"I would like to do better, to be better than I am". He's the French New Wave maverick and Academy Award winner (at 26, for his first short) who, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz -- with considerable personal pain and the admission that "no description, no picture can reveal the true dimension" of what happened in the camps -- made what François Truffaut called "the greatest film ever made", duly censored by French authorities. Four years later he baffled audiences with "the first modern film of sound cinema", shattering the rules of chronology to describe the “anguish of the future”: even if all he ever wanted was "to stop death in its tracks" (French language link), only for one minute. But he is also the unabashed lover of la bande dessinée who learnt English by reading comic books and in the Seventies dreamed (French language link) of making "Spider-Man" into a movie (the Hollywood studios were not convinced), the MGM old-school musical and operetta nut so in love with design that "half of the fashion photography of the past 40 years owes a debt" to him. Now, Alain Resnais' new work, just shown at the Venice Film Festival where his buddy David Lynch was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion, is a French film inspired by an English play with 54 short scenes, music by the X-Files's Mark Snow. (more inside)
posted by matteo on Sep 8, 2006 - 20 comments

Spider-Man in Arabic. Through a licensing arrangement with Marvel Comics, Kuwait-based Teshkeel Comics has started producing the adventures of your favorite heroes in Arabic, starting with Spider-Man. The Hulk is next. But don't miss their own in-house pack of super-powered do-gooders: The 99 ("the world's first superheroes conceived from Islamic culture"). India in 2004. Saudi Arabia in 2006. Where will the world-travellin' webslinger be in 2008?
posted by grabbingsand on Mar 17, 2006 - 23 comments

Spider-man , for many of us, has been a tried and true character which many of us have grown up with. For my fellow comic geeks, I'm sure many of you will agree at having enjoyed the stories for many years. However, the recent "The Other" storyline has harped on a series of evolutions(literally, not figuratively) that our webslinger has undergone of late. Of which an upcoming costume change is the least.
posted by Doorstop on Jan 31, 2006 - 65 comments

Free Comic Book Day is Saturday, May 4th, both in the United States and around the world (even Brunei). FCBD offers a variety of comics to help attract new readers and ride the wave of publicity from the Spider-Man movie. Does the offer of a free comic seem likely to bring you into a comic store? Will this have an impact on the general public's perception of comics?
posted by JDC8 on May 3, 2002 - 15 comments