I love Ridley Scott's ALIEN. No surprise there, I'm sure. The first time that I tried to watch A L I E N, aged 8, with my sci-fi fan elder brothers - all hooked on 2000AD - was on holiday in a Welsh cottage. The eldest, who had a shelf filled end-to-end with many novels by science fiction's greatest writers, had convinced us that the film would be great because he had read Alan Dean Foster's novelisation. We were annoyed to discover that the first terrestrial screening in Great Britain of A L I E N was to air on our day of arrival at the Welsh cottage. Our 'inconsiderate' parents had booked us into an old house with a black and white television! Okay, we calmed down. We would be able to see it at least, or so we thought. As soon as we got in through the creaky front door of that old place, the eldest was straight onto the tv set, plugging in and twirling the aerial for a signal. Oh dear. The tube was blown! We had good sound, but no picture, just a small, glowing dot an inch wide in the centre of the screen! We were told that 'there would be a replacement, but not today'. Okay, we calmed down. We would be able to hear it at least. That evening we took our places on the sofa to listen to the 'audio version' of Ridley Scott's classic. After being spooked by Jerry Goldsmith's score and nodding to each other in appreciation, we settled down to enjoy/be afraid of the film. The eldest reassured us that with his Dean Foster 'insider knowledge', he would be able to narrate for us during the quiet bits. After about twenty-five minutes it was very apparent that he could not. So, dejected, the three of us 'marched up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire' as my dad probably put it. Several months later - very long in 'child-time' - A L I E N appeared on tv again and we made sure that we would be at home to see it in colour. WOW! It was worth the wait!
I had read through the Scanlon/Gross 'The Art of Alien' book three times and had studied and admired all of the concept art within it for so many countless hours by the time ALIENS came out. Again WOW! Very keen on writing and illustration I wrote a short essay in college about the diverse conceptual art styles that Ridley Scott had to choose from when establishing the 'look' of A L I E N. A B+ was given, but I'd be embarrassed to look at it now.
Many years later and the eldest works in website design, the middle brother, who fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a 2000AD artist and can sketch a good Judge Dredd in seconds, has worked in conceptual art for film, pop promos and video games and had his own, original comic series published fairly recently. And yeah. He likes doing paintings of nasty xenomorphs and predators when their not cloaked in invisibility fields. Me? Well, I quit a BA Hons in Illustration way back in '98 in order to prioritise my writing. I was most recently published in an anonymous capacity as co-author/ghostwriter for my brother's World War Two horror comic series. Sorry, folks, I know I've gone on a bit, but I do love my keyboard.
The above anecdote was brought to
avpgalaxy.net courtesy of SIMON (Infant Idiot) Croissant.
