic that Ate Comic Creators.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:55 PM on December 27, 2010

Sienkiewicz quit after completing two issues and starting a third

Actually, Sinkiewicz has corrected the above in a piece just posted at an Alan Moore fan blog: Bill Sienkiewicz speaks about Big Numbers #3:

It certainly seemed to me that there are quite a few readers who are at least moderately curious as to what portion of issue #3's artwork is mine and what portion was drawn by Al Columbia, who was my assistant at the time. I'll clarify as best I can, in part because this matter of speculation has exceeded critical mass; it exceeded it ten years ago, but that's one guy's opinion.

So: Though only ten pages have been seen of Big Numbers #3, the entire issue was drawn and completed. All of it. Not merely the ten pages circulating. Now as to who drew what: Except for a few minor backgrounds (and to be completely honest, I don't think he drew anything in that issue at all - but I will admit I may be hazy on that point - I’ll simply say that I'm erring on the side of generous caution, or cautious generosity) that except for perhaps a few possible backgrounds, that ALL of issue #3 - repeat: ALL of the artwork on Big Numbers issue #3 was drawn by yours truly. Or, for those who prefer the obverse: NONE of Big Numbers #3 was drawn by Al Columbia (and again I add the caveat - except for possibly a couple of backgrounds). Certainly Al drew no figures in the background or anything story-related. I can't imagine he'd want to take credit for my work any more than I would covet credit for work drawn by him. I imagine he'd want to take credit for - and rightly so - the work that is completely his own: meaning that of issue #4 (I personally have never seen any of the issue. I hear Al destroyed it in its entirety, but I can't say I witnessed this destruction firsthand).

Lots of interesting info.
posted by mediareport at 8:51 AM on January 2, 2011

The blogger, I see, is the same guy in Chuckles' comment who'd previously posted Big Numbers #3:

As it turned out, not only was he in no way unhappy about my posting the forty pages of Big Numbers #3, but was actually looking for somewhere to post [his take on the Big Numbers debacle] publically.

Might be worth a new front page post, I dunno.
posted by mediareport at 9:05 AM on January 2, 2011