Ninjas featured in new Judge Dredd Megazine story

Well, this was unexpected! Reading the latest Judge Dredd Megazine (issue 336, out today) with my kids the other day and I open it to find my name splattered on the wall of Mega City 1! Not only am I now immortalised as a minor gang (now sadly defunct) in the tangled history of the Meg but a certain Matt Black (Coldcut) and PC (DJ Food) get a mention as street names in the left hand panel too.

The story is a spin off in the world of Dredd for disgraced ex-Chief Judge Dan Francisco who has been demoted back to street duty after the events that led to the recent Day of Chaos story. Francisco – a Judge who had the rare distinction of being a prime time TV star whose popularity led to him being elected Chief Judge – is investigating multiple murders of The Kev Gang in this scene. It’s a humorous aside but a chance for the writer, Arthur Wyatt, to use my name as the basis for the gang’s rules of entry. Artist Paul Marshall drew the strip and it’s featured in the monthly Megazine which is out today.

Posted in 2000ad, Comics, DJ Food. | 6 Comments |

The Simonsound – ‘The Beam’ single on sale now

Want one of these? The new single from The Simonsound in a special 25 copy ‘Pilot Pack’ with 10″ colour vinyl, two sided colour map, sew on ‘The Simonsound Transit Authority’ Pilot patch, 1 of a kind 1/4 inch tape loop, mini booklet, Monorail ticket, all housed in a beautiful letter press printed sleeve? Better be quick – pre-orders happening NOW.

If they’re sold out or your budget doesn’t stretch to business class you can still catch the monorail in a more regular and affordable standard class version. 10″ colour* vinyl of ‘The Beam’, comes with two sided colour map. (*Colour to be confirmed.) Also, if you’ve not tried the debut LP from the group (Simon James and DJ Format) then you could do a lot worse than grab ‘Reverse Engineering’ while you’re there.

 

Posted in Design, Music, Packaging. | No Comments |

The Image Duplicator show opens this week

The Image Duplicator show opens for 2 weeks this Thursday at the Orbital Gallery inside Orbital Comics on Neal St, London. It sets various comic artists and graphic designers the task of re-appropriating, and in the process highlighting, the original artists that Roy Lichtenstein copied without credit for his most famous works.

Lining up to take part, and in some cases take the piss, are Dave Gibbons, Shaky Kane, Steve Cook, Howard Chaykin, Mark Blamire, Graeme Ross, myself, Jason Atomic and Rian Hughes – the latter two of which have put this whole event together

.

There are many more too, and a catalogue has been put together along with high quality prints with all proceeds going to The Hero Initiative, a charity that aids ageing comic illustrators who are struggling to make a living. The prints are available online for those who can’t make it and some will be sold at the opening on Thursday night at the gallery. Hopefully a late addition to the show will be this cover of the current issue of Viz by Simon Thorp and interior cartoon by Lew Stringer and Graham Dury about a young Lichtenstein at school with Warhol.

When I first saw Lichtenstein’s work, probably as a teen in the 80’s, I liked it a lot. What was not to like as I had read comics since by youth and was familiar with the ‘graphic language’ that he took from? ‘Cool’, I thought, ‘an artist bringing comics into the fine art realm. ‘Whaam!’ was fun, friends had posters in their rooms, when I first met my wife she had a postcard on her wall of ‘M…Maybe’ (‘…he became ill and couldn’t leave the studio’ – oh the irony of that later on). I wasn’t particularly taken with his style, it just seemed adequate, all I really saw were generic comic panels of a certain era, large on a wall or in an art book. You could always tell it was Lichtenstein because no one else did that in the art world, why would they? It was a great idea but anyone else would have been accused of copying Roy Lichtenstein (ironic indeed).

I, like most people I imagined, assumed that he had looked at various War and Romance comics of the 60’s – when a house style was encouraged and artists were told to draw in a certain way – and then done his own versions of the kind of images he saw. I never read these kinds of comics as a kid but saw them on spinners in the local newsagent, or at least the 70’s equivalents. I never saw the Mickey and Daffy Duck paintings and there were no references to Batman, Superman, Spiderman etc. so I figured he had his style and was doing the retro thing with it. It never occurred to me that he had literally copied panels from the issues of the day, that would be plagiarism wouldn’t it? Surely someone would sue him?

It wasn’t until I was pointed to David Barsalou‘s Deconstructing Lichtenstein site that the penny dropped – these were copies, direct lifts, but simplified to erase any traces of style the original artists had injected that could make them easily detectable. Despite this ‘blandardisation’ it’s still easy to tell what comes from where and in each case, almost without exception, the original was better than the copy. And it went on and on and on, I never knew he’d done so much work but his one idea rolled on for decades with diminishing returns. A lot of critics will bring up the amount of money Lichtenstein makes from the sale of his works, and, although it’s an unfair turn of events when the original he copied goes for a 1000th of the price of his copy, it’s not the thing that gets my goat. People will pay all sorts of prices based on the perceived resale value and no one paid more for a piece of work because it was ‘better’ than another – beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. It’s the high art vs low art attitude of the galleries, critics and historians that have taken it upon themselves to designate one thing as trash and another as Art.

