UPDATE: The three images above seem to be the finished item, when I first posted these they were a work in progress (see below).
These incredible Star Wars re-imaginings have been doing the rounds on the web this weekend after a live drawing event with Kim Jung Gi. His eastern versions of the Star Wars galaxy are just mind-blowing as are his astronauts which I’ve joined together from details posted on Instagram. Check out his work, it’s all incredible.
I was lucky enough to find time for a bookstore binge last weekend in Plymouth at the excellent Book Cupboard shop which yielded some Richard Powers and vintage Josh Kirby covers (ie: pre-Pratchett) and more.
Above: Richard M. Powers / Josh Kirby (bottom row only). Some of these were part of another batch of books that Stuart McLean aka Frenchbloke sourced for me from his local bookstore in Scotland. He very kindly went through multiple boxes and photographed a ton for me to pick through and reserve at The Book Shop, Wigtown. Massive thanks to Stuart who’s just completed his annual 48 hr radio marathon, The Dark Outside. Check out similar treats in his Stolen Library project too for free books and records.
I’m not exactly sure who the artists are on the books below except for The Cosmic Eye cover which is by Mike Hinge, but thought they looked interesting. If anyone has similar book stores in their town then please let me know so I can hit them up if and when I visit please.
I don’t need this
I can’t really afford this
The price of shipping nearly doubles the cost of this
But my god it’s a lovely object. Buy one here and make me jealous.
My last album cover (The Search Engine, 4-panel vinyl edition) that I collaborated on with Henry Flint is the first cover you see in an exhibition of record sleeves by comic artists entitled PHONO+GRAPHIC, curated by artist Sean Phillips.
This is a bit of a dream come true for me, to be one of 60 sleeves displayed alongside artists like Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Brett Ewins, Hunt Emerson and Moebius!
It opens next week at the Kendal Museum and will be on until the 20th October, including the weekend of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Many thanks to Sean for selecting the cover completely unbeknownst to me until he’d announced the exhibit and framing it so nicely.
Photos taken from Sean’s blog and here’s more info
As if I’ve not been banging on about Divine Styler and Gamma Proforma enough this year, here’s another reason but this time I’m involved in the release. I was asked to remix a track from his last album, Def Mask and chose ‘Pandorum’ which will sit alongside other guests like EVAC (Touchin Bass), Mophono (Liquid Amber), GFQ, Audiosyncracy, Monkphat, Co-Pilot, Auxilary Phoenix, Third Shock & Methodblack. It’s due out Jan 2016 but you can pre-order it here and comes with a Will Barras cover and print. Here’s a preview
Another upcoming Gamma event sounds very promising, this was tweeted today…
“10th Dec 2015, London. Rammellzee – Cosmic Flush Exhibition Ft. Futura, Doze Green, Delta, Ian Kuali’i and more.” Make a note in the diary.
Also don’t forget the 4th part of the 7-release Rammellzee Cosmic Flush album is available to order here featuring a Doze Green cover and a remix from Edan.
Kid Acne delves into his archives for a week-long exhibition at Unit 26 of the Boxpark in Shoreditch this week. For opening times please check the BOXPARK website + join them on October 1st from 6 – 9pm for #FirstThursdays + beer, music, animation and art.
Also out now is a Ltd. Edition 10″ six track EP from Mongrels (Kid Acne & Benjamin). The sleeve is screen-printed by Edna and all 300 copies have been signed, stamped and numbered on the back plus each record comes with a vinyl sticker and lithograph insert. BUY IT here and see the sleeve being made below:
Jamie Hewlett’s first ever exhibition will actually be three: “the fine art exhibition comprises three bodies of work: “Tarot” (“Hewlett’s idiosyncratic, breathtaking interpretation of the world of tarotica”), “Honey” (a “frisky homage to the exploitation movies of the 60s and 70s”), and “Pines”, featuring “extraordinarily detailed illustrations of trees Hewlett observed while in the south of France.”
Pre-exhibition prints (that are very expensive and possibly spoil part of the surprise) here
Out today, Christian Ward and Matt Fraction‘s continuing space saga, ODY-C from Image Comics– it’s all about the logo placement.
So much to love about this, from the 70s-esque illustration by Terry Pastor to the typography. It’s another winning compilation from Finders Keepers, on sale here and now.
Unearthed from the teetering piles of books in Voltaire & Rousseau, Otago Lane, Glasgow this weekend. See just one aisle from the shop at the bottom, proper archeology needed to get to some of these beauties. Found a couple of Richard M. Powers covers and a Brian Lewis cover from Science Fantasy that seemed to be channeling him. The Kirby cover at the bottom is similar in style, I’m a sucker from this abstract, psychedelic depiction of alien worlds and it seems to have been a fad for a while to paint like this. I’m pretty sure the Kirby there isn’t Jack but you never know, anyone who can identify the artist on the Analog cover will be most appreciated, maybe Mike Hinge?.
