It’s Halloween and appropriately enough, I just finished watching It was a Dark and Silly Night, a new animated short by bestselling author Neil Gaiman and Playboy cartoonist Gahan Wilson. The film had its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival earlier this month and is the latest project from director Steven-Charles Jaffe , best known for his work on the blockbusters Ghost and Star Trek VI. Jaffe also produced the extraordinary documentary about Gahan last year.

The movie is based on the adorable strip that appeared in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s compilation Big Fat Little Lit and follows a group of children who end up throwing one hell of a party at their local graveyard after befriending the resident ghouls.

Steven tells us a little more about the film:

I've always loved Neil's writing, Anansi Boys, American Gods, and of course The Sandman: Book of Dreams. When I flew to a mysterious castle in the mid-northwest to meet and interview Neil for the documentary, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, I brought up It Was a Dark and Silly Night, asking how the collaboration between he and Gahan came about. Neil wrote it specifically for Gahan, saying, "It's full-on Gahan Wilson, but for five year olds!" I then received everyone’s permission to animate it. There's a great animation house in New Zealand that I worked with called Flux Animation (they did the Polar bear and the frog animation for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth) and they did a wonderful job.

My favorite aspect of the film is the scene in the graveyard when the corpses come to life and party with the kids. Working in animation really pushes your imagination, as you are creating from scratch, and every frame has to be carefully thought out, or it gets costly (painfully so), but it's so satisfying when the characters come to life.

I’m hoping to include it as a special DVD extra on Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, so both films will be available to everyone soon!  

I'd like to be skulking around a graveyard with Gahan for Halloween tonight, but instead I’m off to work on my next film: A thriller set in San Francisco, called I’ll See You Again.

From the Musicians' POV

There have been a lot of films dealing with the political and military aspects of the war in Iraq, but a new documentary focuses on the civilians. Heavy Metal in Baghdad goes into the heart of Baghdad and into the lives of five young Iraqi musicians struggling to survive and create music. It’s a poignant and powerful political story that just happens to involve heavy metal.

The film has received a lot of positive attention, but it was an essay written about the movie by American guitarist Alex Skolnick of the heavy metal band Testament that seemed to capture the essence of the film with an acuity only another musician could offer. After the premiere on Friday, I spoke to Alex, and he was happy to contribute his essay to Playboy’s blog, which is excerpted here:

HMIB puts a very human face on the misunderstood, overlooked population of Iraqi civilians, via this group of dedicated musicians. Right away I feel I know these guys. They're just like any other cool metal guys from other countries. They speak pretty good, if broken, English (much of it learned from metal lyrics), they use the 'f' word a lot and they wear black clad t-shirts with logo's of their favorite bands. These are guys with whom you can share a beer and listen to a Slayer CD, fist in the air. They have a great sense of humor (despite all they're going through) and love metal. They want the same things most of us want, to be able to pursue our dreams and have a good time doing it. But for them, like anyone else in Iraq, it's not so easy. 

Any thoughts I've ever had about my own 'struggles' being a musician were quickly put to shame when I saw this film. Sure, I've dealt with my share of cancelled flights, lost luggage and equipment failure. But bombings, curfews, sniper fire, and having your country under siege 24 hours a day while on the brink of civil war? For the guys in Acrassicauda (which translates from Latin to “Black Scorpion”),  this is a daily reality in Iraq, where putting on one concert in Iraq is more challenging than booking an entire tour in the US. There is a litany of questioning, searches and inspections. Electricity is fleeting and there is an early evening curfew. As a result, gigs are extremely rare, and that's just in the beginning when we first get to know the band. Things only get worse from there.

While most musicians have been victims of equipment theft at one time or another, these guys have to watch their entire rehearsal spot destroyed by a bomb, with all their equipment inside. When the filmmakers attempt to donate instruments, CD's and other items to the guys, there is a wall of US bureaucracy that prevents the items from reaching the band. The band, meanwhile are unable to travel to Europe or the US because of their Iraqi passports.

These situations escalate and illustrate some of the many ironies presented in the film, one of the biggest being that the metal fans and musicians of Iraq have been suppressed by the very forces which should be embracing them the most. Whether US politicians (especially conservative Republicans) want to admit it or not, there is something very pro-Democracy and pro-American about metal. When we see these Iraqi guys with their Metallica and Megadeth T-shirts and CD's, they are proudly displaying products which are reflective of our capitalist systems. They're not ashamed of that and show no ill will toward the US. In other words metal is achieving what our foreign policy is not.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad premiered in New York City and Los Angeles on May 23rd and will be available on DVD June 10th. Testament’s new album, Formation of Damnation, was released in the US on April 29th. They were also recently the featured artist of the week on MTV.

