WINSOR MCCAY'S LITTLE NEMO

Lost Winsor Mccay Art Found

Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo

It is de rigueur to praise Winsor McCay for “inventing the grammar of comics” or for his draughtsmanship or his imagination. It is hard to read Little Nemo in Slumberland without thinking about all the praise that is heaped on the strip and its creator.

McCay is perhaps the first cartoonist to stray from a realistic setting in his comics. Little Nemo’s dreams are far from the streets of the Yellow Kid or the milieu of Happy Hooligan. While Nemo’s dreams often take place in realistic settings (cities, forests) they are accompanied by an altered perspective (Nemo bounds through a city, standing as tall as the buildings) or fantastical inhabitants. Many of the strips take place in one of the palaces of the King of Slumberland, lushly decorated in the art nouveau and neo-classical style that McCay frequently uses.

McCay created some of the earliest animated cartoons and his interest in animation is obvious in Little Nemo. A great percentage of the strips feature some kind of closely delineated movement (growing, shrinking, stretching) or time sequence, usually both. McCay is a master of this sort of panel progression where some item(s) in the panel slowly changes across a sequence of panels. In most cases this progression is the focus of the strip. This use of panels and timing is unique in early strips, and mostly unique for what has followed. Rare is the cartoonist that uses such a great amount of panel transitions in this way.

Here’s a particularly unusal example, wherein the characters’ representation becomes more and more abstract and childlike. A great example of stylistic inconsistency (in a good way) in a comic.

In Little Nemo, McCay also pioneered certain aspects of page layout. He used varying width panels to emphasis the height, width, or relative size (to other panels) of the contents of panels. One famous example has Nemo’s bed growing long legs. The panels start out rather short, but as the legs on the bed grow, so do the panels, becoming taller and taller. Here is half the page, the other half is one strip of very tall panels

His panels also emphasis space. Through page-wide panels, or other larger than normal panels, the space in a scene is emphasized.

In a page from 1905, Nemo gets on stilts that grow taller and taller across five panels, which grow in height accordingly. The space below these growing panels has a corresponding shrinking movement, which is used to show Nemo falling from his stilts when he is attacked by very tall storks. The falling Nemo approaches the ground with the panels shrinking above him. It’s a wonderful sequence that takes advantage of the panel sizes.

Another interesting technique is using a single background broken up across a series of panels, where the foreground does not have a movement corresponding to the background. That is, characters standing still, but the background moving through the panels. Hard to explain, so look at this example where the last three panels show what I am trying to say. Also note the slow transformation of the one figure, typical of McCay’s transitions and transformations.

While McCay is praised for his dreamscapes, I don’t find Nemo’s dreams particularly… believable, as dreams. I find that most dreams have personal resonances, yet Nemo’s dreams (or at least what we see) show little of his personality. In fact, one of the great failings of the strip is how devoid of personality Nemo is. I have read somewhere (so much for citations) the idea that Nemo is empty so as to serve as a reader stand-in. I’m not convinced of the idea, as even then Nemo’s dreams are not like any dreams I’ve ever had or heard of from others. Rather, the dream framing seems to serve as an excuse for the fantastical elements of the story, perhaps more palatable (at the time) as such rather than out and out fantasy. McCay’s Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend strips (more on them in a future post), on the other hand, seem much more believable and necessary as dreams.

McCay’s drawing skill is impressive and humbling. While his figures are often tiny in Little Nemo (and not as well drawn as in some of his other works), his backgrounds are the real focal point of the strip. The detail with which McCay illustrates the palaces of Slumberland and the various fantastical places Nemo visits, as well as the normal objects and places that take on surreal qualities, creates a greater sense of realism in otherwise unbelievable contexts.

Looking at some of his uncolored strips (a few examples in the Masters of American Comics book), one can see his unvarying line that seems to exist in two widths, a thin line used for most of the drawing and a thicker one for outlines and emphasis. McCay’s line is precise and often very geometric, as if he knew exactly where the line was going and just put it there.

Much of the visual impact of the strip comes from the colors, which, as I understand it, McCay was closely involved with (more so it seems than any other comic artist (take the rather jarring colors in the most recent Krazy Kat reprint book)). The color palette is enormous and ever changing, from the bright and garish to the dull and subdued. Take a look at this strip (broken into two parts due to its size) where not only do we get a fantastic example of McCay’s background transformations (as focal point of the strip) but also some beautiful coloring in the sky.

Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries (and many that came after him), McCay uses a very strict perspective to create great depth and space in his panels. While many comic strips have the look of actors on a stage, McCay’s pages stretch into the distance. Note the wonderful staircase in the first panel here.

The word balloons and dialogue in the strip are some of the most pitiful, redundant examples of such I’ve seen. The words are scrawled in tiny characters, closely packed within the tiniest possible balloon, and the text itself rarely adds to the strip, instead consisting of endless streams of exclamations and the characters telling us something we already see on the page. It makes “reading” the strips downright difficult. (Any of the examples above will serve.) (It is interesting to note that R.C. Harvey so intent on the integration of word and image, does not discuss this aspect of McCay’s work in his chapter on such in The Art of the Funnies.)

In the collection of Little Nemo strips that I have, Bill Watterson writes that he admires the strip more than he likes it, and I have to agree. The strips are impressive, but on the whole, I don’t find myself wanting to read them. McCay’s imagination and art overshadow and help one overlook his lack of storytelling skill. I can marvel at the transformative sequences, but I don’t care what happens next. I don’t feel moved by Nemo’s adventures. I don’t laugh. I don’t cry. I don’t reflect upon the world or myself.

It’s the storytelling element that I find lacking. McCay’s strip is more like a fine painting than a great novel. This is a place many comics occupy, the pull between the visual aesthetic and the story/narrative/thematic aesthetic, but McCay sits firmly and greatly on the visual side. More so than many works of comics art, McCay’s pages could hang on a wall in isolation from any context, continuity, or narrative.

ALIX

Alix, or The Adventures of Alix, is a popular Franco-Belgian comics series drawn in the ligne claire style, by one its masters, Jacques Martin. The stories revolve around a young Gallo-Roman man named Alix in the late Roman Republic. Although the series is renowned for its historical accuracy and stunning set detail, the hero has been known to wander into anachronistic situations up to two centuries out of his era. The stories unfold throughout the reaches of the Roman world, including the city of Rome, Gaul, the German frontier, Mesopotamia, Africa and Asia Minor. One voyage goes as far as China.

