The new issue of the oversized tabloid, Comics Comics, will be in the store any day now. Published by PictureBox (Paper Rad, BJ and Da Dogs, Ninja, the Gary Panter box, Ganzfeld), it's of the best magazines about comics around. Issue 4 has stuff from Brian Chippendale, Shaky Kane, Jon Vermilyea, Art Spiegelman, Pshaw, Dan Zettwoch, and others. PLUS, I have a little piece in there about comic books (a couple little doodles too). So keep your eye out. It's filled with good stuff.
posted by sammy at 2:14 PM
0 comments
Patrick Smith.
It's been awhile since I last visited Patrick Smith's website. A lot of new work, all insanely beautiful. I can think of nobody whose work with color is as sublime. someone put on a show of this stuff in LA already....
p.s. And look at Smith's drawing blog while your there. Dig around the archives for some rad life drawings from india and other things.
posted by sammy at 4:20 AM
3 comments
It's been awhile since I last visited Patrick Smith's website. A lot of new work, all insanely beautiful. I can think of nobody whose work with color is as sublime. someone put on a show of this stuff in LA already....
p.s. And look at Smith's drawing blog while your there. Dig around the archives for some rad life drawings from india and other things.
posted by sammy at 4:20 AM
3 comments
Rube Goldberg Is Beaming.
Our New Zealand buddy Neil, of Darth Vegas and Jew Brothers fame, has some rad band mates who have some rad kids who make rad shit.
posted by sammy at 1:50 AM
0 comments
Our New Zealand buddy Neil, of Darth Vegas and Jew Brothers fame, has some rad band mates who have some rad kids who make rad shit.
posted by sammy at 1:50 AM
0 comments
Sumi Ink Club Encounter
If anyone hasn't met up with Luke and Sarah of The Sumi Ink Club for one of their drawing sessions somewhere around the globe, I encourage you wholeheartedly. Besides the uplifting communal drawing experience there are also free energy drinks. Check their website for the next meeting.
I went last week with my Australian friend Thomas Jeppe and together we created this masterpiece:
This Thomas Jeppe also runs a publishing company called Serps Press out of Australia. They have published such gems as the Homemade Tattoos Rule book, and various photo books by Conor O'Brien. Check the selection over here.
Here's a spread from a brand new one:
He is also one of the editors on an amazing Australian art newspaper/magazine called Won. We should have some in the store any day now. The current issue features:
Daniel Wang, Will Sweeney, Aaron Rose, Ken Werner, Mårten Lange, The Changes, Nienke Klunder, Robert Cook, Thobias Fäldt, Amanda Maxwell, Linus Bill, Jeremie Egry, Andrew Long, Thomas Baldischwyler, Ben Barretto, Holger Czukay, Vernon Treweeke, Deanna Templeton, Matt Wolf, Rosemary Scanlon, Sarah Larnarch, Martin Bell.
Check their site here:
posted by kramer at 3:33 PM
1 comments
If anyone hasn't met up with Luke and Sarah of The Sumi Ink Club for one of their drawing sessions somewhere around the globe, I encourage you wholeheartedly. Besides the uplifting communal drawing experience there are also free energy drinks. Check their website for the next meeting.
I went last week with my Australian friend Thomas Jeppe and together we created this masterpiece:
This Thomas Jeppe also runs a publishing company called Serps Press out of Australia. They have published such gems as the Homemade Tattoos Rule book, and various photo books by Conor O'Brien. Check the selection over here.
Here's a spread from a brand new one:
He is also one of the editors on an amazing Australian art newspaper/magazine called Won. We should have some in the store any day now. The current issue features:
Daniel Wang, Will Sweeney, Aaron Rose, Ken Werner, Mårten Lange, The Changes, Nienke Klunder, Robert Cook, Thobias Fäldt, Amanda Maxwell, Linus Bill, Jeremie Egry, Andrew Long, Thomas Baldischwyler, Ben Barretto, Holger Czukay, Vernon Treweeke, Deanna Templeton, Matt Wolf, Rosemary Scanlon, Sarah Larnarch, Martin Bell.
