Joshua Hale Fialkov

Purveyor of sheer awesomeness.

Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy Award nominated writer of graphic novels, animation, video games, film, and television, including:

THE LIFE AFTER, THE BUNKER, PUNKS, ELK'S RUN, TUMOR, ECHOES, KING, PACIFIC RIM, THE ULTIMATES, I, VAMPIRE, and JEFF STEINBERG CHAMPION OF EARTH. He's also written television including MAX’s YOUNG JUSTICE, NBC's CHICAGO MED and NETFLIX’s AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Filtering by Category: Art

Things Learned in 2008

December 20, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

Not particularly sage advice that has struck me on this December evening... Closed doors and locked doors are two different things. One you can always go back and reopen, the other requires a small piece of metal.

Working with amazing people teaches you infinitely more than working with the average.

Applause for a job well done is nice. Knowing you did a good job is better.

Find the things, people, places, jobs, etc you love, and do them. Everything else is a waste of time.

Technology is amazing. Technology is a huge pain in the ass.

Life is considerably easier with an amazing woman standing at your side.

The only way to learn is by doing. The only way to do... well that would be to actually do it.

Mistakes are worth making if you can actually recognize them and attempt to fix them.

There's nothing more valuable than talented people.

When you have faith in people nine times out of ten they won't disappoint you. That tenth time is probably worth suffering through.

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categories / Art, Creative, Personal

What We Did Today

March 08, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

http://www.esotouric.com/ The wife and I were invited along for what is now the second tour I've taken with the kind folks of Esotouric.  They specialize in 1940's flavored tours of the city, and today we went on their West Side Chandler tour.  It was, as the first one was, an absolute blast, and really quite educational.

But, as great as the tour was, there was just no way it could top our trip to what is probably the absolute coolest place in all of Los Angeles.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology 

It's what is known as a Cabinet of Curiosities.  A bizarre collection of scientific oddities, artistic accomplishments, historical artifacts, and just plain bizarre shit.  It's literally like stumbling through the brain of a schizophrenic.  From sculptures in the eyes of needles to Ricky Jays' collection of decaying dice it's really just one of the most bizarre, inspiring, and down right interesting places I've ever been.  Add to that, I've been trying to put together a book about a Cabinet of Curiosity for the past few years, and you can figure out why I reacted so strongly.

Anyways, it's a downright necessity for any visit to Los Angeles.

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categories / Art, Personal, Products, Research, Things to do before you die-

Woody Posters

March 08, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

Woody Posters, originally uploaded by Joshua Hale Fialkov.

My two favorite purchases (other than my Macbook) from the Tax Refund are the two Woody Posters above.

The Bananas Insert came pre-framed, and the Sleeper half sheet is just plain awesome.

I'm in heaven, I tell's ya.

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categories / Art, Movies, Products

Somebody’s Getting Married

October 16, 2007  /  Joshua Fialkov

Wedding Comicby Phil Hester, Colors and design by Tony Fleecs.

This weekend comes that day of days, my wedding. From all corners of the globe (Australia! Canada! Glendora!) come my family and friends. For those who don't know, my wife-to-be, aside from being totally and completely awesome, is also a memorabilia collector, specifically for one actress, Ann Dvorak. She's been the webmistress of http://www.anndvorak.com for years, and is in the process of writing an in depth biography of her, ten years of research driving it all. So, it's a huge treat for her that we're getting married in Ann's backyard.

The only house Ann ever really called home is the site of the wedding, the current owners kindly allowing us to bring 150 of our closest friends and relatives (although, predominantly relatives) to the beatuiful secluded property hidden away in Encino.

So, keep us in your thoughts this weekend, and forgive my week long disappearance.

When I return, I'll be a different (and better) man.

Cheers.

j.