Alix is fearless, generous, and devoted to just causes. Born in Gaul, separated from his parents and sold into slavery, he is later adopted by a Roman noble contemporary to Julius Caesar. This mixed background provides Alix with an identity crisis and divided loyalties, especially in the context of the founding myths of French nationalism revolving around Vercingetorix. In the second adventure Alix is joined by Enak, a slightly younger Egyptian orphan, who remains his constant companion and sounding board. Critics have suggested that Alix and Enak are closet homosexuals, and parodies have overtly depicted them as such. Originally forbidden to have a female companion by the 1949 law governing children's literature, Alix later finds himself entangled with amorous women, but he always hesitates to commit, and the pursuit of social justice provides a pretext for moving on.

The authors

Jacques Martin created the Alix series as one of his earliest heroes, and he continued solo conception, plot, dialogue and illustration for fifty years, even while developing other series such as Lefranc. Due to failing eyesight and advancing age, Martin has since 1998 gradually retired from the series, turning over tasks to various assistants. Rafael Morales became his first assistant, taking charge of the final illustrations with some assistance by Marc Henniquiau, while Martin continued writing the stories and performing the first sketches and layouts.[1]. In 2006, Martin turned over the final writing task to François Maingoval, while still conceiving the main story line in rough draft form. In 2008, Maingoval shifted his attention to a spin-off series (see Alix raconte below), while Patrick Weber assumed the mantle of writing the main Alix series.

Characters

Alix: the hero of the series in the title role, pure of heart, perpetually twenty-five, and wise for his years.

Enak: a boy of fourteen, who meets Alix in Le sphinx d'or. Not originally intended as a principal character, he becomes Alix's constant and faithful companion.

Arbacès: sworn enemy of the heroes, this crafty and cruel Greek keeps turning up in their path.

Julius Caesar: friend and protector of Alix, the latter nevertheless finds himself sometimes torn between just causes and the interests of the great man.

Pompey: Caesar's rival, he repeatedly seeks to eliminate Alix, obviously without succeeding to end the series.

Vanik: cousin of Alix.

Astorix: Gallic chieftain, and father of Alix, not to be confused with Asterix, his burlesque counterpart who entered the world stage a little more than a decade later.

Honorus Galla: Roman governor, friend and loyal lieutenant of Julius Caesar, who adopted Alix as his son.

HUGO PRATT

Hugo Pratt, Existentialist Author

by Andrew B. Etri

Hugo Pratt lived an adventerous life from an early age! He was born near Rimini on the 15th of June, 1927. His father, a Frenchman of English descent, had a criminal record and had to go to Italian Abyssinia to find work: he eventually became an Italian colonial policeman! Pratt's mother was Venetian and Hugo lived in Venice until the age of 10 when his father brought the family to live in Addis Abeba. In 1941, following the British conquest of Italian East Africa, Pratt's father was interned; he died of an infection in a POW camp the following year. The Pope and the Allied powers arranged for the repatriation of Italian families in Africa and Hugo and his mother returned to Venice in 1942. After the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 the Germans set up a Fascist puppet state in northern Italy. That year Hugo Pratt was sent to the Scuola Militare di Città di Castello, in Umbria. In September 1943 he was drafted into the "Battaglione Lupo", a corps of the Fascist 'Social Republic'. He served as an interpreter in the intelligence section until the surrender of the Axis forces in Italy. He was then shipped to Australia. Returning to Italy in 1945 Pratt studied at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts. At that time he created his first comic book hero, a hooded crimefighter named Asso di Picche, in collaboration with Mario Faustinelli and Alberto Ongaro. In 1950 Pratt moved to Argentina where he worked for a variety of publications including Cesare Civita, Editorial Abril in Buenos Aires and Editorial Frontera. He also taught at the Escuela Panamericana de Arte during this period. Returning briefly to Venice in 1952 he married, but was divorced 5 years later.

Pratt created some of his most important strips in South America including Sgt. Kirk (1953), a western; Ernie Pike (1956), a WWII story; and Anna della Jungla (1959), a jungle adventure. From Argentina Pratt moved to London, England, working for the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Pictorial and Fleetway Publications. After a brief return to Argentina, where he edited the magazine 'Mister X', Pratt moved back to Italy, working for the Corriere dei Piccoli in Milan, then in 1967 for the monthly Sgt. Kirk. He also created Capitan Cormorant, a pirate story; Luck Star O'Hara, a detective strip; and Ballad of the Salt Sea (Una Ballata del Mare Salato), a tale of the South Seas, in which Corto Maltese made his first appearance as a minor character.

By the late '60's Western adventures had lost much of their appeal and on April 1, 1970, Pratt introduced Corto Maltese as a regular series for the French weekly Pif-Gadget. In 1973 he started to work for the famed Belgian comics magazine Tintin and created Les Scorpions du Désert, a World War II story. Cush, a character in the latter tale, provides Corto Maltese's apparent epitaph, stating that Corto disappeared during the Spanish Civil War, presumably dying fighting for the Republican side.

Pratt created a number of independent comic strip series in the last 20 years of his life, the most notable being Cato Zulu (1984), a tale of the colonial wars in South Africa; Jesuit Joe, (1978-1984), about a Canadian Mountie who is a law unto himself; and West of Eden, an adventure story set in East Africa. He authored two graphic novels illustrated by Milo Manara; Indian Summer, a tale of Puritans and Indians in New England, and El Gaucho, a tale of early 19th century Argentina. He also wrote several novels and an autobiography. Pratt died of cancer at his home near Lausanne, Switzerland, on August 20, 1995.

Graphically Hugo Pratt was strongly influenced by Milton Caniff, whose comic strip, Terry and the Pirates, began as a contemporary (1934) South Pacific adventure serial. Caniff was a master of black and white brushwork and his signature image was a powerful contrast defined by negative space. Pratt imitated this as well as Caniff's use of broad, powerful brushstrokes. Pratt contrasts frames full of thoughtful exposition with action sequences devoid of words.

Equally important were Caniff's complex and often tragic characters, his use of pathos, ongoing sub-plots, mysterious and powerful femmes fatales etc. Pratt developed his own minimalist style, with dramatic contrasts and enigmatic dialogue. His work is picaresque rather than conflict-oriented. We are on a quest where the journey is the goal; treasures are there only as excuses for exploration.

