Unbelievable wrongness

If I overstated the wrongess of designer vinyl toys, words cannot describe with sufficient vehemence the absolute wrongness of this tattoo.

I am struggling to identify who this image might not offend /horrify (apart from the bearer, of course).

Battlestar Galactica

Anybody not watching the final season of Battlestar Galactica has rocks in their heads. Both thoughtful and fantastical, BSG outclasses most other Science Fiction films and TV series I've ever seen.

Like the Sopranos in space, it captures relationships between families, friends and lovers - real, dysfunctional relationships - relationships between political ideals and the realities of government, between religion and faith, between every shade of political idealism, cynicism and pragmatism, as well the relationship between the state and the military. And all of this, with robot baddies!

Check out this primer on the show at Salon.com to find out what you are missing/get up to speed and this guide to the Last Supper picture above.

My name is Erik and I have never been abducted

Just a few short years after it was made, I have discovered this awesome short film about Alien Non-Abductees, via Forgetomori.

'My name is Erik and I have never been abducted.'

Toy story II

Surely one of the strangest cultural products of capitalism - and one of the strangest subcultures of design - is decorative vinyl toys and character design.

A generation of kids grew up playing with Star Wars figures and watching cartoons and learned to express themselves in these media.

(By the by, this generation - of which I am a member - exhibits something like a traumatic revisiting of childhood, neurotically replaying the popular culture of its childhood years over and over. Perhaps this is because it is the last moment of a truly mass culture.)

Marxist geographer David Harvey talks about capitalism's need to expand into new territory in order to keep keep monetary value from stagnating and deteriorating. Vinyl toys are a bit like that.

What better way to eat up value than to fix it in a toy? They are purely aesthetic items, to be looked at (and maybe collected); they're not really meant to be played with and can be 'adult' in theme.

A broken, aged or non-mint vinyl toy is worthless. Design, by nature is ephemeral and quickly recycled, so actually the value that is fixed in these toys is not just eaten up, not just embodied, it is destroyed.

There is something hateful about the vinyl toy fetish. It is juvenile, self-indulgent and wasteful and yet nothing symbolises our cultural moment like it. In a way it is the avant garde of popular culture: design for design's sake.

Toy story

I just wrote an awesome post about toys and then blogger went and ate it! Now I have to try and remember my brilliant thoughts!

Veteran Character Actors is GO!

I love veteran character actors. I have a burning passion for them. Now I wish to share that burning sensation with you! Enjoy!

The Logos of Logos

While researching some logo ideas for Apeworks, I came across some logos by a US illustrative designer called Von Glitschka on his blog.

We are so totally immersed in branding, that we now take logos for granted. But for every Apple apple and Nike swoosh there are hundreds (nay thousands!) of lesser lights vying for our attention, from the street to the internet.

Most are not great, but some are brilliant. A good logo is kind of like a little visual puzzle, just missing one piece that the viewer possesses. This may sound a little over the top, but guess what Glitschka's logo (right) is for? You'll get a little buzz of satisfaction when you get it right. It seems like the simplest thing, but of course it's meant to. That's good design.

Glitschka had no fewer than 39 published in this year's edition of The Logo Lounge (the bible of logo design), which tells you he knows something about logos. He also podcasts and posts tutorials about the illustrative design, which tells you he cares about design and giving something back to the community. Kudos for both.

Herge 101

Remi George, better known as Hergé - the creator of Tintin - is 101 today. Today a huge worldwide industry has grown up around Tintin - spawning shops and merchandise and countless books and a long-anticipated film adaptation by Steven Spielberg - but, says comic critic Paul Gravett:

'Hergé - the Belgian-born father of Tintin - remains a figure who inspires devotion, controversy and, most of all, mystery.'

Gravett's article is very interesting, as are the commentaries from Chris Ware and Micheal Faber.

Bookish design

Working in a library, I know firsthand the excitement, romance and imperilment that can occur at the issue desk and in the stacks.