Check their site here:
posted by kramer at 3:33 PM
1 comments
Just to Reiterate
I have most of the work now, and this is a spectacular show.
posted by kramer at 1:24 PM
3 comments
I have most of the work now, and this is a spectacular show.
posted by kramer at 1:24 PM
3 comments
Out of Print Video Hour
Back in the mid-eighties, Fangoria started up a video series called Scream Greats. The first one, Vol. One, was a profile on Tom Savini, the unsophisticated but effective make up effects guy. It's a neat tape for giving insight into the sort of nerdy horror fandom of that time that is totally endearing (especially when compared with the self-seriousness (ie gothiness) of horror fandom today). Oh, how I would love to go to a horror con in new jersey in 1985! It's interesting how Savini, never a great effects guy, was sort of the right guy at the right time for a make up man to become a minor celebrity. He was photogenic and enthusiastic, and unlike every other well known effects dude, he gladly pigeoned-holed himself as a gore specialist. Guys like Rob Bottin, Stan Winston, and Rick Baker started there at the same time as Savini, but were quick to move on to other, more sophisticated stuff. But staying in gore gave Savini the adoration of horror fans, and what this tape inadvertently shows is that Savini, a vain wannabe actor, really wants attention more than anything else. But he's a cool dude, you can't help but like him. Plus you get footage of a youngish George Romero in shorty shorts.
Fangoria did one more video volume, on satanic cults or something, before discontinuing the series. It's too bad. I imagine a whole shelf of these, each on a different effects dude, would be pretty cool. There is something so nice and beautiful about cheap foam latex effects that are so insanely vulgar they come full circle back to endearingly fun, and exciting as objects of pure cinema in their inventive fakeness.
Here is the whole tape in five parts:
posted by sammy at 1:20 AM
1 comments
Back in the mid-eighties, Fangoria started up a video series called Scream Greats. The first one, Vol. One, was a profile on Tom Savini, the unsophisticated but effective make up effects guy. It's a neat tape for giving insight into the sort of nerdy horror fandom of that time that is totally endearing (especially when compared with the self-seriousness (ie gothiness) of horror fandom today). Oh, how I would love to go to a horror con in new jersey in 1985! It's interesting how Savini, never a great effects guy, was sort of the right guy at the right time for a make up man to become a minor celebrity. He was photogenic and enthusiastic, and unlike every other well known effects dude, he gladly pigeoned-holed himself as a gore specialist. Guys like Rob Bottin, Stan Winston, and Rick Baker started there at the same time as Savini, but were quick to move on to other, more sophisticated stuff. But staying in gore gave Savini the adoration of horror fans, and what this tape inadvertently shows is that Savini, a vain wannabe actor, really wants attention more than anything else. But he's a cool dude, you can't help but like him. Plus you get footage of a youngish George Romero in shorty shorts.
Fangoria did one more video volume, on satanic cults or something, before discontinuing the series. It's too bad. I imagine a whole shelf of these, each on a different effects dude, would be pretty cool. There is something so nice and beautiful about cheap foam latex effects that are so insanely vulgar they come full circle back to endearingly fun, and exciting as objects of pure cinema in their inventive fakeness.
Here is the whole tape in five parts:
posted by sammy at 1:20 AM
1 comments
It was a time and a place
One of my favorite current bands, Soiled Mattress And The Springs, are breaking up and playing their final show this saturday, July 12 in New York (info below). Much like the far superior, original version of The Office on BBC, Soiled Mattress And The Springs briefly existed long enough to leave a solid impression on those lucky enough to hear their records or see them live.
Soiled Mattress And The Springs final show and wet t-shirt contest info:
Saturday July 12th -NOON- @ THE YARD
:: MID SUMMER OUTDOOR PARTY
:: in conjunction w/ Impose & Crashin' In
:: 2 stages!
: ONEIDA
:: HIGH PLACES
::: TITUS ANDRONICUS
:::: Shy Child
::::: Chinese Stars
:::::: Ponytail
::::::: x Wikkid, x Bloodlines
:::::::: Vivian Girls
::::::::: Abe Vigoda
:::::::::: Crystal Antlers
::::::::::: Knyfe Hyts
:::::::::::: Ninja Sonik
::::::::::::: Soft Circle
:::::::::::::: Soiled Mattress and the Springs ----> last show ever
::::::::::::::: Chairlift
:::::::::::::::: more tba + secret special surprise guests...