Pratt was diligent in pursuit of historical detail and liked to give his tales an air of the outre. Fictional characters mingle with real historical persons like Stalin, Jack London, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc. There is more than a hint of Kurosawa in Corto Maltese: he is a kind of laconic samurai, presenting an air of cool detachment to the world but compulsively sympathetic to the underdog and the oppressed. Like Caniff Pratt created a number of femmes fatales as foils for his hero. Pratt's are elegant, ambitious and devious, and for the most part possessed of an indestructible sang-froid. Pratt's ability to depict complex characters made it possible for him to present effective drama and tragedy in the confines of a comic strip.

At first Corto's adventures are (relatively) prosaic but Pratt's sense of irony and literary tastes slowly take over the development of the stories. Corto Maltese in Siberia is in my opinion the best of the 'straight' adventures; some Corto fans prefer The Celts. Perhaps the latter displays Pratt's characterization abilities best. In my opinion Fable of Venice is Pratt's best work. Pratt has begun to play with his medium; fantasy, memory, and spirituality blend into a deeper kind of adventure. Les Helvetiques is a literary fantasy strongly influenced by Hesse's Jungian mysticism; Pratt is struggling to use his medium to convey ideas rarely touched on in Comix. Finally in Mu we leave the mundane sphere in search of a lost world of ancient truths.

CORTO MALTESE - BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Corto Maltese Bibliography

by Andy Etris

Irritatingly there are multiple versions of the Corto Maltese albums, depending on whether you are reading in English or another European language. Then there are colorized versions of the stories! In addition the American publisher NBM took considerable liberties in translating the tales (the ones they bothered to translate!) My big beef is that NBM decided to swap around some of the stories so that there is little relationship between the organization of the European and American albums! Where English translations exist, the publisher’s name is given in parenthesis after the title (if not, the original French title).

The Early Years (NBM)

The original French title - La Jeunesse de Corto - is a bit misleading, as the main characters in this adventure seems to be Rasputin and Jack London, rather than Corto. In early 1905, at the end of the Russo-Japanese war, Jack London (then an ambitious war correspondent) gets into a brawl with a Japanese officer. Rasputin is ostensibly a regular soldier in the Russian army, but when a whistle signals the end of the war he choose to disregard it, killing both an enemy officer as well as his own superior - on the dubitous grounds that nobody asked him his opinion! And Corto? As usual, he's more interested in hidden treasures than politics, and in this story we find him daydreaming about the famous gold mines of king Solomon...

Ballad of the Salt Sea (NBM, The Harvill Press)

Between 1913 and 1915, Corto and Rasputin are both employees for the mysterious "Monk", perhaps the last great pirate. From his headquarters at the secret island of Escondida, he controls large areas of the Southern Pacific, to the benefit of the Germans - who, in lack of more trustworthy allies and in dire need of coal supplies, find themselves forced to deal with freebooters and defrocked priests. The Ballad is much more than a tale about modern pirates, however. Above all, it is a great sea epic, with an athosphere reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's novels. The many references in the Ballad to famous maritime tales (such as Melville's Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, the story of Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) clearly demonstrates that Pratt aspires to place his first major work in this particular tradition. The Ballad is also a collective novel: Instead of the "single hero-formula", the narrative portrays a number of characters which are of equal importance. Though many consider the Ballad as the first Corto Maltese adventure, this is only partly true. If there is a principal part in this story, it can perhaps be said to be played by the Pacific Ocean itself - at least the very first sentences in the Ballad appear to suggest this: "I am the Pacific Ocean and I am the largest..."

The Brazilian Eagle (NBM)

This NBM album consists of 4 episodes set in South America's Atlantic coast. In the first episode we find Corto Maltese escaping the tropical heat on the shuttered verandah of Madame Java's pension, when the alcholic former University of Prague Professor Jeremiah Steiner enters. The orphaned Tristan Bantam appears with a mysterious map and discovers that his sister, Morgana, is a pupil of the voodoo priestess Gold Mouth of Bahia, Argentina. There Tristan and Corto rendezvous with Morgana. They continue to Itapoa where they are sent on a mission by Gold Mouth to end the exploitation of native labour by wealthy landowners. The adventures conclude in Brazil.

Banana Conga (NBM)

In 1916 Corto is in Dutch Guyana posting bail for the dipsomaniac Steiner. Together with Tristan Bantam they are pitted against Rasputin and the heirs of pirates in a treasure hunt involving four aces made of whale bones. Then Corto washes up on the shore of a small Caribbean island and receives a head wound from the beautiful Soledad Lokaarth. Steiner consults with South American trader Levi Columbia and tries to help Corto recover his memory using hallucinogenic mushrooms; they travel together in a dream quest for Eldorado. Corto again stumbles into the intrigues of "Gold Mouth" in the episode "Banana Conga" which pits him against agents and double agents of the U.S. government. We also meet the young prostitute Esmeralda, whose mother loved Corto, together with 'bad girl' Venexiana Stevenson.

Voodoo for the President (NBM)

Corto Maltese must once again post bail for the drunken Jeremiah Steiner before sailing to a corrupt Caribbean island republic. There he finds Soledad Lokaarth being tried for voodoo practices by a kangaroo court. In "Fables et Grands-peres", Corto helps a European surgeon find the grandson brought up by the child's other grandfather, an Indian sorcerer and medicine man. In the final story of the NBM version Venexiana Stevenson turns up in Venice in WWI.

A Mid-Winter Morning's Dream (NBM)

Arguably the best of the series. Set in Europe during the war years 1917-1918. In the European version Corto arrives in Venice in the first of six stories; at the behest of Levi Columbia he is seeking a map to the lost mines of El Dorado. In the NBM version we begin in northern Italy where Corto is the moving power behind a plot to recover hidden Albanian gold during the battle of Caporetto. Next Corto is in Dublin after curfew looking for an old friend: an Irish Republican dead at the hands of British counter-insurgency forces. Then he's off to Brittany where he meets Cain Groovesnore in a tale of spying in WWI. More skullduggery is afoot in Great Britain and Faery King Oberon manipulates Corto into saving the Allied high command with the aid of Merlin and Puck. Corto winds up at an Australian aid station on the western front and witnesses the death of the Red Baron, the great German ace of WWI.

Corto Maltese in Africa (NBM)

From the shores of the North Sea to the shores of the Red Sea! This album takes Corto Maltese to the African theaters of the First World War. The story begins in the Yemeni desert where a group of British troops are in Tuban, held prisoner by the Turks. Corto and the Danakil nomad Cush meet there during a mission to rescue a Bedouin petit prince; the pair then travel to Abyssinia where they consult aged sorcerer - or fallen angel? - Shamael, the poison of God, who may be able to resolve a dispute involving two lovers of different religions. Corto winds up in German East Africa where an African secret society of 'leopardmen' helps him avenge the murder of the brother of Captain Slutter (Ballad of the Salt Sea.)

