A gorgeous original piece of Kevin O’Neill cover art from prog 230 of 2000AD, recently acquired by my friend David Rees, what a beauty.
Also, Kevin will be signing copies of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen issue, 2009, on June 23rd (not May as I’d previously posted) at Gosh Comics in Soho alongside none other than Alan Moore – expect queues round the block.
Gosh will also have copies of The Black Dossier hardback for sale -WITH the 7″ record that was meant to come with it originally.
More sleeve porn from the ever-reliable Stones Throw label, a Bruce Haack remix LP and an Oh No/Doom collaboration which comes as an LP, a double sided poster and a 5″ single.
Out today, on Catskillz, lots of remixes, the Husky Rescue one actually holds a candle to the original (no mean feat)
Catmerch: http://tinyurl.com/bsj2qxx
iTunes – http://bit.ly/Lthm3I
Amazon – http://amzn.to/Ji3yY8
Play – http://bit.ly/KqUbSZ
Spotify – http://spoti.fi/Krxsnu
7 Digital – http://bit.ly/MzzKr7
HMV – http://bit.ly/Ji9qR7
Nokia – http://bit.ly/KKQ5F0
Deezer – http://bit.ly/MadRvP
Juno – http://bit.ly/LtrWrz
DJ Download – http://bit.ly/JxTeeY
A quick gallery of images I shot whilst walking around the lovely city of Montreal this past week. So much art on the streets of this city, second favourite only to my own home town of London.
The reason some of the posts this week have been coming from Montreal is that I’ve been spending a week there working with people at the SATsosphere in the downtown area. They’ve been giving me lessons and advice on creating content for their dome, where I will be presenting a newly remixed version of The Search Engine planetarium show I did in London for them in July. Getting your head around the software is mind-boggling and forget 5.1 sound, theirs is 25.4 (!) Here are a few shots – you can’t get much of an idea of what the dome stuff will look like because it’s such an expanse and there’s no way to get it all in the frame.
I spent yesterday afternoon with my friend Otis Fodder, tramping round record stores in north of Montreal. We went to Sonorama, Phonopolis and even found a guy selling records out of the back of his house. We finally ended up at Death of Vinyl – easily my favourite, a real USED store, ridiculously crammed with record of all shapes and sizes plus CDs, DVDs, cassettes and even 8 tracks. The prices are low, the quantity is high, they even have coffee plus monthly art installations.
I went to the Star Wars Identities exhibition yesterday at the Montreal Science Centre which is full of over 200 props, costumes, figures, ships and production designs from the six films and beyond. The whole thing is tied together with a ‘quest’ to find your SW identity which you complete by selecting various characteristics from 10 steps amongst the exhibits which are then compiled into an image when you exit. I went for the original props though which are well worth it as there’s a lot and it’s pretty comprehensive, good for kids and adults.
I visited Eric San yesterday (aka Kid Koala) and got co-opted into drawing a piece of artwork for his new album (I didn’t mind a bit). While I was there I took these shots around his ridiculously packed studio.
Eric loves anything odd or kooky that makes a noise, he owns a cutting lathe to cut his own tour records, a vintage rhythm machine that plays drum beats on 8-track cartridges and a customised jukebox that plays cassettes!
Three brilliant tributes to MCA, a ‘Sabotage’ parody by James Winters, a ‘Licensed To Ill’ mural by Aroe, and a US departure lounge sign.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”370″]http://vimeo.com/42106181[/vimeo]
I just saw that my friend Pat Hamou did this lovely tribute to Maurice Sendak, this nails it for me. Pat said this about it:
“For Mr.Sendak.
I still remember the first time I laid eyes upon Where The Wild Things Are in my youth, leaving me wide eyed and wondering.
Here’s to the next Wild Rumpus that awaits you.”
Check out Pat’s site for his excellent gig posters and illustrations of Jewish gangsters. He lives in Montreal which is where I’m off to this week to develop my planetarium show with the people at the SAT Dome there.
Forthcoming Mike Mignola cover for the next B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth series – ‘Return Of The Master’.
These beautiful prints are going to be available on May 29th from Dark Hall Mansion in 3 different editions of 5 prints. Tom Whalen has been featured before with his take on the original Star Wars trilogy and he’s been commissioned to created this official portfolio for The Beatles. They’re not cheap but they’re beautiful.