Why isn't there more fiction set in the noisy, dramatic confines of the library?

Julia Weist's novel about a sophisticated New York Librarian who moves to a small town in the American Midwest to discover life, liberty and happiness is published by writer, lecturer and designer Ellen Lupton, and designed by one of her students.

Lupton, who publishes usually writes about design, is soon to publish a book about self-publishing and book design.

The advent of publish on demand services like Lulu.com makes self-publishing a much better prospect than it was in the past for many writers and small publishers.

Self-publishers just need to make sure they get good design for their book covers.

37 Per Cent

In keeping with the yesterday's post-human/post-apocalyptic tone...

Everybody I know who read it was creeped out by World War Z last year.

Set in the near future, World War Z gives a fictional account of a zombie apocalypse - which would be a great name for a band - in the voices of its survivors.

The chill factor had as much to do with the zombies as with the book's coldly realistic portrayal of how governments and people react to the crisis and how individuals are repurposed for new social realities.

It will be interesting to see how well this translates to film.

For an added chill, visit the book's website and find out your likelihood of survival. You will never view your 'domicile' in the same way again.

I've got a 37 per cent chance. Post your survival ratings in the comment box.

Life Since Cable

Since subscribing to cable, recently, I have taken to watching documentaries on the History Channel, with titles like Deadly Universe!, Mega Disasters! and We're All About to Die! I think the same guy narrates all of them, ominously intoning 'it's not a matter if... but when...'

Luckily, you know longer have to wonder what would happen 'if every human being on Earth... disappeared'; you can watch the whole thing here.

Life After People is a cut above the others. It hypothesises how quickly the Earth would return to wilderness after human life disappeared. I always loved films and stories in which future civilisations discover the remnants of 20th century civilisation (Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes etc)

It's reasonably phlegmatic about our passing; scientist and writer David Brin is one of the talking heads. In short, once we're out of here, it will take about 100-150 years for our cities to fall into ruin and after about 10,000 years there will be no trace of our ever having been. How's that for putting things in context!?

Classic Graphic Novels

I'm on quite a comic/graphic novel kick at the moment, so yesterday I went on a spending spree and bought three classics.

• Black Hole by Charles Burns - an epic about mutant teenagers (aren't all teenagers mutants?)
• Jar of Fools by Jason Lutes - I was wowed by his beautiful artwork, in the ligne claire style.
• Sin City: The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller - I read it years ago, but I had to buy it when I found a copy both pristine and on sale (for just €8!) at Chapters. Sin City is an amazing achievement of graphic stylism; if only the stories had a little more heart. Still essential though.

By the way, Charles Burns made a very strange animated advert for Altoids, with music by David Lynch. I loved it, but it didn't make me want Altoids.

Superman is a dick!

Superman may be able to keep his identity secret, but he cannot hide the fact that he is a total dick.

Six of the Best! Video-sharing websites

Nothing illustrates the potential of easy-to-use digital video and video-sharing websites, like this incredible animation by Italian grafitti artist Blu.

Here are six of the best video-sharing sites I've come across:

1. Fab Channel - videographies of concerts from a wide variety of acts.
   
2. Vimeo - young pretender to the video-sharing throne!
   
3. Atom Films - comedy shorts and fan films with high production values.
   
4. Hobnox - edit video online and make acid house!
5. Youtube - the granddaddy of them all and an amazing resource. (If only there was a quality filter!)
6. Flickr - with a 90 sec limit on videos, Flickr will soon host videos of a 'photographic' nature.
   

Heads up!

Check out my new, massive header! Unfortunately, in resizing, it's gone a bit fuzzy. I'll sort it out for tomorrow.

I'm hoping to get my hands on Tristan Manco's amazing new book about grafitti artists' sketchbooks. I produced a zine of street art in Stockholm a couple of years ago and I love taking photos of cool pieces I see on my travels.