Corto Maltese in Siberia (NBM)

A superb story. This album begins in Corto Maltese's home in Hong Kong; at the behest of a Chinese Secret Society Corto, Rasputin and a Chinese agent roam northern Asia in pursuit of an armored train carrying Imperial Russian gold. Quite a challenge because the train is guarded by Cossack troops of the White Russian dictator Admiral Kolchak! The quest is complicated by the Russian Civil War, with Bolshevik troops fighting White Russians supported by Allied powers and Chinese bandits and warlords looking for a piece of the action. We meet Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, descendant of Teutonic Knights, a White Russian officer who became for a time King of Mongolia, riding at the head of his Cossacks in pursuit of a mad dream of glory. A number of characters comment on the apparent disappearance of Corto at the end of the adventure; however he reappears in 1920 to chat up the (female) Chinese agent! Who is the mysterious She?

Fable of Venice (NBM)

This is a self-conscious tale of intrigue and hermeticism set in the early years of Italian Fascism. The real main character of the story is the city of Venice; we linger in the shadows of its secret courtyards, navigate its canals, gaze from its balconies and leap from its tiled roofs. Freemasonry supplies a great deal of the atmosphere of a story which is very occult, full of esoteric symbols and historical references. We are also treated to a collection of Pratt's magnificent character studies. A personal favorite of mine!

The Golden House of Samarkand (La Maison dorée de Samarkand)

Having left Venice Corto contemplates English Romantics on the roof of the Kawakly Mosque in Rhodes. Chased off by Italian occupiers he winds up in a cabal of Turkish plotters where he discovers he has a doppelganger. Corto recalls that his mother had warned him that meeting one's double is a presentiment of death! It turns out not to be Corto's... He re-unites with the Italian Carabinieri Captain Sorrentino before leaving for the Dervish School of Mawlawiyyah. Corto is seeking the Persian treasure which Alexander the Great hid in Central Asia, but it just so happens Rasputin is in a nearby Turkish prison: The Golden House of Samarkand! Venexiana Stevenson makes a surprise appearance as Corto narrowly escapes death at the hands of Turks, Kurds, and Armenians - he is saved from a Bolshevik firing squad by a phone call from Stalin!

Tango (Y todo a media luz)

Corto Maltese slicks back his hair and dances the tango in this tale of gangsters, gamblers, corrupt cops and persecuted prostitutes. It is 1923 and Corto is in Buenos Aires looking for Louise Brookszowyc, the beautiful Polish immigrant who nursed Corto in 'Fable of Venice'. Louise had travelled to Argentina to work for the "Warsavia", an organization passing itself off as a social service but in reality a white slavery network. Corto meets former acquaintances Esmeralda and Butch Cassidy as he seeks revenge on those responsible for his friend's death.

The Secret Rose (Les Helvétiques / Rosa Alchemica)

This story begins in the Swiss village of Montagnola in 1924. Accompanied by Jeremiah Steiner Corto Maltese has gone to Switzerland to visit the exiled German mystic writer Herman Hesse. Corto meets the Klingsor knight, alias Herman Hesse, alias Wolfram von Eschenbach. The story is dream-like and filled with alchemical and esoteric references, giving the reader some difficulty in following the ins and outs of the plot! Corto meets Death, the Devil, King Kong, Eve, Joan of Arc, and the Marquis de Sade in a mixture of modern and medieval myths. Literary fantasy rather than action adventure.

Mu

Pratt plays with the mythic and fantastic in his final Corto Maltese album. At long last Corto has followed up on the map of Mu first introduced in "The Secret of Tristan Bantam". All of Corto's friends are aboard a ship chartered by Levi Columbia, which has reached the island indicated on Tristan's map. The expedition is menaced by the gang of Black pirate Dandy Roll and Quetzal warriors. Also on the island is downed aviatrix 'Tracy Eberhard' - who falls in love with Rasputin! Soledad Lokaarth, too, finds a mate. Corto passes through a series of tests in order to enter the underground world of the Amazons and save them from their enemies. He learns the secret of the lost world aboard a Chinese junk after his friends abandon Levi Columbia! Not a satisfying ending to this wonderful series...

CORTO MALTESE

The Life of Corto Maltese

by Andy Etris

According to Hugo Pratt, Corto Maltese was born July 10 1887 in La Valetta, Malta, to an Andulasian Gypsy, Amalia, a prostitute known as "la Niña de Gibraltar". Corto Maltese is therefore a British subject. Corto's official residence is Antigua, in the British West Indies, but the only home of his depicted in the series is in Hong-Kong. We learn a little about the childhood of Corto in "Ballad of the Salt Sea", notably that he was living in the Jewish Quarter of Cordoba, Spain at the age of 10. When a fortune-telling friend of his mother read his palm, she noticed that he had no 'Fateline'. The young Corto thereupon took his father's razor and single-handedly cut a line of Fate to suit him...

In the summer of 1900, at age 13, Corto made his first trip to China. According to Hugo Pratt's assistant Raffaele Vianello Corto's first feat of arms was performed there; in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion (June - August 1900) he destroyed a cannon. In Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War (February 1904 - September 1905) he became a friend of war correspondant, later famous author, Jack London. This was the occasion of his first meeting with Rasputin, at the time a deserter from the Tsarist army. Together the pair sailed to Ethiopia in search of gold mines.

However there was a mutiny aboard their ship and they wound up in Argentina! In 1905, in Patagonia, Corto and Raspoutine met Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and Etta Place, the notorious outlaws fleeing from United States Marshals.

In 1907 Corto was in Italy, at Ancona, where he came to know a humble hotel night-porter named Josef Djougatchvili, the future Russian dictator Stalin. This friendship got Corto out of a tight spot 14 years later (see the album The Golden House of Samarkand).

Returning to Argentina in 1908, he reunited with Jack London. Between 1908 and 1913 Corto travelled to Marseille, Tunis, the Antilles, New Orleans, India and China. According to Juan Antonio de Blas, a specialist in the work of Hugo Pratt, Corto was second mate on the Bostonian in 1910, a ship sailing between Boston and Liverpool. On board Corto came to the defense of John Reed, future reporter and Marxist hagiographer, at the time a ship's boy accused by the captain of causing the death of another cabin boy. Corto proved Reed innocent at the trial, and as a result wound up on the captain's blacklist.

