MF GALAXY

Film and television director Ernest Dickerson initially achieved fame as a celebrated cinematographer, photographing feature films including The Brother from Another Planet , Krush Groove , She's Gotta Have It , Eddie Murphy: Raw , School Daze , Do the Right Thing , Mo’ Better Blues , Jungle Fever , and Malcolm X .   In 1992, Dickerson made the jump to directing his own feature films, including Juice , which he also wrote, and which launched the acting career of Tupac Shakur; Surviving the Game with Ice-T, Rutger Hauer, and F. Murray Abraham, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight with Jada Pinkett and Billy Zane, Bulletproof with Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler, Bones , with Pam Grier and Snoop Dogg, and Never Die Alone with DMX and David Arquette.   In addition to having directed eleven episodes of the smash hit The Walking Dead, Dickerson has helmed episodes of Under the Dome , Revolution , Treme , Sleepy Hollow , Dexter , Low Winter Sun , Stargate Universe...

In 1967, actor Scott Wilson delivered a chilling performance in In Cold Blood that put him on the cover of Life Magazine when he was only 24 years old. He went on to appear in numerous celebrated films including The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, Dead Man Walking , and Monster , and he was a recurring guest on CSI . But it’s his work on the highest-rated US television show, The Walking Dead , in which Wilson plays veterinarian and farmer Hershel Greene , that has done more than anything before to make Wilson a star. He now earns more from his autograph-signing sessions at conventions than he does from acting, and The Walking Dead is the focus of our conversation: the physical difficulties of playing Hershel; the dramatic power of Hershel’s personality and character arc; and the series’ outstanding acting, directing, and production. Throughout this episode, Wilson refers to Ernest Dickerson , the acclaimed television and feature filmmaker who directed many of the...

Acclaimed for stunning performances in films such as In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood , actor Scott Wilson is and best known to today’s audiences as Hershel Greene on AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead . Wilson got an early boost from superstar Sidney Poitier who respected his work on In the Heat of the Night. Poitier alerted In Cold Blood director Richard Brooks about the young actor who went on to beat out Steve McQueen and Paul Newman for his role as real-life murderer Dick Hickock. His chilling performance put him on the cover of Life Magazine when he was only 24 years old. Wilson went on to appear in numerous celebrated films including The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, Dead Man Walking , and Monster , and he was a recurring guest on CSI . Although by his own description he was devoted to the craft of acting and never sought fame, Wilson is now so much of a fan favourite that he earns even more from his autograph-signing sessi...

Gene Luen Yang is the celebrated graphic novelist behind the recent LA Times Book Prize-winner Boxers & Saints and the award-winning American Born Chinese.   Yang is a remarkable force in the world of American comics. He’s the first comic creator to be nominated for the US National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. He’s also the writer of the graphic novel sequels to the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Somehow while he’s changing the face of American comics, Yang finds the time to teach high school computer science and graduate-level creative writing. In part two of our conversation, Yang discusses: how and why he joined three previously unrelated stories together to create his career-defining graphic novel American Born Chinese how story and structure drove each other in American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints the anti-colonial movement featured in Boxers & Saints , a militi...

Gene Luen Yang is the celebrated graphic novelist behind the recent Boxers & Saints and the award-winning American Born Chinese, and a remarkable force in the world of American comics. While thoroughly enthralled by the artistic traditions and lore of US superheroes, Yang is equally engaged by other artistic traditions such as Chinese opera, which is full of super-powered heroes and villains in primary-coloured costumes, and massive backstories with centuries of continuity behind them. Although Yang laboured for years at making comics and losing money, he eventually struck adamantium with American Born Chinese. The 2006 graphic novel features a contemporary Chinese-American boy, an outrageously offensive fictionalised sitcom character named Chin-Kee, and the Monkey King from classical Chinese literature. The book is Yang’s fascinating fusion of three stories exploring alienation, racial self-hatred, and transformation of social consciousness and personal self-concept....