I'm into doodling (a la Jon Burgerman), grafitti, 2D design, comics and illustration in general, so I hope to reflect that here on the site, by reworking the design of the site and posting a lot more drawings over the coming weeks.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Please drop a line in the comment box.

Surreal. Transcendental. Lynch.

Being a big David Lynch fan, naturally I missed his lecture tour visit to Trinity College Dublin, last October.

My friend, Paul, who did manage to go, told me it was a bit weird.
Really! I said. Weird? David Lynch?

Apparently David Lynch was promoting his book - Catching The Big Fish - the work of his foundation and the practice of transcendental meditation in making people and the world happier.

I've just read Catching the Big Fish and I must say that he has written a lovely book.

Although he claims to have no skill with words - and it is plainly written (a little like Thich Nhat Hanh) - Lynch makes some interesting observations about creativity, filmmaking - in general and his own in particular - and the nature of experience.

"I hear stories about directors who scream at actors, or they trick them somehow to get a performance. And there are some people who try to run the whole business on fear. But I think this is such a joke - it’s pathetic and stupid at the same time.

When people are in fear, they don’t want to go to work. So many people today have that feeling. Then the fear starts turning into hate, and they begin to hate going to work. Then the hate can turn into anger and people can become angry at their boss and their work.

If I ran my set with fear, I would get 1 percent, not 100 percent, of what I get. And there would be no fun in going down the road together. And it should be fun. In work and in life, we’re all supposed to get along. We’re supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. It’s supposed to be great living; it’s supposed to be fantastic.

Instead of instilling fear, if a company offered a way for everyone in the business to dive within - to start expanding energy and intelligence - people would work overtime for free. They would be far more creative. And the company would just leap forward. This is the way it can be. It’s not the way it is, but it could be that way so easily."

This could sound a bit pat from somebody else, but I find it a fascinating into the creative mindset of an uncompromising artist. It really shouldn't be so strange to think that the creator of Eraserhead and Mullholland Drive :

"It’s good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you, if you have enough stress, you won’t be able to create. And if you have enough conflict, it will just get in the way of your creativity. You can understand conflict, but you don’t have to live in it.

In stories, in the worlds that we can go into, there’s suffering, confusion, darkness, tension and anger. There are murders; there’s all kinds of stuff. But the filmmaker doesn’t have to be suffering to show suffering. You can show it, show the human condition, show conflicts and contrasts, but you don’t have to go through that yourself. You are the orchstrator of it, but you’re not in it. Let your characters do the suffering.

It’s common sense: the more the artist is suffering, the less creative he is going to be. It’s less likely that he is going to enjoy his work and less likely that he will be able to do really good work…

Some artists believe that anger, depression, or these negative things give them an edge. They think they need to hold onto that anger and fear so they can put it in their work. And they don’t like the idea of getting happy - it makes them want to puke. They think it would make them lose their edge or power…

If you’re an artist, you’ve got to know about anger without being restricted by it. In order to create, you’ve got to have energy; you’ve got to have clarity. You’ve got to be able to catch ideas. You’ve got to be strong enough to fight unbelievable pressure and stress in this world. So it just makes sense to nurture the place where that strength and clarity and energy come from – to dive in and enliven that."

Smax, Zuda and Satrapi

While Watchmen is excellent, I've never been a huge fan of Alan Moore. However, I was very disappointed by Smax, a spin-off from Top 10. I was expecting something with a bit more substance from the great man (although perhaps I ought to have read the original strip). I found Smax smug and fatuous, the characterisation dreadful and the dialogue awful.

To add insult to injury, the artwork by Zander Cannon and Andrew Currie is awful. Cartoony is fine, but this is just bad; loose and poorly detailed, so that characters hardly look the same from one panel to the next.

The net result is that Smax seems self-indulgent and sloppy.

To distract myself from this terrible disappointment, I have turned my attention, at long last, to Marjane Satrapi's Persopolis.

