For no reason other than they did some great sleeves. (Click for bigger version)
Design
Yes please! The vinyl reissues continue from Ghost Box, can’t wait for these beauties.
Last year I had an inexplicable yearning to buy more comics again after largely dipping out of the medium for a few years (save for the weekly dose of 2000ad thrill power and a few others). I also started to dig in the 50p-£1 boxes for older things I read as a kid or just liked the look of. Along the way I picked up a number of 3D comics from the boom in the late 80’s as well as a couple for more recently. When they work they’re great but frequently the writing never matches up to the standard of the imagery. There’s a whole blog post to be had out of some of those but that’s for another time.
This week I’ve been experimeting with 3D analyphs on a project – converting a 2D image into 3D when you look at it with those red and blue glasses. It’s not that hard, fun, if not a bit frustrating, and involves a bit of guesswork. I’ve managed to make one successful image so far but I can’t post it yet as I’ll get in trouble if it’s available to all at this stage.
But what should turn up on Jim Mahfood‘s Facebook stream today? News of a new book by Tristan Eaton (he designed the Dunny & Munny figures for Kidrobot) full of 3D images by a ton of different artists. Four years in the making, the 224 page book, published this Spring by Prestel, features a little bit of his work and a lot of Tristan-curated images from 100 artists across a multitude of disciplines: graffiti, illustration, contemporary art, graphic design, etc.
Check some images that I found online at animalnewyork.com and you can pre-order the book here.
The full artist list (with the ones I’m excited to see in bold): DRIAN JOHNSON, ANDREW BELL, ANTHONY AUSGANG, ASKEW, BASK, BILL MCMULLEN, BLOKT, BOOKS, BUFF MONSTER, CALMA, CASEY RYDER, CATALINA ESTRADA, CEY ADAMS, CHRIS MARS, CRAOLA, D*FACE, DABS & MYLA, DALEK, DAVE COOPER, DAVE KINSEY, DAVE NEEDHAM, DAVID FLORES, DEMO, DR. REVOLT, DARREN ROMANELLI, EBOY, EDATRON, ERIK FOSS, ERIC WHITE, ERIC HAZE, ESAO ANDREWS, FILTH, FLORENCIA ZAVALA, GARY BASEMAN, GARY TAXALI, GLENN BARR, GOMEZ BUENO, ISABEL SAMARAS, JAMES JEAN, JEFF SOTO, JEREMY FISH, JEREMY MADL, JERRY ABSTRACT, JIM HOUSER, JIM MAHFOOD, JOE SORREN, JON BURGERMAN, JULIE WEST, JUNKO MIZUNO, KANO, KATHY STAICO SCHORR, KENZO MINAMI, KEVIN BOURGEOIS, KEVIN SKINNER, KID ACNE, KOBIE SOLOMON, KRISTIAN OLSON, LAURA BARNHARD, LOGAN HICKS, MARK BODE, MARK DEAN VECA, MARK JAMES, MARK RYDEN, MATT CAMPBELL, MATT EATON, MAYA HAYUK, MICHAEL DE FEO, MISHKA, MINT AND SERF, MISS VAN, MORNING BREATH, MR JAGO, MYSTERIOUS AL, NATHAN FOX, NATHAN JUREVICIUS, PETE FOWLER, POSE MSK, RAY ZONE, RENATA PALUBINSKAS, RICH JACOBS, RON ENGLISH, ROSTARR, SHEPARD FAIREY, SKET ONE, STANLEY CHOW, STASH, STEPHEN BLISS, TARA MCPHERSON, TES ONE, TODD SCHORR, TOKIDOKI, TOM THEWES, TRAVIS LOUIE, TRAVIS MILLARD, TRISTAN EATON, TRUSTOCORP, UNKL, UPSO, AND WINSTON SMITH.
I was in Paris last Friday, playing at La Machine, but upon waiting for the Eurostar the next day I saw a poster for a Moebius Exhibition at the Foundation Cartier. Gutted not have known this was on earlier as I could have seen it before I left. The link above takes you to the exhibition site with a wealth of info, images, beautiful videos of Moebius drawing and mouth-watering merchandise, check the pencil sets below.
Ordered. For those that missed the three 12″s, they’re all here plus another 40 minutes in lavish Andy Votel designed sleeves.
Stumbled across this on Amazon today, love the cover.
Wagon Christ has a new album called ‘Toomorrow’ set for release in March. The excellent Celyn Brazier is on artwork duties again and you can hear a track from it here.
Found this whilst looking at another link on the MOC (My Own Creation) pages by BlaBlurBlah.