Following this voyage Corto became a smuggler. In 1913 he was working for the mysterious crime boss "the Monk" in the South Pacific. On October 31, Corto's crew mutinied (he was certainly unlucky in his crews!) and he was cast adrift in mid-ocean, tied to a crate. The following day, November 1st 1913, he was rescued by Raspoutine, also a member of "the Monk"s secret syndicate. Raspoutine had also rescued teenage castaways Cain and Pandora Groovesnore at the beginning of 'la Ballade de la Mer Salee', the first appearance of Corto Maltese in the oeuvre of Hugo Pratt.

Corto spent 1914 on the fictional island of Escondida (169 degrees longitude west, 19 degrees latitude south) When the British Navy captured Escondida Corto's German friend Slutter wound up in front of a firing squad. Around January 1915, Corto Maltese bade Pandora farewell and sailed with Raspoutine for Pitcairn's Island.

Then, Corto’s adventures in Latin America begin. In 1916, Corto Maltese, together with professor Jeremiah Steiner of the University of Prague and young Tristan Bantam, sail in succession to Paramaribo, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, Salvador de Bahia, then to Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon. In early 1917 they were at Saint-Kitts in the British Antilles, sailing from there to British Honduras (Belize), then Maracaibo and Venezuela, Honduras, Barbados, the Orinoco delta and the Amazonian jungle of Peru.

Corto's friend Levi Columbia was obsessed with the lost gold mines of El Dorado and during the adventure "Fables and Grand-peres" Corto learned of the existence of a treasure map. Crossing the Atlantic in search of it he arrived in Venice in the Fall of 1917. After a frustrating encounter with Venexiana Stevenson he sailed into the Adriatic prior to the battle of Caporetto (24 October 1917). He spent some time in Dublin while smuggling guns for the Irish Republican Army, then headed to Stonehenge, in England, for a nap! Instead he was caught up in a faery counterplot against German sabotage in "A Mid-winter's Morning Dream". Corto was in France on April 21 and witnessed the death of the Red Baron, killed in the sky over Vaux-sur-Somme. "The Celts" ended with Corto Skinnydipping with Captain Rothschild off the beaches of Normandy!

A month later the adventures in Africa begin, with Corto Matese in Yemen. By September 13th Corto was in British Somaliland, travelling from there to Ethiopia. The African adventures come to their conclusion in German East Africa.

Corto was in his home in Hong-Kong after learning of the end of the Great War, November 11 1918. Raspoutine turned up shortly afterward, elegantly attired in a Burberry and impatient to begin new adventures. A Chinese secret society, the Red Lanterns, directed the pair to Shangai, first stop in a journey to the collapsing Russian Empire in pursuit of a shipment of Czarist gold. There Corto hitched a ride with a pilot of the U.S.M.C., crash-landing near Chita in Siberia. Crossing into Mongolia Corto was captured by the troops of a White Russian Cossack commander and imprisoned in Duroy. Corto out-fought the Cossack Ataman Semenov near Chita but was severely injured while destroying the armored train of Chinese warlord General Chang outside of Bolkan-Nor in Manchuria. On February 15, 1920 he was taken to a Japanese military base at Hailar, recuperating at the U.S.M.C hospital at Harbin. In March he returned to Hong-Kong. "Corto Maltese in Siberia" concludes in the Chinese province of Jiangxi in April of 1920.

Exactly one year later a Masonic lodge in Venice was being called to order when Corto Maltese made a dramatic entrance into a story like a stageplay: 'Fable of Venice'. From there Corto travelled to the Aegean island of Rhodes in the Autumn of 1921 to began a new Asian adventure, "La Maison Doree du Samarkand". This took him from the Turkish coast to the mountains of Afghanistan in search of the treasure of Alexander the Great. Beginning in Adana he crossed Turkey into Azerbaidjan. Arrested by a trigger-happy Bolshevik Comissar he was nearly shot but was saved by the intervention of then- Commissar Stalin (always tip your porter!) Next Corto crossed the Caspian Sea from Baku to Krasnovodsk. There he found Raspoutine imprisoned in the Emirate of Bukhara. During a Russo-Turkish border dispute in Tadjikistan the pair witnessed the heroic death of Enver Pasha on August 4 1922. Finally they reached Afghanistan where for a hallucinatory moment they see the treasure of Cyrus. At the end of the adventure Corto and Raspoutine bade each other farewell at a borderpost on the Pakistani frontier.

In June of 1923 Corto Maltese was in Argentina looking into the disapearance of the beautiful Louise Brookzowyc, introduced in 'Fable of Venise'. In Tango he runs afoul of a prostitution ring called "the Warsavia", which had enslaved the young woman. Corto killed Estevez, the corrupt policeman responsible for his friend's death, and left Argentina the night of June 20.

In 1924, Corto Maltese went hiking in the Swiss Cantons with Jeremiah Steiner. In 'Rosa Alchemica' he met writer Herman Hesse at his home in Montagnola. Despite his skepticism Corto was drawn into the world of the mystic's imagination and in a dream drank the philtre of Paracelsus, becoming immortal. Or was it really a dream?

In 1925 Corto Maltese, at the request of Levi Colombia, sailed with Rasputin in search of the lost continent Mu.

A watercolour of Hugo Pratt's from la Revue Corto suggests that Corto was at Harar in Ethiopia with romancier Henry de Monfreid and the paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin in December 1928. In 1936 the armed struggle between right and left began with the last romantic crusade, the Spanish Civil War. 5 years later the Danakil warrior Cush, reminiscing with one of 'Les Scorpions du Desert', says: "Apparently, he disappered during the Spanish Civil War". So it appears! But disappear doesn't mean die...

Silvio Rodriguez Hasta siempre Commandante

HASTA SIEMPRE

Aquí se queda la clara

la entrañable transparencia,

de tu querida presencia,

comandante Che Guevara.

Aprendimos a quererte

desde la histórica altura

donde el sol con su bravura

le puso cerco a la muerte.

Aquí se queda la clara...

Tu mano gloriosa y fuerte

sobre la historia dispara

cuando toda Santa Clara

se despierta para verte.

Aquí se queda la clara...

Vienes quemando la brisa

con soles de primavera

para plantar la bandera

de la luz de tu sonrisa.

Aquí se queda la clara...