Another tribute to the great Maurice Sendak who has now sadly left us, but has also left us so much great work, including this amazing pop up book.
This book is head and shoulders about all the other pop up books I have (and there are a few). Firstly because it’s the only one to feature Sendak’s art, which is gorgeous as always, and secondly because the paper engineering has to be seen to be believed.
[singlepic id=3786 w=640 h=480 float=left]
The story centers on a boy looking for his mummy who enters the house of Dr Frankenstein. As he moves through each room he encounters a different character from classic horror stories: The Vampire, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy, The Werewolf and, finally, finds his ‘mummy’ in the Bride of Frankenstein.
[singlepic id=3787 w=640 h=890 float=left]
At each monster he enquires, ‘Mummy?’, before proceeding to disable them in different ways, seemingly indifferent to their attempts to frighten him. This is where the ingenious paper engineering comes in, the figures don’t merely pop up, they animate at the same time as each page is opened. The Werewolf actually transforms as he extends out of the book, Frankenstein’s monster is one of the biggest pop ups I’ve seen and the boy deals with his assailants happen as you open a flap on the right side of each page.
[singlepic id=3790 w=640 h=480 float=left]
Again Sendak sends a clear message to the children who read his books: you don’t need to be afraid of these monsters, they are easy to trick or get rid of. I don’t want to spoil it ALL for you by telling you how he does it but it all ends well and there is so much detail in each page that it bares re-reading. The whole scenario was dreamt up by Arthur Yorinks, paper engineered by Matthew Reinhart and released by Scholastic in 2006 where it won several awards including the New York Times‘ Best Illustrated book award. See the gallery below for some shots, with not too many spoilers.
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Another visionary artist gone, first Ralph McQuarrie, then Moebius (not to forget MCA on Friday), now Maurice Sendak!
I love his books, especially ‘In The Night Kitchen’, of which I made a huge poster for my kids’ bedroom when they were 2 years old. I also loved the way he was so outspoken about encroaching political correctness and what could and could not be shown to children. A true original.
Obviously ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ is his best known work, and deservedly so but there’s a lot more in his catalogue than that classic. When I was digging through the archive at Sesame Workshop in 2003 I found a cartoon of ‘Bumble Ardy’, voiced by Ken Nordine written by Sendak and illustrated in his style. This became his last book, published last year in a revised form and you can find it on a Sesame Street DVD called ‘Old School’.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2TVYdQU3-I[/youtube]
This is a post I had over on my old MySpace blog from Jan 2008:
“On December 27th I installed a ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ window display in the Tales on Moon Lane bookshop in Herne Hill, London. It will be up until Easter and then move to their Primrose Hill shop. I highly recommend the shop for kids books as they have an excellent selection and the shop is packed with loads of fun stuff.”
I just saw this via Twitter which is just beautiful:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
– Maurice Sendak – RIP, you left a great legacy for generations to come.
Augustine Kofie: Working An Angle @ Known Gallery Los Angeles from Augustine Kofie on Vimeo.
Promo for Augustine Kofies' Solo showing at Known Gallery as well as his first solo in Los Angeles in over 3 years.
AUGUSTINE KOFIE / WORKING AN ANGLE Opens: May 26, 2012 | 8-11pm Runs: May 26 – June 9, 2012 KNOWN Gallery, 441 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036 [email protected]
This is lovely, perfect Sunday afternoon viewing and listening. A compilation of Boards of Canada‘s loops posted on their websites.
Video footage taken from BoC’s 2002 website, by James Tindall.
On June 1st I’ll be traveling up to my friends’ Sarah and Leigh‘s place in Hinckley, Leicestershire for the opening of a rejigged version of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition that we held at the Pure Evil Gallery in January.
Their Factory Road Gallery will host a lot of the posters and original art and there will be local ale, special food and prints, CDs and books for sale. More details here.
There will be special limited editions available at the show, a 20 copy giclée print of the recent 12″ cover, printed tea towels (!) and chocolate bars in silver space-type wrapping. There will also be food on the opening night, local ale and I’ll be around to answer any questions.