Dylan Dog Night @ La Kana Bar

It's gonna be epic!

>>> Danse Macabre vs. Marso with music culled from the Dylan Dog comics!
>>> Showing of Dellamorte Dellamore and Duck Soup
>>> Suggested dress code: red shirt and jeans
>>> Surprises!

Thursday, 23.12.2010 @ La Kana Bar, Skopje
Start: 21.30

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night F.A.Q.

This time last year I was rather excited about the prospect of communicating with the people behind the upcoming Dylan Dog movie via Dan Forcey's blog. Since the flick's poster was unveiled at Comic-Con in late July, however, no real news have surfaced online and the blog itself went mute for quite a while. Naturally, silence breeds skepticism and soon enough people became aggressive towards Dan, which promptly led to an online Q&A session with Kevin Munroe, the director behind the project that now carries the title Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. Well, since there was an open invitation for questions, Danse Macabre also got the chance to pitch in a few question marks, all of which Munroe answered while simultaneously dashing any remaining hope that the film will at least resemble the comic book it is based on. Oh, what can you do... So, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of Munroe's answers. Spoilers: Dylan Dog isn't English and Xabaras won't be seen at all.

Dead of Night Poster

The teaser poster and the website for the upcoming Dead of Night a.k.a. Dylan Dog were presented at Comic-Con this week, along with some completed footage from the film. Apparently, the film looks like a fun monster romp. OK, I can live with that as long as it sticks to the original material. The text copy from the website, however, suggests that apart from the name and looks of the character nothing from the comic series will actually remain in the final product. Hence, I am ---> this <--- close to giving up on this production, the only other evidence I need being the trailer. Lets wait and see...

Episode 9: A Dog called Dylan

Announced as early as episode 3, the Dylan Dog Special is finally here! The show aired this morning, on Saturday 13th (a date not nearly as evil as Saturday 14th), starring comic book specialist Barker, two self-proclaimed patients and the ghost of Gordana Stoshic - it was epic, it was slightly geeky, it was just the way I like it :)

Boy, did we cover a lot of ground. We went briefly over the history of the comic and how it was introduced to readers in ex-Yugoslavia (see the cover below), the format, the first double issue, why Dylan Dog has been so popular over such a long stretch of time, Rupert Everett, and that was just the introduction!

Some other interesting things that came up during the show: we listened to Giuseppe Tartini's "Devil's Trill", discussed Dylan Dog as a horror / pop culture encyclopedia, Dellamorte Dellamore, the writers and artists of the comic, Groucho and Bloch (of course!), Death and Xabaras, our most-loved episodes, and last but not least, Dylan Dog's greatest loves, including the one that was a bit incestuous!

Musically speaking, the show was infused with a good deal of italo prog rock, thanks to Goblin and Zombi, some 1980's post-rock, some shoegaze, and a good portion of the soundtrack for Dellamorte Dellamore. To stream the entire show CLICK HERE, to download the show CLICK HERE, and whatever you do, enjoy the weekend!

Dylan Dog Radio Drama!

This one is for Italians and people who speak Italian. Apparently, back in 2002 they produced 8 radio dramas based on Dylan Dog comics. I've only listened to the first, L'alba dei morti viventi, and it sounds OK in the sense that there are only minor changes from the comic, which are indeed necessary to make the drama work. You want to check them out and hear how Dylan, Groucho and Xabaras are supposed to sound in Italian? Then go ahead to Craven Road 7 and download the attached mp3 files. It's fun times :)

Dellamorte Dellamore OST

While preparing for the Dylan Dog Special that's coming this Friday night, this is a little curio I came up with, he-he...

Given the tight budget director Michele Soavi had in order to make Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man) back in 1993, it is remarkable how good the film looks throughout. The acting, the camera, the sets, the make up, a good deal of the special effects - they are all quite professional, at times bordering with genius (Rupert Everett's performance, the cemetery sets). The music by Manuel de Sica is rather effective as well, boosting the emotional voyage of the main character, Francesco Dellamorte while staying pretty listenable on its own. Of course, the roots of the soundtrack fall in Italian horror territory so you should expect extensive use of keyboards and sounds usually linked with the 1970s. That aside, the only thing that this soundtrack really lacks are some of the original songs found in the film, such as the totally kitschy and addictive Sezen Aksu hit, "Hadi Bakalim".

Click here for a rapidshare download, and enjoy! 

Dead of Night Official Blog

If you're a fan of Bonelli's series of Dylan Dog comic books, you should be aware by now that a film based on the character is finally in the shooting stages with Brandon Routh of Superman fame starring as the titular detective of nightmares. The film is called Dead of Night (yes, just like the classic omnibus from 1945) and has quite a decent team attached to it, lead by director Kevin Munroe and including the Oscar-winning makeup team from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The production, however, is plagued with a lot of criticism over a series of announced changes to the plot and characters including omissions of key figures and a radical location shift. The case of Constantine is being mentioned on regular basis, which certainly won't  help in building any anticipation (that said, I do like Constantine for what it is).

Well, now there's an official Dead of Night production blog run by Dan Forcey (the VP of Development at Platinum Studios), which is mostly targeted at allaying fears regarding the creation of this film, and of course, triggering positive word-of-mouth for the final product. I think it works on both accounts, at least so far, and here's why. Let's start with Dan Forcey himself - he seems to be really involved in the making of this film, which is to say that he has read the comics and is aware of Dellamorte Dellamore, the brilliant Italian zombie flick based on a character from the Dylan Dog universe. Then, the name of Gioj Demarco seems to appear every now and then - this is the director and foreign library specialist attached to the film who apparently went through the script just prior to shooting and did a draft specifically intended to make things more faithfull to the comics. So far so good but what about the plot and characters?

Well, it's a mixed bag and it could still go either way, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as initially thought. To begin with, the red shirt and the Beetle are there, so that's covered. Then, from what I have gathered, there probably will be a logical explanation in the film about why we'll find Dylan Dog in New Orleans and not in London, which is fine considering that there have been several episodes with Dylan Dog travelling abroad. Dan Forcey's explanation of why Groucho will not appear in the film is also quite fair, but it remains to be seen how the new character Marcus will relate to what Groucho represents in the comics. Regarding inspector Bloch, it seems that he won't appear in the film as a major character but there could be a smaller part or some kind of acknowledgment (I hope it's the first). Finally, and I think this is the most important thing: there seems to be a genuine drive towards making Dead of Night more of a mystery film than an actioneer. Whether Dylan Dog will keep his personality or not remains to be seen.

For more info in the upcoming months, keep track of the blog. In the meantime, if you need something to wet your Dylan Dog appetite, download the Simulmondo game from 1992 called Dylan Dog - The Murderers! :)