Tu amor revolucionario

te conduce a nueva empresa

donde esperan la firmeza

de tu brazo libertario.

Aquí se queda la clara...

Seguiremos adelante

como junto a ti seguimos,

y con Fidel te decimos

"¡Hasta siempre, Comandante!"

Aquí se queda la clara...

(carlos Puebla)

THE CELEBRATION OF THE LIZARD

Lions in the Street

Lions in the street & roaming
Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming
A beast caged in the heart of a city
The body of his mother
Rotting in the summer ground.
He fled the town.
He went down South
And crossed the border
Left the chaos & disorder
Back there
Over his shoulder.
One morning he awoke in a green hotel
With a strange creature groaning beside him
Sweat oozed from its shiny skin.

Wake Up

Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin.
Wake up!
You can't remember where it was.
Had this dream stopped?
The snake was pale gold glazed & shrunken.
We were afraid to touch it.
The sheets were hot dead prisons.
And she was beside me, old,
She's, no; young.
Her dark red hair.
The white soft skin.
Now, run to the mirror in the bathroom,
Look!
She's coming in here.
I can't live thru each slow centuryof her moving.
I let my cheek slide down
The cool smooth tile
Feel the good cold stinging blood.
The smooth hissing snakes
of rain...

A Little Game

Once I had a little game
I liked to crawl back in my brain
I think you know the game I mean
I mean the game called "Go Insane"
Now you should try this little game
Just close your eyes, forget your name
forget the world, forget the people
and we'll erect a different steeple.
This little game is fun to do.
Just close your eyes, no way to lose
And I'm right here, I'm going too
Release control, we're breaking through

The Hill Dwellers

Way back deep into the brain
Way back past the realm of pain
Back where there's never any rain
And the rain falls gently on the town
And over the heads of all of us
And in the labyrinth of streams beneath
Quiet unearthly presence of
Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hills around
Reptiles aboundingFossils, caves, cool air heights
Each house repeats a mold
Windows rolled
A beast car locked in against morning
All now sleeping
Rugs silent, mirrors vacant
Dust blind under the beds of lawful couples
Wound in sheets
And daughters, smug with semen
Eyes in their nipples
WAIT! There's been a slaughter here
Don't stop to speak or look around
Your gloves and fan are on the ground
We're getting out of town
We're going on the run
And you're the one I want to come!

Not to Touch the Earth

Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun
Nothing left to do but run, run, run
Let's run
Let's run
House upon the hill, moon is lying still
Shadows of the trees witnessing the wild breeze
Come on, baby, run with me
Let's run
Run with me
Run with me
Run with me, let's run
The mansion is warm at the top of the hill
Rich are the rooms and the comforts there
Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs
And you won't know a thing till you get inside
Dead president's corpse in the driver's car
The engine runs on glue and tar
Come on along, not going very far
To the East, to meet the Czar
Run with me
Run with me
Run with me, let's run
Some outlaws live by the side of a lake
The minister's daughter's in love with the snake
Who lives in a well by the side of the road
Wake up, girl! We're almost home
Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Moon, moon, moon
I will get you
Soon...
Soon...
Soon!
I AM THE LIZARD KING;
I CAN DO ANYTHING.

Names of the Kingdom

We came down the rivers and highways
We came down from forests and falls
We came down from Carson and Springfield
We came down from Phoenix enthralled
And I can tell you the names of the kingdom
I can tell you the things that you know
Listening for a fistful of silence
Climbing valleys into the shade

The Palace of Exile

For seven years I dwelt in the loose palace of exile
Playing strange games with the girls of the island
Now I have come again to the land of the fair
And the strong and the wise
Brothers and sisters of the pale forest
Children of night
Who among you will run with the hunt?
Now night arrives with her purple legion
Retire now to your tents and to your dreams
Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth
I want to be ready

THE "GERMAN" MOTORCYCLE FROM "THE GREAT ESCAPE"

The TT Special 650 Triumph from The Great Escape

For the filming of the climactic scene in The Great Escape in which Steve (as Virgil Hilts) hijacks a German warbike and becomes the center of one of cinema's most famous chase scenes, a little bit of improvising was done, as explained by Steve to writer William Nolan: We had four bikes for this film. I was running a TT Special 650 Triumph. We painted it olive drab and put on a luggage rack and an old seat to make it look like a wartime BMW. We couldn't use a real BMW, not at the speeds we were running, since those old babies were rigid-frame jobs, and couldn't take the punishment.

The camera tricks didn't end there though. Steve's riding was too fast for the German stuntmen chasing him, so to solve the problem, Steve doubled for his pursuers as well, effectively chasing himself on camera!

The Triumphs ridden by Steve in the film were decked out and provided by Steve's friend and ofttimes stunt double Bud Ekins.

QUOTES FROM THE MOVIES (1)

"The world has to change in order to stay the same". ...
(Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) - in Luchino Visconti ' s "The Leopard")

SENJOU NO MERII KURISUMASU / FURYO / MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE

Tonight I just got tired of watching TV. So I searched amongst my DVD's for something to see. This was my first choice:

And I'm glad I did so. It's a good idea that, from time to time, we go back and review a good movie. Without any doubt, MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE, is one of the films I 'm not tired to see again and again. Bowie and Sakamoto bring to the screen one of the biggest explosions of emotions and mixed feelings ever shooted.

Love, Hate, Honour, Duty, Courage, are no simple matters to be dealt in a light or manichaean way, and the clash between all this concepts is well achieved in the picture.

So I must be grateful to Mr. Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto for the wonderful evening watching "Senjou no Merii Kurisumasu" or Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

Thank you,

DomoArigato..

TOUGHTS (3)

THE FEAR TO BE FREE MAKES YOU PROUD TO BE A SLAVE. !!!

ASIFA - HOLLYWOOD ANIMATION ARCHIVE

THE ARCHIVE IS TWO YEARS OLD

The ASIFA-Hollywood Archive has been in operation now for two years. Every six months, we look back on everything we have accomplished to date and remind you that this is all possible because of your support. We hope that you'll appreciate the work being done here and find value in it. If that's the case, you'll want to contribute, so we can accomplish even more.

To date, we have digitized well over 15,000 images and 2,500 animated films. There are nearly 450 articles available here on the Archive blog covering a wide range of subjects. The blog is followed by readers all over the world. We recently had our 1 millionth unique visitor; and in the past two years, we have served 2.5 million articles. We've mounted several exhibits in the archive space, which has been visited by artists from all corners of the globe. The animation database has now completed its proof of concept phase, and volunteers are working nearly every day to build it out as quickly as possible. What kind of an impact is the Archive having on the art of animation? Read our Feedback and find out!