Around this time of year some of us are thinking about getting new calendars to plan our way through the next 12 months. I’ve just sold several OLD calendars, very beautiful ones designed by Vaughn Oliver at V23. Below are some examples of various months I’ve picked out. The V23 calendars were always very obscure, you couldn’t write on them and you could hardly tell which day or month it was on some, but that wasn’t the point.
Got this beautiful card in the post yesterday from the original Ninja logo designer …
I’ve scanned in the leaflets you get with the Sesame Street turntable I recently sold. Some lovely graphics there, especially the Concept 2000 logo and the batch of LPs on the offer envelope. Click the images for (much) larger versions.
This is one of the most beautiful vinyl records I’ve bought all year, Sculpture’s ‘Rotary Signal Emitter’ which doubles as a zoetrope when spun and filmed.
Check out the film they made of it, their site is here and they’ll be performing in London at the ICA on Jan 7th.
Demonstration Reel from Sculpture on Vimeo.
Look what Santa had in his sack for me this year. The Popbot 3-Pack (Popbot, Badbot and The Ascended plus a Kitty each in different colourways). Popbot is an on-going comic by Ashley Wood and his company 3A make toys from this world and others…
Long sold out from pre-order night and waiting in customs for a month while Parcel Force got their act together, they arrived on Dec 23rd so I decided to save them a couple more days before the big opening.
Spotted these last week in Selfridges’ windows whilst up in town but forgot the photos were on my phone. Pete Fowler did a series down the left side of the store and I’m no big fan of Sylvanian Families but that display with the caravans is great.
Further to the Star Wars fan posters post earlier I felt I should dedicate a post to Olly Moss’s work. He has such a simple angle on things, great colour sense and a clean, unfussy presentation. Able to merge different genre styles and bring a touch of the classics to everyday pop culture. For examples see his Penguin Classic book covers illustrating video games or his film poster updates via his site (click on Design > Rolling Roadshow or Videogame classics).
Tron:Legacy is the big Xmas movie to see as I type and these just popped up on Deviant Art by iamclu – beautiful.
Following on from the fan posters post there are a couple of lovely Tron ones by Eric Tan for the first and second film that go together beautifully. They had glow in the dark inks and were available from Sideshow Collectibles earlier this month but are now gone, maybe eBay?
Fan versions of film posters are nothing new but there seem to be more and more of them around with every major release these days. They can be a deviation from the norm for working artists in other practices or virtually launch careers of unknowns posting on their blogs or deviant art page (see the Tron post). Of course the most popular films will get multiple versions and inspire hitherto unseen levels of love and creativity, far outshining the original film’s posters themselves. The best example is probably the original Star Wars trilogy (I’m yet to see ANY fan posters for the second trilogy) and the recent smash and grab success of Olly Moss’ set on the Mondo site show that there is plenty of mileage in those old images as he brings a fresh look to all three films with gorgeous colour combinations.
Earlier this year Andy Helms got into hot water with Lucasfilm after he posted his take on the trilogy on his site and offered them for sale. His reward was a cease and desist letter, which is fair enough if you don’t have permission, but a shame as the posters are excellent.
A couple of years ago the ridiculously talented Tom Whalen did his take on Star Wars and Empire but never did one for Return of the Jedi. Wanting copies of the posters I even contacted him asking why he didn’t make a 3rd but it seems time didn’t make it a reality. Now he’s finished the trilogy to complete a beautiful set (also check out his Godzilla posters). There are many more Star Wars-themed posters out there if you google, a lot not even attempting to portray each film but taking obscure references and imagining situations or alternate versions. I’m sure these won’t be the last.
You wait for ages (well, not that long actually) and then 3 come along at once – loving these ZTT reissues from Salvo. A fanboy’s wet dream come true and more archive excavations than straight represses. Due early next year…
‘Liverpool’ tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Warriors Of The Wasteland
