Review: A Look Back at DARWYN COOKE's BEFORE WATCHMEN at FORCES OF GEEK - COSMIC TREADMILL

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Before Watchmen was released in 2012 to the grousing of original co-creator Alan Moore and a blessing from the original series artist Dave Gibbons.

Fans at the time seemed to be evenly split on the matter as well, but greeted the new Watchmen books with the skepticism of a new Star Wars movie. I’d be interested in seeing a Venn diagram of original Watchmen fans and their reactions to both the limited prequel and also Zach Snyder’s 2009 film adaptation.

In short, one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial DC property writ large. One of the men responsible for revisiting the Minutemen was Darwyn Cooke. His untimely passing last week spurred this review, but truth be told we’ve been thinking about these books for a long time.

Darwyn provided both the story and his unique Golden to Silver Age pulp magazine style illustration to Hollis Mason’s story in Before Watchmen: Minutemen (6 issues) and also teamed up with Amanda Conner, co-writing her book,  Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre (4 issues).

If you were on the fence about these books, now is a great time to honor Darwyn’s memory and rediscover this amazing work you may have overlooked.

Back in the 90’s when Swingers was all the rage (yeah, I went there), I would scour my school’s magazine library for gas station advertisements, winking lightbulbs and all sorts of retro design to (literally) cut and paste to make new art.

I was always extremely jealous of that cool style, drawn with a pen, perhaps a wash of a single color and dashes of Tex Avery’s cartoon “The House of Tomorrow”. Nothing appealed to me more than that aesthetic, as I sat listening to the chairman of the board on wax, smoking cigarettes in my fedora, pretending to be an Artist!

Darwyn’s illustration was all of the corny stuff and more, a Mad Men explosion of a simpler time when you could forge a driver’s license with penmanship, rattle scotch around in your tumbler and men tried their darnedest to be honorable. How this man was touched with such incredible skill to make things look ‘older’ we may never know. Except, in the industry he was known as a hard worker, perfecting his craft and always drawing until it was right.

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WE at Forces of Geek! pay tribute 2 Prince. A Shout OUT to MOM! I LOVE U, MUM!

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WE at Forces of Geek! pay tribute 2 Prince. A Shout OUT to MOM! I LOVE U, MUM! 

I MISS U 2!
REST IN PRINCE.

http://bit.ly/1U95RQM

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FOG! Remembers DAVID BOWIE - at FORCES OF GEEK

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Clay N Ferno


“All I have is my love of love  And love is not loving” — Soul Love, David Bowie 1971


Coffee shops, bars and cubicles today are to be filled with an air of sadness but also the notes, songs and incredible lyrics of David Bowie. I grew up in he sweet spot of growing up in a world where girls where more than aware of Labyrinth around the same time us boys got a lightning bolt in the pants for the Blue Jean video.

Bowie stayed with me through all of the Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes and Greatest Hits as I graduated from The College of Classic Rock Knowledge. Real world Art College brought me into the superhero world of Ziggy Stardust just as my first live-in girlfriend enlightened me to ‘the early years’ era of Hunky Dory and David Bowie. Now, when I need to listen to some rock and roll and remember a world before Cyrus and Skrillix and Drake, Bowie is what dominates the earbuds and I dare say the record player.

Bowie is the stuff of legend, the stuff of love, the stuff of sex, the stuff of women and men and being both at the same time. Rest in peace, Goblin King, Ziggy the guitar superhero, avatar of my adolescence. I’m sure you faced your Golden Years and cancer with as much strength as you gave us all.

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Steve Jobs

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 Credit: Matt Yohe“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

 

I went to MassArt to learn, live, and breathe everything. Our computer labs were packed with Amigas and Mac Clones. I was jealous of an upperclassman who could design flyers with QuarkXPress. I asked him how he learned, and he said “I just started using it”. He showed me the two basics, making a text box and importing a picture in a box. That got me going. I was a graphic designer now (if only in my own mind). You should have seen all of the triple border tricks and Helvetica that Duncan Wilder Johnson and I used for Spoken World Poetry promotional materials. I have nostalgia of the extended time I had to spend on those projects. All of that was at a time with little to no internet and Pine mail! All on a Mac. It was easy to understand and fun to do. Classmates of mine were layering Photoshop files and borking the MassArt network because files were approaching nearly 1GB!