We're now ready to begin work on the second phase of our project- creating a stand-alone workstation version of the digital archive that can be syndicated to museums, libraries, universities and studios around the world. To accomplish this, we need your help.

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive / 2114 W Burbank Bl. Burbank, CA 91506 / 818.842.4691 / Office Hours: Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

HOW YOU CAN HELP

There are a few things you can do for us that will help us reach our goal more quickly:

Contribute

If you have found the posts here useful in your work, please give back to help us continue to bring you more inspiration and information you can use. Please look over the Donor Catagories and help as much as you can.

Link To Our Posts

In order for this project to succeed, we need as many "eyeballs" as we can muster. Search engine ranking depends on incoming links. If you see a posting here that you think is great, please link to it from your own website or blog.

Volunteer Your Time And Skills

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on the generosity of its volunteers to move the project along. If you are willing to help, stop by the Archive offices in Burbank, or contribute to the Hall of Fame over the internet. Every little bit of effort is appreciated and helps us further the cause.

Share Your Collection

If you have material that would be an asset to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, consider loaning it to us for digitization or contact us for information on how you can digitize it yourself. Everything you see on this blog was contributed by artists and collectors who want to share their treasures with you. Return the favor.

Yellow Submarine Trailer

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Queen - I Was Born To Love You (2004 video)

QUEEN-IT'S A HARD LIFE

CLARKE+OLDFIELD - WHEN WORDS INSPIRE MUSIC - OR HOW MANY "SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH" DO YOU KNOW ?

Cover of "The Songs of Distant Earth", the novel by Arthur C. Clarke

Covers (front and back) of the musical work created by Mike Oldfield, "The Songs of Distant Earth", based in the Arthur C. Clarke novel.

Songs of Distant Earth (novel)

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Songs of Distant Earth is the common title of several science fiction works by Arthur C. Clarke, including a science fiction short story, a short movie synopsis, and a 1986 soft science fiction novel that all bear the same title. This article deals with the novel.

Plot summary

The story is centered on a rendezvous between human beings far in the future, after a time of great crisis on Earth, on the oceanic planet of Thalassa.Unlike Clarke's other works, this piece focuses on characterisation and emotional development, instead of technological change. In some sense, it was written as a response to critics who attacked his writings as cold and impersonal.In the novel, the human race responds to the prospect of unavoidable doom by launching a series of robot colony ships into space, to continue Earth life after the destruction of the homeworld (caused by the Sun becoming a nova). Thalassa is colonised by one such ship in 3109, but loses contact with Earth due to a volcanic eruption that destroys its interstellar communications antenna. Meanwhile, just prior to the Sun going nova, vacuum energy technology is invented to allow the construction of one near-light-speed vessel, the Magellan, which is launched to build the last colony of mankind. (Previous colony ships employed embryo space colonization, or various forms of DNA synthesis. In Magellan, a living crew of 1 million people is transported in cryonic suspension.)En route to its target, the planet Sagan 2, the Magellan makes a planned stop at planet Thalassa to replenish its worn down ice shield, which has been steadily chipped away by interstellar debris. A small subset of the crew is awakened to perform the repair work on the shield. Because Thalassa has not maintained its interstellar communications antenna, the planet's citizens are unaware of the coming of the Magellan until the ship's arrival in orbit about the planet. The novel explores the impact of this reunion, documenting the efforts of the Magellan crew to repair their ship, and most poignantly, the possibility of love amidst the barriers of distance and time.

Scientific aspects

The story explored one possible outcome of the solar neutrino problem, which was unsolved at the time the story was written.Though not fully reversible by current technology cryonic suspension (sometimes called cryogenic stasis) is indeed a reality [1] and a feasible medical procedure for human beings in the sense that a patient may await unchanged until the technology for the second half of the process (revival) has become a reality.Recent tests (2005) have also shown the possibility of inducing a short term hibernation-like state on mice. [2]Vacuum energy is a controversial feature of modern physics, and the concept has repeatedly been hijacked by pseudoscientific theories. In the acknowledgements to the book, Clarke considered using vacuum energy a scientifically viable, but highly futuristic, propulsion technology.The logistics of space travel at near-light speeds is also explored in the novel in some detail, albeit with some errors for the sake of dramatic tension. The novel is also notable for featuring a Space Elevator. In his introduction notes to the novel, Clarke states that he wished it to be a realistic interstellar voyage, without use of warp drives or other fantastic technologies.

Cross-media Influences

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Mike Oldfield was so moved by the novel, that he wrote an entire album based on it (see link above). Around this time, Oldfield was exploring computer game possibilities, and on UK editions of the CD album "The Songs Of a Distant Earth", Oldfield included a CD-ROM multi-media interactive exploration "game" of some notable locations from the book, including the "Hibernaculum". Buried within the game is the promotional video for the album's single "Let There Be Light". The album's artwork features stills from the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM portion is only playable on Mac (not PC) computers.The total forms "Songs" has taken as of 2005:the original short story, published in 1958 in The Other Side of the Skya little-known 5-page movie outline, published in 1979 (Omni Magazine, vol III no 12)full-length novel (1986)original album by Mike OldfieldCD-ROM computer game (from the UK edition of the album)promotional music video: "Let There Be Light"A song by Kuribayashi Minami used in the video game Muv-Luv (the final chapter of the game is also named after Songs)

The Songs of Distant Earth (album)

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Songs of Distant Earth is an album, written and mostly performed by Mike Oldfield. It is based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel Songs of Distant Earth.It was first released in 1994 (see 1994 in music) as a CD, and shortly afterward as an Enhanced CD of which two versions were made. The non-enhanced, CD album featured the image of the Manta flying in front of a planet on the front cover. This was also used on the initial release of the Enhanced CD version. However, it was later changed to the more common image of the Man in a suit holding a glowing orb with the Manta flying overhead. This second pressing of the enhanced CD (shown at right) contains slightly more multimedia content, such as the full version of the "Let There Be Light" video. The audio content is the same on all versions of the album.In terms of Mike's career, The Songs of Distant Earth represented a foray into science fiction-related music. Songs such as "Supernova" and "Hibernaculum" could be seen as similar or even influenced by Enigma, while "New Beginning" has ethnic world chants in the style of Deep Forest. There are also Native American influences on the album. However to be fair, Mike Oldfield had been using a variety of ethnic musical styles since the 1970s, long before the emergence of Enigma or Deep Forest in the early 1990s. Such works as Ommadawn (1976) and Incantations (1978) featured extensive use of chanting and drumming in combination with uplifting instrumental solos. And more broadly, Mike's early work in the genre of atmospheric instrumental music tinged mixed with world and folk styles, is widely held as a forebear for the success of many other such instrumental artists.Mike's interest in space and its connection to his music can also be cited elsewhere in his career, such as in the 1980 film entitled The Space Movie which featured a soundtrack wholly made up of music from Tubular Bells (1973), Hergest Ridge (1974), Ommadawn and Incantations, and for which Mike also wrote some original music.

