Nick Fury Agnt of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Steranko

I always loved this image but never knew this version or its origin. Last night I saw it whilst looking for something else and immediately recognised it from my childhood, albeit in another form. In the UK this appeared on the cover of the first issue of Future Tense, all original context stripped from it and a re-colouring job that left much to be desired.

Future Tense was a UK comic anthology of reprints from old Marvel series’ trying to capitalise on the sci-fi craze started by Star Wars and maintained by 2000ad. Seeing the original colours here gives the image a whole new lease of life but reminded me of all the great strips that were in the comic: Micronauts (with Michael Golden‘s amazing artwork), ROM The Spaceknight, Warlock. Starlord, Paladin and more. There’s a couple of nice pieces about it with a more covers over at Slow Robot‘s blog, which is a great resource for old sci-fi ephemera from the 70’s and 80’s. Now, what Nick Fury was doing on the cover of issue 1 is anyone’s guess, as he wasn’t featured in the comic.

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Posted in Comics. | 1 Comment |

Dredd trailer

[youtube width=”640″ height=”400″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PifvRiHVSCY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] Judge for yourself and other terrible puns…

Posted in Comics, Film. | 2 Comments |

Worldwide Festival Magazine Summer 2012 design article

Late last year I wrote an extensive piece in response to an interview by Miguel Angel Rolland for Gilles Peterson‘s Worldwide Festival magazine about design for music in the digital age. It’s finally been published over on Issu and it’s 16 pages long (!) You can order a print copy or just download a digital version and physical copies should be available at the festival this summer. Not sure why they didn’t credit Miguel or photographer Steve Cook for the studio shot either but I’m very pleased to have been given the chance to air my views.

Posted in Books, Design, DJ Food. | 1 Comment |

Nuclear Dawn mural restoration project

Here’s the Nuclear Dawn mural in Brixton as it was when it was first painted. Anyone who has ever traveled into Brixton on Coldharbour Lane from the East will have seen this, it’s been there since the early 80’s apparently and was painted by Brian Barnes and Dale McCrea.

30 years of wear and tear have not been kind to the image, especially the lower half which is partly covered with bushes and graffiti not to mention the condition of the paint in general. But there is a movement underway to try and restore the mural to its former glory on Facebook – please have a look, ‘like’ the page and see if you can help.

Posted in Art. | No Comments |

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Sex Mix vol.1

Very much looking forward to this, available August 6th from ZTT

CD1: Frankie Goes To Hollywood in The Pleasuredome, a Zang Tuum Tumb singlette in five parts: Happy Hi! (All in the Body), The Soundtrack from Bernard Rose’s Video of the Welcome to the Pleasuredome single, Get It On, Welcome to the Pleasure Dome (How to Remake the World), Happy Hi! (All in the Mind); Relax (International); The Power of Love (I’ll Protect You From The Holocaust) can be read in various ways but, for the sake of CD indexing, has six distinct sections: The Power of Love (extended, singlette – as opposed to 12” – version), The World is My Oyster (Trapped), Holier Than Thou (FGTH’s Christmas message), The World is My Oyster (Scrapped), Holier Than Thou (further festive messaging), The Power of Love (instrumental, singlette version); The World is My Oyster (at its full length); Don’t Lose What’s Left, Rage Hard + ++ *.

CD2: Extracts from Relax, From Soft to Hard, Dry to Moist: Relax (Sex Mix), Later On (from One September Monday), Ferry Cross The Mersey (…and here I’ll stay); Music from and inspired by Two Tribes (Keep The Peace): Two Tribes (singlette extracts), One February Friday (singlette extracts), War (somewhere between Hidden and Hiding); Further elements from The Liverpool Look: Warriors of the Wasteland (Compacted), Do You Think I’m Sexy?, Watching the Wildlife (Voiceless).

Posted in Design, Music. | 8 Comments |

Tron Uprising backgrounds

I’m totally in love with the design of the new Tron Uprising cartoon that just premiered on Disney’s XD channel. Starting with a 30 minute pilot last month to set the whole thing up they have eighteen 20 minute episodes in the first season with only Flynn, Tron and Clu remaining from the films and a host of new characters to flesh out the story. The design cues are taken from Tron Legacy and ramped up with Aeon Flux-like proportions on the characters and hyper neon designs.

Posted in Design, Film. | 2 Comments |