Funny Pages - a new comics movie

[mamalips]

Out in the US now I think and out in the UK September

youtu.be/qXDeAcyt8Ng

[cartoonysam]

This looks like a promising love letter to alt-comics and, therefore, cinematic bliss. I haven't been to movie theaters since pre-pandemic times so not sure if I'll watch it there or just wait for it to stream though.

[localhero]

I rented it on Amazon cause I'm too far from select theaters but I loved it. Real grimy, funny "asshole cinema" with some great performances. Every interaction between Robert and Miles killed me

[andrewpilkington]

Watched it last night and loved it, haven't laughed so much at a movie in years.

[kevinfong]

Wallace is almost the star of the film. Feels like we've all met a Wallace or two from various shops/cons/fests

[arecomicsevengood]

I saw this today and liked it a lot. High point for me might just be the one roommate naming comic strips.

[bruteface]

Just watched it. Has a Solondz feel to it, a plus in my book.
Been trying to figure out what song was playing in the apartment when his roommates are too loud. Any leads would be great.

The pharmacy scene is too good. Watched it over and over.

[Ian M]

Watched on the weekend, and it is really good. I wonder if the grime and weirdness is so much in comics these days. Going by Simon Hanselman's old Tumblr, I guess it was till recently, but the movie's portrayal of comics is a very deformed masculine one. The comics scene felt that way in the 90s for sure, but it seems somewhat healthier and more diverse these days.

I'm not active in any city scene anymore, so that's from the outside looking in.

[manoopuesta]

Sept 13, 2022 2:32:03 GMT Ian M said:

Watched on the weekend, and it is really good. I wonder if the grime and weirdness is so much in comics these days. Going by Simon Hanselman's old Tumblr, I guess it was till recently, but the movie's portrayal of comics is a very deformed masculine one. The comics scene felt that way in the 90s for sure, but it seems somewhat healthier and more diverse these days.

I'm not active in any city scene anymore, so that's from the outside looking in.

Dash Shaw wrote a review of the movie ( www.filmcomment.com/blog/review-funny-pages-owen-kline-dash-shaw/ ) and he also makes the same point:
"The movie is set in the present day, yet the cartooning world it depicts is firmly that of the 1990s.

A lot has happened in comics in the last three decades. Today, the majority of aspiring cartoonists at the School of Visual Arts in New York are women; there’s been an explosion of Japanese comics and international webcomics; seemingly every bookstore now has graphic novels, young-adult comics, art comics, nonfiction comics, experimental comics, and everything in between. But Kline’s movie feels like it takes place in some alternate reality, dominated by the snarky male back-issue “bin divers” of yesteryear, and devoid of anything and anyone that doesn’t support this retrograde vision. The cartoonist played by Anders Danielsen Lie in Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, who is questioned about the sexism of his comics, is more like the present-day cartoonists I know than those depicted in Funny Pages"

I haven't watched the movie yet but Shaw made some  interesting points throughout the whole review. I hope the movie gets to the cinemas near my area. Also, I had no idea the main character's comics were drawn by Johnny Ryan. That's cool. 

[arecomicsevengood]

Yeah, gotta say I disagree with large chunks of Dash's take. (But thanks for posting it, I like knowing what Dash thought about the film.) For one thing, I think the parents are actually very supportive of their son being an artist, they just want him to graduate from high school and go to art school. The movie is about this child of privilege making the decision to slum it out of a perceived sense that there's greater independence in this. Most of the humor comes from him choosing bad role models/life situations that his parents, rightly, try to warn him away from.

So on that level it's funny that Dash is like "these kids aren't like my students," when like... if anything this movie is basically an ad for why you should go to college! One those reasons is that it is diverse and there are women there but the movie's all about the absence of those things.

But also: I do think the movie would register as different to a young woman, interested in comics. Not because the vision the film presents is unrecognizable as the present without women in it but because the movie is all about older men behaving inappropriately in the presence of a younger person, and this 100% still happens to women it just doesn't feel like a comedy, it feels like institutional sexism. Like, young people finding older role models their parents would warn them off from happens in the world of comics all the time! And maybe there's supposed to be regulations against that in the world of educational institutions but obviously people make comics without going to school for it! People still work in comic book stores, people are still creeps.

Also the day after I saw this movie I went to see the opening for a show of Charles Burns prints at Partners And Son. I kinda knew I would be talking about the movie, and Charles Burns' work, so that led me to realize, and this is almost an overstated compliment to the film, that the director could theoretically make a good Black Hole movie, due to the "out of time" quality Funny Pages where everyone is like "this is the nineties" and the level of grime/horror moments.

[teemcgee]

I don't have that much to say about the film (moments that landed best were not the comics culture riffs but scenes like in the basement and the Rite Aid, wish it had been able to sustain the tone of those throughout) ....

... but what I do have to show you is the tie-in promotional Tijuana bible - sure to be the envy of the dedicated J Ryan fan - see it and weep, nerds ...

[arecomicsevengood]

That is pretty cool. I saw the new issue of Santo Sisters today and was like "how is it priced so cheap?" and turns out there's ads in it. A24 doing promo items like this (or the Uncut Gems thing that had Sammy Harkham comics in it) reminds me again that my goal, if I were Floating World or whatever, would be to put out a Carlos Gonzalez or Noel Freibert one-shot with an ad for a horror movie on the back, as I continually am reminded by old DC comics of horror movies from thirty-plus years ago that no one really talks about anymore (like George Romero's Monkey Shines or The Dark Half).

[GHO]

im seeing and hearing a lot of negative stuff about the movie, I mean I liked it. can't say i'd watch it again anytime soon. I wish there was a 10 second clip of each Rick altergott drawing under even lighting at a static camera angle. I loved the score to death I think that saved it in alot of places.

[MilleniumDibber]

Sept 13, 2022 15:35:10 GMT arecomicsevengood said:

But also: I do think the movie would register as different to a young woman, interested in comics. Not because the vision the film presents is unrecognizable as the present without women in it but because the movie is all about older men behaving inappropriately in the presence of a younger person, and this 100% still happens to women it just doesn't feel like a comedy, it feels like institutional sexism. 

I think you're onto something. The movie made me laugh and it's weirdly flattering to a certain type of comics scene "Kevin Kline's son liked Crumb that much??"

It is, and this isn't necessarily a negative, so tightly tied to that grime that it feels like a fantasy. If "a girl" or "a manga" walked into that movie, would it completely collapse? Or I guess it'd alter the gravitational pull so much it'd ruin the comedy of the Eightball-looking guys wanking in the basement. Spoiler!

I watched it yesterday and read your comment in light of the Ed Piskor stuff, so it hit home extra hard.

[artquest]

Regarding the anachronism of the film being set in the modern day but clearly rooted in the 90s -- I can't help feel like it's a consequence of how expensive and difficult it is to convincingly pull off "period pieces."

I do think it would've been a better movie if it was set in the 90s but that's a compromise that has to be made in the interest of budgets and logistics.

The lack of women in the movie is also not remarkable, all the characters are gross losers!

Although a fujoshi third wheel who secretly ships Robert and Miles could have been funny lol