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categories / Art, Friends & Collaborators, Personal

Cyblade

June 23, 2007  /  Joshua Fialkov

Wizarduniverse.com broke the news... Cyblade - Pilot Season One Shot Cover

Cyblade: Pilot Season #1

(W) Joshua Hale Fialkov (A)Rick Mays (Cov) Rick MaysCyblade - she's training to be an elite super-spy and assassin, but who is she working for? A cereberal action thriller in the vein of ALIAS and LA FEMME NIKITA, this is a whole new portrayal of CYBERFORCE'S electromagnetic warrior. Written by Harvey Award Winner Joshua Hale Fialkov ( ELK'S RUN, PUNKS: THE COMIC ) with stunning art by Rick Mays ( KABUKI, ZATANNA) , the true origin of Cyblade begins here.

Full Color 32 pages $2.99 pilot issue Cyblade Pilot Season #1 CGC Graded Edition

(W) Joshua Hale Fialkov (A)Rick Mays (Cov) Rick MaysFor the diehard member of the Herd, looking to capture a pristine copy of Cyblade Pilot Season #1 for their collection.

CGC Graded 9.8 - $69.99

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categories / Art, Comics, My Comics, Products

Me and Keating Talk About Elk’s Run

May 09, 2006  /  Joshua Fialkov

So, Keating and I talk almost constantly while he colors Elk's Run. It's a very... interesting process to me. Anyways, I just had my first chance to see 95% of the book colored (And that's nearly 200 pages of comics, people) and I got a chance to see just how much of a genius Keating is. So, we talked, I copy and pasted, and here's what's hopefully not a boring ramble about the creative process behind Elk's Run. This contains some spoilers if you haven't read the book at all, so, be warned. SPOILERS FOR ELK'S RUN 1-4 BELOW!

josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: what's nice is that the colors that we've used through out are now just totally opressive. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: like they've come to a boil. Keating: okay Keating: so here's the thing Keating: This was my plan for the coloring of this thing. Right from the start. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: heheh. Keating: The colours have a bunch of purposes. Different lighting situations, etc. Times periods. All with different qualities. Keating: But as it gets going, what happens is that the colours start coming together. Little bits in different 'sets'. As the more and more things start happening to the town/citizens, the color spreads to them. But not the family. So, if you look at the townsfolk in the 7th issue. They're colored as a group. They've become a single entity. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: you've officially put more thought into the book than I have. Keating: And during the SPOILER DELETED, the family, especially john jr and sr become totally seperated from the background. Everything else just bcomes 'the town' Keating: So, the other characters take on more of the background color. So everything is focused on the family. Because, in the end, it's really only about them. Keating: And that's it :) haha josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: Right. Keating: And the last thing is that the colors the characters wear tie into their place in the story. Keating: So, john and john start out both wearing blue. His mother has a slightly greenish blue. Keating: As john becomes seperated from his family, he loses he jacket and takes on a grey shirt, since he doesn't belong anywhere. Keating: In the end, only the father is wearing the blue. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: yep, 10x as much thought as I have. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: the jacket thing was intentional, actually. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: it's my little Ibsen nod. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: Ibsen was obsessed with when people took off and put on clothes. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: it was a symbol of vulnerability. Keating: It's awesome. I was really happy as I read it, since I saw so much opportunity as the colorist to sort of back up what was happening in the narrative. Keating: rather than just color things as the color they are. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: i love page 10 josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: makes it that much sadder. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: which is the thing. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: it's not just sad for Jr. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: it's sad for Sr. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: He's a man out of time. Keating: Yeah. Keating: And it plays against the 'drop out' coloring that we do. Which is normally when the character seperates himself from his surroundings. But this is the town's people seperating themselves from him. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: and ultimately from the town. Keating: Yup. Keating: It's good stuff ;) josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: I've been in creative meetings all day, and have been sort of bickering about plot and semantics and things like that. It's nice to get to talk about the actual fucking craft of the book. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: and, the thing about this book, and why it works so great as a comic is that it's more than the sum total of it's parts.  I think there's magic between the three of us. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: and as we try and disect the plot and break it down into set pieces and elements, you start to realize that what makes it fly is the subtlety and the pacing. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: Honestly, that's Noel's strong point. He controls the pacing so well. josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: Despite giving you 10,000,000 extra panels to color. Keating: The pacing and he reigns in the drama, I think. Some of the scenes could be drawn very heroic and romantic. But instead he mostly draws at an even sort of level. Which, when the town starts to burn, really works. It's like a slow build. Which adds to the tension, because we expect 'big' moments but they never quite get there. Until the last pages of issue 7 josh@hoarseandbuggy.com: and you sort of realize how Jr. is really rising above the whole thing. because they have this lackluster miserablely mundane existance, and he finally steps up and does something remarkable. Keating: yeah Keating: And this is coming from a guy who absolutely hates colouring this book :) haha