Post-graduation, I got into publishing by archiving a publisher database onto CDs on a Mac. While burning discs, I was reading Journey to the End of Night. While scanning Bruce Lee’s personal photographs, I made art on the color copier. I loved going downtown, meeting new people, being a professional, eating sushi on Bruce’s birthday, and most of all…watching the extensions load on ‘my’ computer. I was good. They hired me from the temp agency. Within months, I was laying out cover mechanicals and revising text for the designers. I was left alone to get my work done. I made lifelong connections. I started my ever-changing and ever-evolving career. Life was good. I understood the Mac because I felt it understood me. Truth was, Steve Jobs understood me, or the type of person I am. We creatives don’t need to build our own PC. We creatives just want the thing to work, and it is worth the risk of crashing the computer when we really push it with too many Photoshop filters and layers. Keep the coffee coming, we have a press check this week and the manuscript just got turned in!

I suggest patience as a virtue to my students because my career did not go from point A to point B. Steve Jobs invented the Apple computer with Woz, invented Lisa and the Mac, left Apple, was at Pixar, returned to Apple, unleashed the iPod, and revolutionized all creative work with his vision. Getting that job in publishing was my Apple I. I’m not dropping the iPad on the world, but it took me a while to get to this happy & sober 36th birthday. I bounced to and from temp jobs, hourly wage jobs, courier jobs, shift manager jobs, to other publishing opportunities. Ironically I’ve never wanted to work particularly hard, something just drives me.

I’ve let myself be crushed by setbacks, losses of friends and family, drained bank accounts, heartbreak, therapy, treatments, moving apartments, and negative people. I never stopped. I did put down the drink and things started to get better. I bought this website. I’ve got this very real place to display my art and my writing. I’m surrounding myself with positive people. I can call on real friends. I came close tonite to making some phone calls because I was crying at the gym and the grocery store. Steve Jobs has influenced my life, and I’m sad that his family and the world have lost him. Where will I be 20 years from now at exactly 56 years of age? Hopefully influencing my family and friends and my place in a world in a positive way.

Two months ago, my therapist directed me to the Steve Jobs speech at Stanford. I was having trouble dealing with the loss of my friend Adam. She said the best thing to do was to live my life like Steve suggested here…as if every day was my last. To me, that’s the best way to give to Adam. That’s the best way to give to my family. And as I write my second memorial post of the year, this is how I can give to Steve Jobs. Give by doing. Do by giving. Live by living. Transform by transforming. Work by working hard at what I love and for who people I love working with.

I’m fully going to let myself be sad in bed now. Thursday, October 6, 2011 will be a great day. Birthday lunch with Mom and Dad. Work. Gallery show and pizza and movie night with a great friend.

From Paul Simon’s Paul Simon in Concert, a quote. “Say a few words? Well, let’s hope that we continue to live.” He then starts into the tune ‘America‘…

“Let us be lovers we’ll marry our fortunes together”
“I’ve got some real estate here in my bag”
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America

“Kathy,” I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now”
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I’ve gone to look for America
 
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said “Be careful his bowtie is really a camera”