I first became aware of this distinction in the college art class when we were asked to bring in a copy of our favourite painting and talk about it. Up until this point I had had no art history tutoring and could barely tell my Picasso from my Cezanne. I had no ‘Art’ books at home but I decided to look through the books that I did have and see if any of it took my fancy. Even then I was aware that comics weren’t considered Art so I looked through an illustrator book of Horror stories and found a painting of a gent holding a candelabre in the dark, illuminating mainly just his face. It was OK but nothing special, some nice light and shadow effects and I had nothing else so it got taken in. When it came to show my selection my tutor said, ‘but that’s not Art, that’s just illustration’, and that’s when I realised the divide existed.

Posted in Art, Comics, Event. | 2 Comments |

Adam Ant last night at the Roundhouse

Last night I finally got to see Adam Ant and his current band, The Good The Mad and the Lovely Posse. Having been a fan since I was 11 it was a long time coming after a couple of, ‘shall I? shan’t I?‘ moments over the years. Playing at the Roundhouse in London, somewhere he’d last played virtually 35 years to the day previously, it saw Adam back in fine style after his mental health problems. It was also an incredible feat seeing as he restarted his career only a few years ago, playing in tiny clubs and slowly rebuilding his rep.

The set was a perfect balance of old and new, hits and b-sides, with no song outstaying its welcome. Even the new material, a disappointing return largely down to bad production and the almost demo-like quality of some of the songs, fitted in perfectly. Favourites from his post punk, Dirk Wears White Sox era made up at least a third of the set with B-sides like Lady, Red Scab and Fall Out all received as rapturously as the ‘hits’. Well recommended if you have a passing interest, essential if you’re a fan. I was hesitant to go initially – what if he sucked? I didn’t want a childhood hero rendered a cabaret act. But it didn’t come to that and was an exhilarating experience.

Below are a series of vintage gig and tour posters from the late 70’s procured from various corners of the web. I love the way certain letters run out and are replaced, check the ‘2’s on the Zerox Tour poster dates and the ‘z’ made from two ‘v’s on the January 1st one.



Moonlight Club upgrade

Posted in Gigs. | 4 Comments |

Funki Porcini debuts ‘City’

Next weekend Funki Porcini debuts a project he’s been working on for years – it’s an interactive environment called ‘City’ and it will be installed as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
It runs from 18th-21st, opens from midday to 8pm and it’s free, there’s very little info about it but he’s assured me that it’s the best thing he’s ever done and there’s very little else like it.

There are a couple of short promos on his Vimeo page but it’s all very secretive, when pressed he won’t even give away details, saying that it has to be a surprise.

Posted in Event, Film. | No Comments |

DJ Food & DK ‘Sentinel’ for Ninja Jamm

Mine and DK‘s track, ‘Sentinel’ is now available as an in-app purchase from Ninja Jamm. Long in development by Coldcut’s Matt Black, Ninja Jamm lets you intuitively remix tracks on your iPhone or iPad (it’s Mac only at the moment, Android will be coming soon).

The app is free, and you can buy ‘tune packs’ from various artists on Ninja Tune and associated labels. The ‘Sentinel’ pack is 69p and there’s also a ‘Dark Lady’ pack as well as a free Coldcut ‘Beats & Pieces’ pack to get you started.

Posted in DJ Food, Music, Ninja Tune. | No Comments |

DJ Food on Dust & Grooves preview

On April 15th I welcomed Eilon Paz into my studio to photograph some highlights of my record collection for his excellent Dust & Grooves site. 6 hours later I bid him farewell and returned to a decimated room with records everywhere.


We went through a lot in that time including my earliest influences, favourite albums and also special packaging and graphic design highlights. This is a preview, a full entry will be coming with more images and a Q&A session – also check Jonny Trunk and Ollie Teeba’s collections. When it drops I’ll post it here but until then, if you don’t know Eilon’s site, there’s enough material to waste a day on there.

Posted in DJ Food, Records. | No Comments |

3 of the 10 Search Engine artworks found

Peep Rooks sent me this photo of one of the zoetrope prints I’d had inserted into the 4×12″ version of ‘The Search Engine’ for Record Store Day. He wrote, “I wanted to let you know that the zoetrope nr. 4 ended up in Estonia.
I ordered the record online about a week ago from a shop from the capital Tallinn and it found its place on a record player in the middle of nowhere near Viljandi.

… I did not have any idea what it (the zoetrope) was until a few days ago and now i am thinking..hehe – what are the odds? I wonder where will the other artworks end up…”

Another one turned up in FinlandMikko posted on this site on May 1st,“I am one of the lucky ten who got one of the artworks, ‘original master’ collage!
I live in Helsinki, Finland.
Thank you!”