Track listing

"In the Beginning" – 1:24
"Let There Be Light" – 4:57

"Supernova" – 3:23

"Magellan" – 4:40

"First Landing" – 1:16

"Oceania" – 3:19

"Only Time Will Tell" – 4:26

"Prayer for the Earth" – 2:09

"Lament for Atlantis" – 2:43

"The Chamber" – 1:48

"Hibernaculum" – 3:32

"Tubular World" – 3:22

"The Shining Ones" – 2:59

"Crystal Clear" – 5:42

"The Sunken Forest" – 2:37

"Ascension" – 5:49

"A New Beginning" – 1:37

Miscellanea

The then Chairman of Warner, Rob Dickins, suggested to Oldfield that he should do an album based on this particular piece of Clarke's work[1].The spoken section at the beginning of the album is Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders reading from the Book of Genesis while orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve, 1968.The Gregorian Chant on "Hibernaculum" is not Latin, but the chant on "Let There Be Light" is.The Saami yoik chant on "Prayer For The Earth" was composed and performed by Nils-Aslak Valkeapää. The chant is from the 1987 movie Ofelaš (The Pathfinder).The enhanced CD content was taken from the inspirational of Oldfield's MusicVR project.

Clarke and Oldfield

The booklet of the album features a foreword by Arthur C. Clarke about the evolution of Songs of Distant Earth from short story to novel. It ends with the following about the album:"Since the finale of the novel is a musical concert, I was delighted when Mike Oldfield told me that he wished to compose a suite inspired by it. I was particularly impressed by the music he wrote for The Killing Fields and now, having played the CD of The Songs of Distant Earth, I feel he has lived up to my expectations.Welcome back into space, Mike: there's still lots of room out here."This was not the first time that Mike's music had been connected with the books of Arthur C. Clarke.Prior to The Songs of Distant Earth, Mike had released Tubular Bells II, which featured a track called "Sentinel" — which also happened to be the title of a short story written by Arthur C. Clarke that later evolved into his most famous work, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another track from Tubular Bells II was called "Sunjammer". The Arthur C. Clarke short story, The Wind From The Sun, had the working title of "Sunjammer".Meanwhile, other track titles from Tubular Bells II may be less direct references to space and science fiction — "Weightless" and "Dark Star", for example. Dark Star was the name of a science fiction film by director John Carpenter, released in 1973, the same year as the original Tubular Bells.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - 1

GALACTICA OVER CAPRICA

GALACTICA'S VIEW FROM BOW

GALACTICA'S BRIDGE

GALACTICA'S VIEW FROM STARBOARD

GALACTICA'S VIEW FROM STERN (GOING HOME)

THE DEATH OF CHARLTON HESTON (1924 - 2008)

Charlton Heston -4/10/1924 - 5/4/2008

IMDb Mini Biography By: Ray Hamel

Renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston is one of Hollywood's greatest leading men and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty years.

Heston was born John Charles Carter on October 4th 1924 in Evanston, Illinois, and made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. Shortly thereafter, he played 'Marc Antony' in Julius Caesar (1950), however Heston firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the Cecil B. DeMille spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the 1950s, both on TV and on the silver screen with audience pleasing performances in the steamy thriller The Naked Jungle (1954), as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (1954) and another barn storming performance for Cecil B. DeMille as "Moses" in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956). Heston delivered further dynamic performances in the oily film noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958), and then alongside Gregory Peck in the western The Big Country (1958) before scoring the role for which he is arguably best known, that of the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in the William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959). This mammoth Biblical epic running in excess of three and a half hours became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged, and it's superb cast also including Stephen Boyd as the villainous "Massala", English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer "Quintus Arrius", and Australian actor Frank Thring as "Pontius Pilate", all contributed wonderful performances.

Never one to rest on his laurels, steely Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions and during the 1960s he starred as Spanish legend "Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar" in El Cid (1961), as a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (1963), played the ill-fated "John the Baptist" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the masterful painter "Michelangelo" battling Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and an English general in Khartoum (1966). In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (1968) about an aging and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman and her son, which Heston has often referred to as his favorite piece of work on screen.

Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical science fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak future's for mankind. In 1968, Heston starred as time traveling astronaut "George Taylor", in the terrific Planet of the Apes (1968) with it's now legendary conclusion as Heston realizes the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel "Make Room!, Make Room!", Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (1973). During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular "disaster movies" contributing lead roles in the far fetched Airport 1975 (1974), plus in the star laden Earthquake (1974), filmed in "Sensoround" (low bass speakers were installed in selected theaters to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to movie audiences). He played an evil Cardinal in the lively The Four Musketeers (1974), a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Midway (1976), also filmed in "Sensoround", an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (1978).

Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high rating TV series "Dynasty" and "The Colbys", before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of "Treasure Island" and "A Man For All Seasons", hosting two episodes of the comedy show, "Saturday Night Live", starring as the "Good Actor" bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (1993), and as the eye patch wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994).

He also narrated numerous TV specials and lent his vocal talents to the animated movie Hercules (1997), the family comedy Cats & Dogs (2001) and an animated version of Ben Hur (2003) (TV). Heston made an uncredited appearance in the inferior remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), and his last film appearance to date was in the Holocaust themed drama of My Father, Rua Alguem 5555 (2003).

Heston has been married to Lydia Marie Clark Heston since March 1944, and they have two children. His highly entertaining autobiography was released in 1995, titled appropriately enough "Into The Arena". Although often criticized for his strong conservative beliefs and involvement with the NRA, Heston was a strong advocate for civil right many years before it became fashionable, and has been a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, plus the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and has not appeared in a film or TV production since 2003.

Truly, Charlton Heston is one of the legendary figures of US cinema.