Check these fantastic homages to 70’s and 80’s ads for the new Daft Punk merchandise. Great work by whoever did them and proof that a band can have fun and be creative when marketing their wares. Get Lucky HERE. (sorry, had to do that)
In case you missed it a new label has sprung up with three releases in swift succession in the last 5 months. Rotary Tower‘s first offerings are two EPs from the archives of Ron Graham aka Giallos Flame. Ron had various releases out a few years back, most notably of DC Recordings and then promptly disappeared.
Now he’s back with Archivio Giallo Vols 1 & 2 (plus a third is planned apparently for an August release). As you would expect if you knew his work of old they lean heavily towards the soundtrack and library medium, mostly on the horror, blackploitation and action genres. Heavy drums and analogue synths abound with plenty of homages to famous scores along the way.
The third release (actually no.002 here in the green cover) is by Ganzfeld – Temas Spatiale Vol.1 – which is the debut of a duo and leans more towards jazz than anything else but includes electronics and modern classical elements too. There are plenty of sound clips available to check out over on the new site, neatly divided by colour per artist. The label also acts as a licensing hub for the music, being that it’s so well suited to soundtracking other media.
The Judge Dredd Megazine issue 350 sees Brian Bolland revisit his classic 2000ad Presents cover of old (which is nearly 30 years ago now) with a new version, updating friends and foes alike. This is a fanboy’s wet dream with all sorts of references and characters that Bolland has never drawn before.
Note that Judge Hershey (top left, black bob haircut) is virtually identical to the original version. Whilst Judge Anderson, (bottom left, blonde) who was smirking at Hershey’s straight-faced-ness in the original is now giving a ‘don’t even think it’ kind of look to the other blonde, bottom right (this character’s name actually escapes me).
He’s also had a go at realising Mike McMahon‘s Howler character but it really only comes off like a 2D cardboard cut out against his 3D figures. I’m hoping it’s a wraparound cover too, what with Judge Fire‘s shoulder pad just in shot half way up the left hand side. Both scans taken from Comics Alliance.
Here’s the finished piece I posted a while back by Augustine Kofie (USA) and Nawer (Poland), recently completed in Poland. Photos by PAWEŁ DZIUR DZIURZYŃSKI – taken from this Behance article which has many more making-of images and a video by RADEK DROZDOWICZ with music by Skalpel, ‘On The Road’..
Very sad to hear that the great Swiss surrealist painter and designer HR Giger has passed away. Few people have a unique vision but I think it’s safe to say that he was one of those few and has influenced generations with his mechanic/organic images.
His work is not easily forgotten once seen and he created one of the great movie monsters of our time in the Alien. The album cover was also a natural canvas for his work with the public exposed to him via Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s ‘Brain Salad Surgery’ LP well before Alien. His work for Debbie Harry and The Dead Kennedys saw much controversy with the latter being banned and famously brought to court with Jello Biafra defending the artist’s vision.
I remember seeing his large format Necronomicon and Biomechanics books in shops in the 80’s and wanting them so badly but they were way out of my price range at the time. I was lucky enough to visit the tiny town of Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland one time though to see many of his originals in the Giger Museum – highly recommended. Sadly missed but never forgotten. 
The new Blondie album is out today and it has fantastic cover art by J.H. Williams III the current artist on Sandman. 
I’ve been listening to The Dandelion Set‘s music for a while now and it slowly worms its way inside your head after repeated listens. It’s very much of that hauntology, library, Brit folk, children’s TV theme ilk but maybe without the horror / witchcraft elements.
The brainchild of Glyn Bush (aka Bigga Bush, Magic Drum Orchestra, Lightning Head) and PK Chown, they sent me a digital compilation of their work distilled into ‘3 Imaginary EPs’ showcasing the Set’s music so far. Although only one EP is available at the moment it looks like these will form the basis of an album later this year.
There’s also a free new EP, ‘Theme From Gameplan’ – their take on an imaginary 1970s spy thriller, complete with harpsichords, contrapuntal moogs, jazzy beats and timeless melodies. The EP then puts this version through the blender to come up with a variety of alternative versions.
Hear/download for free:
They also have a growing archive of Dandy Hour mixes on Mixcloud.
I could just look at Mike Mignola‘s art forever and never get bored. This is out on Wednesday – he’s averaging one issue every 6 months now. If you like your Hellboy universe a bit more regular then I recommend the B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth series which is monthly and has just gone into full gear after treading water for a good 18 months.
I’ve featured this before but now it seems that they’ve got a trailer together and it couldn’t be any better, they’ve nailed it. Find out more about the Akira Project here.
The Electric Hoax Pt.19 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
Akira + The Simpsons. Not an obvious combination but someone has had the idea to crowd source redrawing over 2000 pages of Akira with Simpsons characters and renaming it ‘Bartkira’. There is a tumblr full or images here and the full thing will be going online ‘soon’ apparently at www.bartkira.com.
