Liam Garner Portfolio

“Shinbone Alley,” or “Archy and Mehitabel,” a series of 1910s-1920s poems by Don Marquis, purportedly from a poet reincarnated as a cockroach hopping on his typewriter keys, inspired me to draw a series of film concepts.”

“Another film, “Body and Soul,” that we almost made instead of “Chicken Strips,” about a soul and a body, who when their host dies, they go to a divine divorce court. After “Chicken Strips,” we returned to it and I made a pile of concept art. Souls, as it turns out, are slippery as a concept, I drew her as everything from a New England gravestone skull to a hydrogen atom to a disembodied brain to a hand with an eye of Horus. He, on the other hand, has been a skeleton since the first draft. Sometimes it turns out like that.”

“TURANDOT:” a Commedia by Carlo Gozzi, adapted into opera in 1926 as the final work of immortal composer Giacomo Puccini. Set in “Legendary China,” it tells of a prince with a secret name who woos the titular princess, who kills any suitor who cannot answer her three riddles. As personal practice, I adapted imagery from this opera into concepts for an unmade film.”

“Snake in the Big City:” a project of mine I developed for a school assignment. A snake, who’s been insistently told all her life that she’s a human, moves to the big city and has difficulty adapting to the local “snake scene.”

“Chicken Strips” was my senior group film at Columbia College, for which I was the art director. I handled color, design, drew all but the first three layouts, and did all the calligraphy onscreen. “A chicken (“Joe Meredith”) attempts to cross a belligerent road to get to the gigantic, sexy Chicken Shack mascot on the other side.”