[ THE YARD ] ---> OUTSIDE!!!
400 Carroll St btwn Bond St & Nevins St | Gowanus, Brooklyn
F/G-Carroll St, M/R-Union St | --> NOON <-- | $10 | ALL AGES
Here's the last video they made for the song "Honk Honk Bonk" off the album of the same name that is looming on the horizon of the teenage teardrops release schedule and should be in the shop any day now....
posted by NATE at 11:09 AM
1 comments
One of my favorite current bands, Soiled Mattress And The Springs, are breaking up and playing their final show this saturday, July 12 in New York (info below). Much like the far superior, original version of The Office on BBC, Soiled Mattress And The Springs briefly existed long enough to leave a solid impression on those lucky enough to hear their records or see them live.
Soiled Mattress And The Springs final show and wet t-shirt contest info:
Saturday July 12th -NOON- @ THE YARD
:: MID SUMMER OUTDOOR PARTY
:: in conjunction w/ Impose & Crashin' In
:: 2 stages!
: ONEIDA
:: HIGH PLACES
::: TITUS ANDRONICUS
:::: Shy Child
::::: Chinese Stars
:::::: Ponytail
::::::: x Wikkid, x Bloodlines
:::::::: Vivian Girls
::::::::: Abe Vigoda
:::::::::: Crystal Antlers
::::::::::: Knyfe Hyts
:::::::::::: Ninja Sonik
::::::::::::: Soft Circle
:::::::::::::: Soiled Mattress and the Springs ----> last show ever
::::::::::::::: Chairlift
:::::::::::::::: more tba + secret special surprise guests...
[ THE YARD ] ---> OUTSIDE!!!
400 Carroll St btwn Bond St & Nevins St | Gowanus, Brooklyn
F/G-Carroll St, M/R-Union St | --> NOON <-- | $10 | ALL AGES
Here's the last video they made for the song "Honk Honk Bonk" off the album of the same name that is looming on the horizon of the teenage teardrops release schedule and should be in the shop any day now....
posted by NATE at 11:09 AM
1 comments
Tatsumi Addendum
Right after posting that stuff about Tatsumi's new book, I saw this neat "cover" of a Tatsumi page by James McShane. His blog is full of nice stuff too-he draws a mean bike. James does really cool mini comics. Hand glued, hand cut, hand bound, silkscreened, tiny little bricks, I mean books. The latest one appears soon at the store.
posted by sammy at 2:36 AM
0 comments
Right after posting that stuff about Tatsumi's new book, I saw this neat "cover" of a Tatsumi page by James McShane. His blog is full of nice stuff too-he draws a mean bike. James does really cool mini comics. Hand glued, hand cut, hand bound, silkscreened, tiny little bricks, I mean books. The latest one appears soon at the store.
posted by sammy at 2:36 AM
0 comments
Today's Comic Book Recommended Reading.
INJURY 2
Ted May, Jeff Wilson, Jason Robards.
This issue's feature, HAIR OF THE DOG is one of those teenage slice of life strips I wait and wait for, and this is one of the best. Heavy Metal kids in a small town in the early eighties getting ripped, going to the local fair, drawing their band logos, having their hearts crushed. Just that alone should be enough to get you jerks off your elbows. It captures that feeling you had as a kid that no matter what small indignation or mega catastrophe, it didn't matter in the long run, because when you turned 18, life was going to BE SO RAD! In a handful of pages, May & Wilson get the subtle weird social relationships you have has a kid and the particular details enfolded in that strange hermetic time when you have no real sense of self, of trying to convince everyone cool that your cool too, when you can love a record in a way that is maybe near impossible now. It's super funny and moves quick, not dwelling on too much, but there is is that subtext of a kind of sad lost world. May's art is super nice and unfussy, but in way that's inventive and his alone. He's the only guy who reminds me both of Kirby fanzines and Dan Clowes all at once. The issue also has part two of the sci-fi actioner YOUR BLEEDING FACE (there's a gang called The Barnyard Animals!) and more great HERCULES comics-am I the only one who can never get enough of Hercules?