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categories / Art, Comics, Creative, My Comics

Come on in… Take off your skin…

April 29, 2006  /  Joshua Fialkov

FOR SOME REASON THE OFFICIAL SITE WENT DOWN, SO ALL THE IMAGES AND SUCH ARE GONE.  OH WELL.Just got home from seeing The Black Rider at the Ahamnson Theater. For those not in the know, The Black Rider is the musical written by Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs and brought to the stage by Robert Wilson. The show was originally produced about a decade ago, and this is a revival, with Wilson still at the head.It's this Faustian folk tale done Brecht style with a heaping helping of Waitsian charm and Burroughs-y insanity (or, as I like to call it Burroughsanity) and a Murnau aesthetic The Waits Album that serves for most as their only vision of the piece is one of his classic discs, and it's a must own for fans of the later period Waits (I'd say it's second only to Bone Machine).

So, the show. Hm. It's good. It's very good. (Watch my BFA in theater go now!) The mis-en-scene is positively breath-taking. The sheer degree of stagecraft that went into making the whole thing work, is just obscenely impressive. The scene transitions happen without you noticing, the sets morph and grow, shrinking into nothing, growing from back drops, and lighting effects become three dimensional objects. It's positively transcendent.

The performers... well... in that Brechtian tradition, what the actors are doing is so stilted and stylized that very little of it is acting, so much as it is an elaborate combination of dance and vocalization. Even a quick walk across the stage is becomes an epic event. It's pretty amazing. That aside, one of the strangest biproducts of the show being written by Waits is a lot of the cast attempts to do a Waits impression especially on some of the more 'trademarked' songs. Fact is, there's only one Tom, and nobody else can even come close.

The music is absolutely the highlight. The performance is epic, I'd say the band is better than Tom's actual touring band (at least, the band he toured with on Mule Variations, which is the last time I saw him.) The vibrancy and precision of what they do is just... wow. The vocal side of things, aside from the Tom apeing mentioned above, is also pretty damn great. Lots of interesting choices and arrangements. Really, really amazing stuff.

Then, we get to the show itself. Here's the thing. There's a big flaw in the shape and structure of the piece, in part due to a strangely timed intermission (it falls nearly 2 hours into a 2 hour and 45 minute show) leaving the final act feeling very small and disconnected to the rest of the plot. In fact, when the curtain call started, it took about 4 or 5 actors before the audience figured out it was a curtain call. At the end of the day, it fails in a lot of the ways that I think a lot of Burroughs work fails. 2/3rds of the way through the plot falls by the wayside, and it becomes a bit self-indulgent. Which is a shame, because the actual set pieces are really breath-taking. Really, really breath-taking. For me, though, the combination of the extremely stylized series of vignettes that make up the final 1/3rd, and the forward story momentum of the first chunk just does not mesh. The thing is, that at the end of the day, the plot is identical to that of Brigadoon or Oklahoma, just with a darker take. And part of what makes those shows (while somewhat atrocious in their own ways) successful is the feeling of completion. I don't think the show accomplishes that. All in all, a truely unique piece of theater, and the fact that it not only got put on at one of the biggest theaters in LA, and had a pretty decent size audience is a feat and accomplishment in itself. If you're a fan of Waits, Burroughs, or giant avant garde theatrical art pieces, you'll enjoy it.

At the very least, I know that Sean Maher is jealous as fuck.

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categories / Art, Events, Music, Reviews, Reviews by Me