This story was featured on playboy.com's homepage. Click to enlarge image:

On the Isle of Devils

Gahan Wilson's band of ghouls, monsters and ghosts must have felt right at home this past weekend in Bermuda when the documentary about the cartoonist and longtime Playboy contributor was screened there. Hollywood director, producer and cinematographer, Steven-Charles Jaffe, whose roster of film credits includes Ghost, Star Trek VI and Strange Days, sent us this report from the island: 

Hamilton, Bermuda, April 5, 2008
My film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, was invited to be shown in the documentary competition at the eleventh annual Bermuda International Film Festival by Deputy Director Duncan Hall. When I began making the film I knew I would have to please Gahan's fans (including myself), but I also had a responsibility to seduce a new generation of cartoon and comic book fans by introducing Gahan's work in a medium they were not originally designed for - cinema. The screenings in Bermuda were attended by a majority of Gahan Wilson "virgins," and as much as I enjoy the response from his die-hard fans, it's becoming more gratifying to hear the enthusiastic responses people who have never seen his work. These Wilson virgins approach me after the screenings, asking where they can find his cartoons, and tell me how eager they are to see more of them. After demonstrating his genius for more than fifty years in Playboy, last night Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird received a SPECIAL JURY AWARD. For a filmmaker, this makes the journey all the more gratifying. To be continued....

(Pictured: Producer/Director Steven-Charles Jaffe with former Bermuda resident and author, Mark Twain, as they share a Gahan Wilson moment.)

Gahan Wilson's Ghouls Bite Into the Big Apple

Born Dead, Still Weird, the moving documentary about the life and work of cartoonist Gahan Wilson, Playboy’s Master of the Macabre, was screened in New York City Tuesday night at The IFC’s Stranger Than Fiction film series. 

It was a night unlike any other--almost all of New York’s finest cartoonists from Playboy and The New Yorker could be found under one roof for this special event.

During the Q&A that followed, director Steven-Charles Jaffe was asked how he discovered Gahan Wilson’s work. With a big smile and a slight blush, Steven described the outrageous story: “I was 10 years old and my best friend had taken his father’s copy of Playboy into the woods. As I was seeing naked women for the first time, I saw something called ‘The Weird World of Gahan Wilson’ and as I was staring at these offbeat cartoons, my friend set fire to the field we were standing in. So in an instant I was exposed to naked women, Gahan Wilson and pyromania. To this day, Gahan’s cartoons are still the first thing I look for in Playboy.

Inside the World of Gahan Wilson

Gahan Wilson’s cartoons have appeared in almost every issue of Playboy since 1957. This December marks his 50th year with the magazine. Millions of readers have fallen in love with our all-star ghoul keeper’s menagerie of monsters and dark humor. He’s also written numerous fiction and non-fiction pieces for us with such titles as: “Horror Trio” and “Dracula Country” so it’s no wonder that he’s fondly known as Playboy’s Master of the Macabre. With Halloween just around the corner it seems the perfect time for Steven-Charles Jaffe’s documentary titled GAHAN WILSON: BORN DEAD, STILL WEIRD, which premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival this past Saturday.
 
More than three years in the making, the film takes you on an intimate journey with Gahan and includes extraordinary personal stories from numerous luminaries, artists, writers, filmmakers, comedians and others that have been inspired and influenced by Gahan’s work: Guillermo del Toro fondly recalls the first time he saw Playboy and how he immediately identified with Gahan’s cartoons; Stephen Colbert shares a deeply personal story; Hef discusses Gahan’s cartoons and their importance to the magazine; and, in what is perhaps the most incredible story of all, Vietnam veteran Larry Laughlin shares his experience with one of Gahan’s cartoons while on the battlefield. There is a certain vulnerability and sweetness that emanates from each person as they discuss Gahan’s work and what it has meant to them. You will definitely find yourself laughing, crying and simply reflecting on what is said long after the film ends.
 
In an interview that appeared in our Brazilian edition of Playboy earlier this year Gahan spoke about cartoonist Charles Addams whose cartoons spawned The Addams Family television show and films. Though their artistic styles are quite different, Charles had an affinity for the macabre like Gahan, so their work is often compared.  When asked about Charles, Gahan said, “I remember as a child seeing his cartoons and having a feeling of encouragement because he sort of vindicated me. I saw there was an adult out there in the real world, who was a successful one, and he was as nutty as I was and that really helped me through. Later on I got to know Charlie and he was a very nice man. I told him that and it made him happy. Today people come up to me and say the same thing. They thank me because I make them feel a little less insane. That makes me feel very good.”
 
It was an honor to be at the festival to celebrate the film with Gahan and the director and his crew. Gahan has created a profound body of work and continues to give us remarkable cartoons that we publish to this day. Steven-Charles Jaffe has done an outstanding job of revealing the man behind the art.


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