About red pandas

I took this picture of a stuffed red panda at the Natural History Museum. I don't know for you but they seem to be everywhere these days. Bill Maher even mentioned them a few months ago in his new rules, saying they are living cute plush toys. I have seen live ones since my visit at the NHM and they truly are cute and adorable looking. That said, I associate the red panda to the series of espionage graphic novels Queen & Country by Greg Rucka. Because Volume 8 is called... Operation Red Panda. There is nothing cute about this story, in fact it is bloody and violent. In a way, the red panda's fiery red fur fits the story perfectly: there is plenty of blood and fire in the graphic novel. So anyway, each time I see a red panda, I think about the series of graphic novels. And you, what do you associate red pandas with? What do you think about them?

SIS/MI6

I have sometimes geeky moments... This post is about one of them, which might bring me embarrassment. Because I am a James Bond fan and a Sandbaggers fan, and a Queen & Country fan, I have developed an interest about real life SIS, more commonly known as MI6. And I sometimes visit the organization's official website. Is that embarrassing? I find it fascinating, especially how unglamorous it presents itself. I blogged about MI6 before, I was thinking about writing more about it. I actually love the way the promotional videos picture SIS as this very open governmental organization, picturing its spies as competent civil servants, with fancy animation that gives it a modern, borderline funky side. There is even a page about C, with a short biography and a welcoming message from him. And we are talking about British secret services here. John Sawers does look and sound like a somewhat mild mannered civil servant. All these little details, the sober and undramatic tone, I find it surreal and oh so very interesting. As an immigrant, I browsed many governmental websites, mainly the Home Office's. But I never had fun browsing them. The website SIS, on the other hand, I just find so darn cool.

Ellen Page as Tara Chace?

I have blogged before about Queen & Country the excellent espionage comic books series of Greg Rucka. I have read all the graphic novels and novels of the series, the only book I don't have yet is the art book. I LOVE the series, it's realistic tone and settings, the fact that it is an anti Bond, I also love the complex character of Tara Chace. Now I have recently learned that Ellen Page is supposed to play Tara Chace in a Hollywood adaptation of the comics. And I am skeptical about it, like for most adaptations by Hollywood.

I usually don't like when they cast a non British in a British role as they often lack genuineness and are cast because of their star appeal rather than their suitability. Ellen Page is a fine actress and I enjoyed her in Juno, but I have serious difficulties imagining her as a MI6 operative. Okay, so Lois Maxwell was also Canadian and played a British woman, but she had spent a long time in the UK, where she studied drama, before she took the role of Moneypenny. Page seems to have made mostly her career in United States so far. Another problem is her physically appearance: she is petite and kind of soft looking. Tara Chace has been drawn by many artists, but overall she is depicted as athletic and there is a hardness in her. I always pictured her as a bit of a tomboy. I suspect she is being cast as eye candy, which would be catastrophic. Years ago, I would have cast Cate Blanchett (yes, an Aussie, and yes my favourite actress) as she can play a Brit and she has the look of some of the renditions (see this portrait of her by Steve Rolston, the original artist). And obviously, apart from the casting I am suspicious of Hollywood's vision for this project: do they want to create a truly realistic and unglamorous spy franchise for the big screen, or they only want a spy chick? Because if it is the latter, they are missing the point of the source material and its relevance.

Addictive TV series

I am not a complete, hooked TV addict. Actually, I spend more time on the Internet than watching TV. Something I picked up from years of studying in university halls here without any television. I learned to do without. That said, I am addicted to some kind of TV, as long as it is intelligent fiction. Entertaining is not enough: it needs to be really smart, inventive and remain consistently so. I actually lost interest with 24, Prison Break and the likes when their plots became increasingly implausible and formulaic. I don't care if the series is brand new or not.

I already mentioned here on a few occasions the brilliant The Wire, which I watched the first season last year. I am planning to buy and watch the rest religiously. I am impatient to watch episodes written by George Pelecanos. No contemporary TV series has been as perfect (so far) as The Wire: flawless casting of unknown actors (which means that the character is more important than the name playing him/her), tight, realistic plot, the most acurate depiction of police work and criminality, brilliant characterisations, a disdain for cheap thrills and brilliant atmosphere. When it comes to crime dramas, I will always have a soft spot for Omertà (which I will try to rewatch during my next trip to Québec), but The Wire is far superior, in all aspects. Here's the first minutes of season one, with the intro:



There is also a much older and much more obscure TV series which I purchased recently: The Sandbaggers. I first heard about it in the introductions of the graphic novels series Queen & Country, as it was the inspiration for it. Like Greg Rucka's series, it is an espionnage drama based on a team of MI6 operatives, called here the Sandbaggers (in Q&C it is the Minders). It is devoid of the clichés of the genre, de-glamourised and de-mythified. The characters spend more time discussing the missions (which do not always succeed) and fighting British bureaucracy than going after KGB spies (even though the main protagonist is devoted to "the eradication of the KGB"), they drink bucket loads of coffee, smoke nervously, fight, get into arguments with their colleagues, these spies are real people. The dialogues are brilliant, sharp like razor blades, to the point. It's British drama like you'd never seen it before (or you never see anymore) and it's a shame it is not more famous. From what I read, it got a fairly important fanbase in the US, where the series was shown on PBS. There is a devoted fan website you can visit if you want to know more about the show and you can find the first episode on Youtube. Until I get season two of The Wire, I will stay hooked on The Sandbaggers. Here is the opening credit, where you can hear the only music in the show. It sets the atmosphere perfectly:

I love Queen & Country...

...and I am not talking about the monarch, as you probably know. I am taling about the excellent series of Greg Rucka. I read the second volume of the Declassified series yesterday. Great stuff. What I especially liked about it is the moral ambiguity Rucka puts: his heroes defend a cause they don't always understand. The enemy does not always have a point (he had a point in this particular volume though), but truth and justice cannot be an absolute concept in the world of espionnage.

Queen and Country

No, I am not talking about the Queen of England. I cannot care less about her. I am talking about the excellent series of graphic novels and books written by Greg Rucka, set in the world of espionnage. The series tells the story of MI6 operative Tara Chace. It's quality stuff. Why is it so good? Well, everything, really. Unlike other espionnage series, it's realistic, unglamorous and down to earth. It is unique in the genre, as it manages to be both believable and fascinating. The characters deal with what real spies deal with: terrorists, Russian maffias and kleptocracies, but also a heavy bureaucracy, politicians with their own agenda and conflictual relationships between different intelligence services (one of the most interesting aspect of the series). Rucka is wonderful as inventing genuine characters, mixing their everyday life with the unique environment they work in. For an American, he is also very good as describing England (and, through the MI6/CIA reports, the love-hate relationship Brits have with Americans), even though sometimes American terms and expression oddly show up in the vocabulary of British characters. I have been reading the series since 2003 and it's utterly addictive. I bought the second volume of the Declassified series yesterday in London. I might start reading it tonight. I would seriously recomment that you get your hand on the first volume and start reading it. You'll get hooked.