Kid Acne‘s ‘The Return’ solo exhibition just opened last weekend in Turin, Italy. Here are some photos from the opening and a film of him at work. The show runs until July 5th and is held at the Galo Art Gallery.
The entire exhibition focuses on his Stabby Women characters – adding new paintings, illustrations and prints to the ongoing body of work, which continues to explore the travels, rituals and mythology of these enigmatic female warriors.
To mark the release of The The‘s newly boxed and remastered ‘Soul Mining’ album on June 30th I will be quizzing Matt Johnson about its history and making at Rough Trade East at 7pm.
Sadly on Sunday it was two years since MCA passed away and there was a weekend long celebration in Brooklyn to remember the man and the music he made with the Beasties. With another, happier, anniversary also approaching – 25 years since the release of ‘Paul’s Boutique’ – there is a fair bit of Beastie-related activity on the horizon.
Above and below you can see a comic created by Derek Langille illustrating the song ‘Sabotage’ – this was done nearly two years ago now and takes a similar old school comic style to Ed Piskor‘s excellent on-going ‘Hip Hop Family Tree‘.
A couple of fans in Italy (SM&A Prod.) are preparing a ‘visual companion’ to the album, to debut online on July 25th (see new trailer above) and Filter magazine are running a special on it in an upcoming issue.
The 3-Way Mix should be getting a feature somewhere in that issue and I was interviewed recently for an updated version of Dan LeRoy‘s 33 1/3 book about the making of the album.
Also over the weekend the deconstructed mix of the album that I made with DJ Cheeba and DJ Moneyshot finally hit 100,000 plays on Soundcloud – this is a big milestone for us so thanks to all for listening.
Check out this original Kevin O’Neill painting from the cover of the ‘Twisted Times’ collection – short Future Shock stories by Alan Moore from his old 2000ad days. This is on sale now from Artdroids if you have the hefty £6k that Rufus wants for it and underneath is the original book cover it was used for. “if I was a rich man, la la la la la etc”…
As with last year’s Free Comic Book Day I’ve put together another collection of record sleeves that use artists from or reference comics in some way. Above is a Boo-Yaa Tribe 12″ which I THINK is drawn by Bob Camp who also did the Bambaataa ‘Renegades of Funk’ and Newcleus sleeves from the previous post. The only credit is ‘designed by Island Art’ on the back and the German 12″ says ‘illustration: Marvel Comics’ (!) This version features two remixes by Coldcut incidentally.
A classic back and front sleeve by (*update!) Dave Little for Bomb The Bass‘ first LP – the connection started when BTB adapted Dave Gibbons‘ Watchman smiley face with blood splat on their first 12″ cover for ‘Beat Dis’ – thus helping bring the smiley into the then current Acid House craze as its motif. Dave Little – as Steve Cook helpfully pointed out below in the comments – was Rhythm King‘s in-house designer, responsible for S’Express, Renegade Soundwave and more.
Next up – the master – Moebius, drawing Hendrix, as he would do several times in his career but this is the only album cover I know of. This is a ‘twofer’, two albums in one package for the French market on the Barclay label with a gorgeous gatefold. I love the way Hendrix is on the back instead of the front.
More Moebius, I’ve posted this before but it’s so good I’m going to do it again.
Staying with the French artists here’s Philippe Druillet with another Hendrix gatefold and another similar record that I can’t identify the artist on – both released on Barclay. Anyone know the second artist? Update: several people have pointed the finger at Richard Corben on this one and I can see the similarity for sure plus it would fit in with the series of artists featured in Metal Hurlant at the time.
This is the back cover of an Impulse Jazz compilation with a weird contraption by lesser-known Underground Comix artist Dave Sheridan (RIP) – odd to see this on a jazz record but then again Robert Crumb was no stranger to the genre.
Last but not least we have Jim Fitzpatrick who did many sleeves for Thin Lizzy in the 70’s through to the early 80’s. Not really a comic artist as such, more in the Celtic Fantasy range as an illustrator but you can see the comic book influence in his style with the psychedelic lettering on the early releases looking like Robert Williams‘ work or even Hawkwind-era Barney Bubbles.
Love this die-cut cover showing through the inside sleeve.
This Greatest Hits release was advertised with a comic strip-like page in an issue of Sounds, riffing off a cowboy theme. 
Not quite sure if this is Jim Fitzpatrick as the line work is a bit spikier and Steve Cook again pointed out that it could be Martin Asbury – probably best known for drawing Garth and the style certainly looks similar.
The Electric Hoax Pt.18 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
Seeing as it’s Free Comic Book Day tomorrow I’ll be posting a little more than usual about related events over the coming week. Another exhibition that just opened is this celebration of 20 Years of Hellboy by artists both professional and amateur.
It’s on at the Hero Complex Gallery in LA from today and you can see more examples of art here plus everything goes up for sale tomorrow .
Absolutely love this track from tUnE-yArDs‘ new album (out Monday May 5th) – nuts video too.