— Clay S. Fernald, October 6, 2011

ZiD Tribute - Clay S. Fernald / Clay N. Ferno / DJ Hank Venture, March 28, 2011

Phantom Limb (ZiD) DJ set, January 2010

This podcast contains explicit content  | Download | Duration: 01:12:55

I can’t DJ. Well, I’ve been billing myself as a DJ for half a decade, but I’m terrible at mixing. Going from Kiss on ‘1’ to Hellacopters on the ‘2’ doesn’t exactly require Grandmaster Flash type skills. I don’t even own any gear and most shows I’m using some combination of iTunes, my laptop, a hard drive, an iPod and sometimes my iPhone. When I go up, it’s to bring back some musical memories for myself and my pals that *hopefully* showed up for my gig. I’ve DJ’d for hire as well, but my track list motivation is largely the same among strangers. I play Cake’s ‘Going the Distance’ or Blues Traveler’s ‘The Hook’ for purely a nostalgic look back at my college years at the ice cream store.
Adam was a dude that could DJ. He could blend. He could sample. He cared about how each note inter-played with the next. His gear and technique were top notch and above all was always prepared for a set. As DJ ZiD, he rocked a monthly industrial and goth dance night at ZuZu. The sets were accompanied by visual treats, clips from horror movies, and a well crafted 3D logo bouncing around the screen STAINLESS - DJ ZiD. Dude had his shit tight, on lock, and fully loaded. He’d be in his tall buckle boots, and sometimes a gas mask for full effect. You should have been there when we installed his video screen and realized it took up the whole front wall. 
When us goths and punks and comic book nerds in New England see that first orange leaf, we start to obsess over our Halloween costumes. Adam loved Adult Swim’s Venture Bros. I booked us for the Middle East Corner stage on Friday, October 30, 2009 for ‘A Very Venture Halloween’: DJ Phantom Limb (DJ ZiD of Stainless) vs. DJ Hank Venture (DJ Clay N. Ferno) - indie punk and hip hop. Adam loved lots more than goth and industrial music, and this set allowed him to branch out a bit into the hip hop and some indie rock. We got the costumes together and Ines took some great photos of us in the alley for the flyer. I submitted the photos to the io9 website and we were mentioned as part of their favorite Halloween cosplay of that year!
The night came and we had encouraged pals to dress up in Adult Swim costumes. To our bewildered surprise, we had henchmen of the Monarch, a Devil and Lucy (Daughter of the Devil) show up! Us nerds gotta stick together — I’m most at home in the comic shop on a Wednesday cracking jokes with strangers about Guy Gardner (Space Cop!) or isolating among swarms of introverts at New York City Comic Con. These are my people and I love them to pieces! Sure, I’ll take a free hug.
Sometime between my birthday, October 6, and the date of this event, I made some changes in my lifestyle. I was only two weeks into my recovery as an alcoholic. I only point this out because my body, mind, and spirit at this point in early recovery could best be described as BAT SHIT INSANE. I did what I thought was best for me at the time. Instead of pounding beers and shots all night, I drank just as much Red Bull. Bad Idea Jeans! I played some dope tracks on my iPod / Laptop setup. Swingin’ Utters, Lot Six, Gza, MF Doom, The Clash, Cheeseburger. I work by dancing around my hard drives, letting the synapses connect in my head, connecting the dots of my playlist based on personal memories. Singing Sloppy Seconds with old friends on a school bus apartment. Associating Nine Inch Nails with a college dorm friend that liked to listen to Downward Spiral, high on weed, in the shower. Clapping myself back to reality with Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothing to Fuck With on an ill-fated, infamously psychedelic, winter’s day. You know, Rock Star shit.
Adam, hurm…excuse me, Phantom Limb, took the headlining spot. He was so stoked to see the Henchmen (21+24) staring up at us. It honestly felt like we were in a cartoon. This is exactly the kind of thing that would happen on Venture Bros.
What I’m posting is a version of the set he played as Phantom Limb. You’ll notice it’s quite put together and tight. He actually rehearsed the thing, and I KNOW he wouldn’t have burned it to a CD for me if he wasn’t happy with it. You’ll hear Les Savy Fav, Busta Rhymes, Deltron 3030, MF Doom (he always told me which Doom track he was going to play in case my trail led me to Danger Doom or Madvillian - he knew it would!), Beck, KRS-ONE (Bwaaamp Bwaaaamp - Edutainment!) and so much more on this mixtape. 
One day I hope to have the focus to drop a mix like this on the world. Can you imagine being this skilled of a DJ and mixing your own video to your tracks on top of that? Dude was so crisp.
April of last year, The League of Ordinary Gentlemen were blessed with Phantom Limb DJing our first Boston Comic Con After Party.
As we approach our second annual, we’ll have that deep and heavy feeling that something important is missing, but damn well should be there. — Clay S. Fernald / Clay N. Ferno / DJ Hank Venture, March 28, 2011