2. Rage Hard
3. Kill The Pain
4. Maximum Joy
5. Watching The Wildlife
6. Lunar Bay
7. For Heaven’s Sake
8. Is Anybody Out There?
9. The Waves
10. “Pamela”
11. Pocket Vibrator
12. Suffragette City
13. Roadhouse Blues
14. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
15. (Don’t Lose What’s Left) Of Your Little Mind
16. Rage Hard (Voiceless)
Disc 2:
1. Rage Hard (Montreux Mix)
2. Warriors Of The Wasteland (Montreux Mix)
3. Warriors Cassetted (Featuring Highlights From Both The 7″ And 12″ Single, Warriors Of The Wasteland, The Twelve Wild Disciples Mix And A Phenomenon Of Megabytes)
4. Drum Loop (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / November 1985)
5. F*** Off (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / November 1985)
6. Wildlife Cassetted (Featuring Orchestra Wildlife, Watching The Wildlife (Hotter), The Waves, Bit 1, Bit 2 And The Frankie Condom Mix (For A Wilder Time)
7. Our Silver Turns To Gold (Monitor Mix / Ibiza Sessions / May 1985)
8. Delirious (Monitor Mix / Ibiza Sessions / May 1985)
9. “Stan”
10. For Heaven’s Sake (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / March 1986)
‘Art of the 12″ ‘ tracklist:
Disc 1:
1 Propaganda – Jewelled 7:48
2 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (The Young Person’s Guide To The 12” Mix) 12:07
3 Art Of Noise* – Closely Closely (Enough’s Enough) 7:10
4 Act – Theme From Laughter (06.12.87, Extract) 1:08
5 Act – Snobbery & Decay (Extended, For Stephanie Beacham) 8:31
6 Instinct (7) – Sleepwalking (12” Extended Mix) 9:36
7 Art Of Noise* – Moment In Love 1:12
8 808 State – Cübik (Kings County Perspective) 6:00
9 Nasty Rox Inc. – 10th Wonder (12″ Mix) 7:02
10 MC Tunes Vs. 808 State – Dance Yourself To Death (License To Thrill) 5:40
11 808 State – Pacific 909 (Mellow Birds Mega Edit) 7:05
12 Art Of Noise* – Moments In Love (Beaten) 6:58
13 Propaganda – Testament Two 0:24
Disc 2:
1 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love (Singlette Mix, Extract) 0:28
2 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax (Sex Mix Edit) 8:15
3 Anne Pigalle – Souvenir d’Un Paris (Mix Aguicheur) 7:14
5 Glenn Gregory & Claudia Brücken – When Your Heart Runs Out Of Time (6’20”) 6:20
6 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Warriors (Compacted, Extract) 0:51
7 Andrew Poppy – 32 Frames (Drummed Up) 8:33
8 Propaganda – Dr Mabuse (12″ Master Mix For Germany) 6:13
9 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes (Hibakush-ah!) 6:59
10 Art & Act (A pArt Of Noise)* – Life’s A Barrel Of Laughs (Out Of This World Mix) 8:05
11 Art Of Noise* – Dreaming (Silver Mix, Extract) 2:00
12 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Pleasurefix) 9:37
13 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Only Star In Heaven (Starfix) 3:47
14 (lomax•)* – Waiting In Vain (Extended Dub) 4:44
15 808 State – Pacific (Bonus Bird Beats) 2:58
16 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (++, Extract) 0:22
‘Combined: The Best of Claudia Brucken’ tracklist:
1. Dr.Mabuse (A Paranoid Fantasy) – Propaganda
2. Duel – Propaganda
3. (The Beta Wrap Around Of) P:Machinery – Propaganda
4. Absolutely Immune – ACT
5. Snobbery And Decay – ACT
6. Femme Fatale (The Woman With The Orchid) – Propaganda
7. Absolut(E) – Claudia Brücken
8. Delicious – Andy Bell And Claudia Brücken
9. Cloud 9ine – Onetwo
10. Thank You – Claudia Brücken
11. Sequentia – Onetwo
12. Light The Way (Radio Seduction Edit) – Chrome Seduction Feat. Claudia Brücken
13. This Is Not America – Claudia Brücken And Paul Rutherford
14. Night School – Claudia Brücken
15. In Dreams – Claudia Brücken And Andrew Poppy
I’m currently listening to this amazing piece of art / packaging / engineering. There is no CD in the case, just a series of electrical components that make the music you hear when you plug your headphones into the mini-jack inserted in the spine. A battery, on/off switch, selection pad (to jump to the next track) a volume wheel and a mini headphone jack sit connected to something that chucks out the 1-bit code programmed into it. It’s basic, as the sound capabilities are obviously limited – imagine Phillip Glass played on a Nintendo – but it’s enjoyable nevertheless, also the volume seems to lose the bass as you decrease it. Beware, the last track is infinite, I sat there for a while before checking the packaging and saw a loop logo – doh!
More info at 1-bit symphony.com and you can still buy a copy although it’s not cheap, as a work of art it’s more than worth it I think. If anyone has a copy of Perich’s ‘1-Bit Music’ CD they want to sell I’d be interested.