Some lovely designs popping up on Andy Votel‘s twitter feed for festival appearances this summer, hope Jane tours that Belladonna rescore. There are still a load of radio shows I need to catch up with over on their Soundcloud.
Wish this was real, not sure who it was created by as I found it via Dave Taylor on Facebook and he didn’t know either so please leave a comment if you know as I can’t tell from the signature – there are a few good ones floating around the web including this one below by Paul Hostetler. UPDATE: the image above is by French artist Obion.
Here’s my new 45 Live image by Paul Trewin aka Sub2 – he’s certainly captured the likeness even if I do look a bit serious. Check his work out here and see the whole 45 Live roster below (including new member Jon More from Coldcut). There the start of a new night in Plymouth on the 26th of this month too with myself, Boca 45, Pete Issac and Francois Parker if you’re in the area. There’s be a new mix from me next week to go with it…
Sad to learn from Jim Thirlwell that artist The Pizz has passed away. He was of the Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth school of custom cars and monsters, very much in the vein of Robert Williams, Savage Pencil and the whole ‘Lowbrow’ movement. I’ll always remember him best for the Steroid Maximus and Garage Monsters artwork he did for Jim.
Cliff Robinson has been knocking out some stunning Judge Dredd pieces for 2000ad over the years and the cover of The Mega Collection #15 (on sale now) is another – a similar riff to a Mike McMahon cover for 2000ad back in the late 70s. He’s also recreated another McMahon, complete with surrounding graphics, below for a commission some years back. Keeping with the homages he referenced the poster for Clint Eastwood vehicle ‘The Gauntlet’ for the Lille Comic Con poster recently too.
Love the psychedelic background, the way Brian has signed ‘Lewis’ bottom right and just look at that 3D op-art typeface on the book cover below. I found this book for £4 in the Notting Hill Book exchange last week after being alerted to it by members of the Brian Lewis fan page on Facebook.
A real oddity of a book, cobbled together under different themes with random images from artists as diverse as Giger, Achilleos, Burns and Foss etc. held together with a narrative from Harrison. Several Star Wars concept paintings by Ralph McQuarrie feature as well for some reason and Lewis illustrates several weapons from the film as well. Here’s another image by Brian that was posted on the group, taken from David Kyle‘s ‘The Illustrated book of Science Fiction Ideas & Dreams’, Hamlyn 1977.
I found this the other day, Vortex #2 from February 1976. Lovely Rodney Matthews cover and there’s a 5 page interview with him inside as well as short stories from Michael Moorcock and others. The pages are all watermarked and the cover was filthy with all sorts of grime stuck to it, I’d wager that it had been skinned up on many a time over the years. Still a thing of beauty and I love that Vortex typeface.
A very productive weekend of digging uncovered these sci-fi paperbacks among others including three with covers by Richard M. Powers to add to the collection (I’m not so interested in the content, just the covers). The SF-18 cover artist is uncredited but a quick web search reveals that it’s by Dean Ellis and the original art is actually available to buy from this site if you have $5.5k! I’ve screen-grabbed the original below.
The Harlan Ellison book is an oddity as I noticed it shares a version of the same image on the cover of the Elektriktus album Electronic Mind Waves.
UPDATE: It seems that the image used on both the Ellison and Elecktriktus albums was originally by Rayment Kirby, entitled ‘Watch it’ and was printed as one of the first ever posters from the Big O Poster company. I contacted him and he shared his memory of making the piece,
“It was made by cutting out a B/W print after masking out the model’s hair and hand colouring it . It was laid on black polythene sheeting and the clock parts glued in position and the strands radiating from them were made from Bostick like glue. I think I shot the image in the late 1960s to early 70s so it was a long time ago. I don’t even remember who the model was. Having thought about the picture I think the poster rights may have been sold by an agent I had at the time. This would not have Included the other uses that (have) been made.”
I just made it in time to see the end of this exhibition at the 5th Base Gallery today, 12 classic scenes from the first three Star Wars films, each cut from a single sheet of A4 paper. The process is called Kirigami – rather than purely folding paper as in Origami it involves cutting as well – and artist Marc Hagan-Guirey has created these 12 dioramas over a period of three years.
Beautifully displayed in colour sensitive light boxes with mirrored surfaces they are quite simply stunning and are all apparently hand cut rather than laser cut. The circles are perfect the straight edges are perfect and the level of detail in such miniatures is nothing short of incredible. They are now going to be sold off to the highest bidders from the Kickstarter than Marc initiated to bring the exhibition to the public so this was probably the last time they’ll all be seen together.
Painted covers for the UK weekly magazine/comic Look-In from a huge online collection over at Comic Vine.
I used to get this in the late 70s and early 80s although I’m not sure I had many of these issues. The mag was full of tie-ins with TV, film and music with features, comic strips, interviews and posters. They sure had favourites as well, Steve Austin – The Six Million Dollar Man was on so many covers and DJ Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart seemed to rule for a period in the 70s (check for two of him inside the gallery below).