So, that’s two accounted for out of the ten, (see the 4 collages and 6 zoetrope prints here), if you have one or hear of someone with one – bear in mind some buyers won’t even know about them until they discover them – please let me know.
UPDATE 19/12/15: Today Christoph Chilli G from Nürnberg emailed me these images of the collage he found in his copy of the album!

Christoph Chilli G DJ Food collage Christoph Chilli G+collage

Image Duplicator show opens next week at Orbital Comics

The Image Duplicator show opens in 10 days at Orbital Comics in London. I have a piece in it which is also available as a print online up until the day the show opens. There will also be a catalogue available when it opens (my pages shown below). Currently there is a downloadable press release and selection of images on the Facebook page and it runs from May 16th-31st. See the blurb below for the concept if you’ve missed my previous posts on the subject. It’s been getting some great press in the comic world so far but if you want to write something about it elsewhere, please feel free or get in touch.

Posted in Art, Comics, Event. | No Comments |

Judge Minty


Judge Minty is a micro budget fan film that’s been in production for years now, well before the recent Dredd movie by Alex Garland anyway. It’s finally finished and, after doing the convention circuit, has now been put up for free on YouTube. For a such a project they’ve got a lot out of the little money they had to make it too with some impressive CGI work, excellent colour grading and music. Their Mega City 1 is far superior than the aforementioned Dredd film and the Judge outfits are nearer to the comic versions, being supplied by the Termight Replicas and Planet Replicas companies who do the official spin off costumes and props associated with the comic.

The story is an extension of an original strip in 2000ad featuring a Judge called Minty who is getting old and slow, his judgement impaired. Such cases in Dredd’s world take ‘The Long Walk’, sent out beyond the city walls to The Cursed Earth, a radioactive wasteland inhabited by mutants and the lawless. The Judges have to fend for themselves and try to bring some justice to the place, an impossible task being that they are a drop in the ocean compared to its size. Some of the acting let’s it down but Edmund Dehn, in the lead role is perfectly cast and there are all sorts of nice touches and hidden references for the eagle eyed fan, my favourite being the not so subtle crashed Land Raider in one scene.

At only 27 minutes long it’s well worth a watch if you have a passing interest in the character. You can tell it’s a labour of love and I recognised several known fan’s names in the credits at the end including John Burdis – Dredd uber-fan and constant presence in costume at conventions these last few years. Also in the thanks was one ‘Ollie Teeba‘, who many will know from The Herbaliser on Ninja Tune and beyond, who put in some money to aid the production of the film.

Posted in 2000ad, Film. | No Comments |

Record sleeves influenced by Comics

In celebration of Free Comic Book Day here’s a small sampling of my favourite record sleeves featuring comic artists or groups portrayed in a comic setting.

Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force – Renegades of Funk by Bob Camp

Sigue Sigue SputnikAlbinoni vs Star Wars by Ron Smith

Sinister Ducks – March of The Sinister Ducks by Kevin O’Neill

RZA – Bobby Digital by Bill Scienkiewicz

Overlord X – Weapon Is My Lyric (back cover) by Simon Bisley

MF Doom –  Operation Doomsday by Doom

Newcleus – Space is The Place by Bob Camp


Newcleus – Jam On Revenge by Bob Camp

Icarus – The Marvel World of Icarus by Jack Kirby and various

EPMD – Business As Usual by Bill Scienkiewicz

De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising (inner sleeve) by Michael Uman

Man – Slow Motion by Rick Griffin

The Fink Brothers – Mutants of Mega City One (front and back) by Brian Bolland

Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills by Robert Crumb


Posted in Comics, Records. | 2 Comments |

Free Comic Book Day-themed mix for Solid Steel

Tomorrow (May the 4th – oh the irony) is this year’s Free Comic Book Day and readers of this blog will find it no surprise that I’ve chosen to celebrate this with a mix based around songs mentioning comic characters for Solid Steel’s 25th celebrations.
So, we get the obvious ones like Prince – Batdance, Queen – Flash, Black Sabbath – Iron Man (even though it isn’t about THAT Iron Man). But we also get Elton John singing about Dan Dare, Anthrax‘s ode to Judge Dredd, I Am The Law and, my favourite, a 1977 track by Cliff Richard praising Spider Man (who knew?). This took ages to do because all the styles of music were so different and making them set naturally together was a real labour of love.

FCBD is a bit like Record Store Day except there are – as the title suggests – FREE comics to be had if you turn up early enough. Besides encouraging people to get out to real shops there will be various signings, happenings and such at your local comic store as well as a wealth of specially-released titles. I’ll be trying to grab a copy of 2000ad‘s annual special which has a special Henry Flint cover aping classic Marvel and DC first issues but twisting them into an alternate future. I’ll also be picking up ongoing issues of B.P.R.D., the new Abe Sapien book, Brandon Graham’s Prophet and more.