GOOD BYE
Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Edited by Adrian Tomine
This book is demented. Even today, with so many comics aiming for literature, no one is really doing stuff like this. It's weird, it's blunt and kind of pushy. Tatsumi has a tendency to end each story spelling things out real C-L-E-A-R-L-Y, but yet in other ways, the comics in here are subtle and filled with details and strong moments(the unambiguity of the endings is, in my mind, a product of the time when no one in Japan, or most of the world even, save for maybe Crumb, was doing work even remotely like this, and secondly, Japanese storytelling is sort of like that in general). It grows on you. It reminds me of the band THE FALL which could always be both blunt and subtle at the same time. And come to think if it, that cover is a perfect representation of that, once you've read the book. These stories take place in Japan, mostly Tokyo, in the years after World War II (they were all drawn in the early seventies). It's about the weird transition the country was in as it recovered from the war and its whole identity was changing from rural to urban. Tatsumi is awesome at creating a real particular sense of physical life at that particular time and place. He focuses as much space on the buildings, sidewalks, brothels and back alleys as he does on the human characters. It probably has my favorite drawings of buildings from any book. Someone could (should) write a good essay on tatsumi's drawings of urban space, and the use of Tokyo as antagonist.
posted by sammy at 12:07 AM
3 comments
INJURY 2Ted May, Jeff Wilson, Jason Robards.
This issue's feature, HAIR OF THE DOG is one of those teenage slice of life strips I wait and wait for, and this is one of the best. Heavy Metal kids in a small town in the early eighties getting ripped, going to the local fair, drawing their band logos, having their hearts crushed. Just that alone should be enough to get you jerks off your elbows. It captures that feeling you had as a kid that no matter what small indignation or mega catastrophe, it didn't matter in the long run, because when you turned 18, life was going to BE SO RAD! In a handful of pages, May & Wilson get the subtle weird social relationships you have has a kid and the particular details enfolded in that strange hermetic time when you have no real sense of self, of trying to convince everyone cool that your cool too, when you can love a record in a way that is maybe near impossible now. It's super funny and moves quick, not dwelling on too much, but there is is that subtext of a kind of sad lost world. May's art is super nice and unfussy, but in way that's inventive and his alone. He's the only guy who reminds me both of Kirby fanzines and Dan Clowes all at once. The issue also has part two of the sci-fi actioner YOUR BLEEDING FACE (there's a gang called The Barnyard Animals!) and more great HERCULES comics-am I the only one who can never get enough of Hercules?
GOOD BYEYoshihiro Tatsumi
Edited by Adrian Tomine
This book is demented. Even today, with so many comics aiming for literature, no one is really doing stuff like this. It's weird, it's blunt and kind of pushy. Tatsumi has a tendency to end each story spelling things out real C-L-E-A-R-L-Y, but yet in other ways, the comics in here are subtle and filled with details and strong moments(the unambiguity of the endings is, in my mind, a product of the time when no one in Japan, or most of the world even, save for maybe Crumb, was doing work even remotely like this, and secondly, Japanese storytelling is sort of like that in general). It grows on you. It reminds me of the band THE FALL which could always be both blunt and subtle at the same time. And come to think if it, that cover is a perfect representation of that, once you've read the book. These stories take place in Japan, mostly Tokyo, in the years after World War II (they were all drawn in the early seventies). It's about the weird transition the country was in as it recovered from the war and its whole identity was changing from rural to urban. Tatsumi is awesome at creating a real particular sense of physical life at that particular time and place. He focuses as much space on the buildings, sidewalks, brothels and back alleys as he does on the human characters. It probably has my favorite drawings of buildings from any book. Someone could (should) write a good essay on tatsumi's drawings of urban space, and the use of Tokyo as antagonist.
posted by sammy at 12:07 AM
3 comments
The Lana Show
'The Lana Show' is finally up. It's an internet TV show where Lana Kim interviews bands in the storeroom at the Director's Bureau.
Check it out here:
Here's a preview:
posted by kramer at 11:15 PM
0 comments
'The Lana Show' is finally up. It's an internet TV show where Lana Kim interviews bands in the storeroom at the Director's Bureau.
Check it out here:
Here's a preview:
posted by kramer at 11:15 PM
0 comments