It is quite graphic and stylised, which I like, and proves that comics needn't be fatuous, sexist or stupid to be funny.

I'm also taking some solace in Zuda Comics. DC Comics's web comics imprint has received criticism for its opaque submissions policy, but there's no question that Zuda features some interesting content.

Did I mention that I dance?

Lighthouse Re-opens!

As a youngster, my favourite cinema was the Lighthouse - a two-screen (?) arthouse cinema, which stood on Abbey Street, a few doors down from the Adelphi - for it's easy ambience and excellent programming.

In the 90s, as the Irish Film Centre (now Irish Film Institute) opened, a lot of independent cinemas closed - the Ambassador, the Carlton, the Lighthouse and the Adelphi - and Dublin's cinema culture became a little less diverse.

In recent years, IFI has declined in quality and relevance - an at time bizaare (rather than eclectic) programme, with eccentric screening times - leaving the huge Cineworld multiplex, with it's rampaging hordes of teenagers, as the only other option for would-be arthouse cinema-goers.

Happily, The Lighthouse re-opens today, in Smithfield Market! This is, without doubt, the most exciting news for Irish cinemagoers for a long time. If the quality of programming at the new cinema comes anywhere near that of its namesake, I will be there every week! The opening programme looks promising.

1. Happy Go Lucky
   
2. Honeydripper
3. My Brother is an Only Child
4. Once
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6. XXY
   

While cinema attendance in the rest of the West has dropped through the floor - particularly in the US - going to 'the pictures' is still incredibly popular in Ireland. Let's hope it is popular enough to support a new cinema.

Racing to oblivion!

Melodramatic title ahoy! I was full of angst after my (relatively) poor showing in yesterday's aptly named Hellfire and Brimstone race. Results are not yet in, but I struggled to run my own race in the warm conditions and I was disappointed with my performance.

Somehow I managed to miss the race description:

"This will be a far tougher version of the traditional Hellfire race(hence the Brimstone!!)..."

Thankfully Ben Crane returned to the Leinster League, with a solid run. With Vivian and Ruth cheering on, I managed a strong finish and overtook most people in the final stretch, but it was a salutary warning not to be complacent in your training or lose your focus during races.

On the plus side (though nothing to do with running) Colleen Marlow has a new website, where you can find (and buy) her beautiful art.

Subcultural doofii

Some while ago I hit the magical number of iterations of an activity that supposedly forms a habit.

I have just realised that as well as being a writer, artist (with a little 'a')/doodler, musician/dj, would be academic, I am now a blogger.

Uh oh... I also fall into two out of three convention subcultures. I'll leave it up to you to guess which ones.

[Illustration by the talented Dylan Meconis]

Six of the best! Web Comics with Nice Artwork

Apropos of nothing, here is a great illustration from Vera Bee.

Here are six of the web comics I've seen with the nicest artwork:

1. Family Man - Well-researched period drama.
   
2. Dice Box - beautifully drawn, epic story.
   
3. Clockwork Game - adventures of the famous Clockwork Turk, which beat everybody at chess in the Eighteenth Century.
   
4. Brat-halla - about obnoxious Norse godlets.
   
5. The Phoenix Requiem - the author of this gothic melodrama takes pains to insist that The Phoenix Requiem is a novel, rather than a comic.
   
6. Badass Muthas! - have no idea what's going on, but artwork is quite nice.
   

Lovin' Rockets

Fantagraphics has brought out a set of Love and Rockets! The recently reissued volumes are smaller than the old ones - which is a shame, since all the artwork is reduced and L & R was in an oversized format - but they are beautiful all the same.

There's also a boxed set of the first ten volumes of Mome, Fantagraphics' anthology of short comics, of a leftfield/underground/comix persuasion. I just read the Winter/Spring 2008 issue. It's not all to my taste, but there is plenty to stimulate.

Nice comics!

Chris Hastings, of Dr. McNinja fame, has designed this awesome t-shirt of a gorilla high-fiving a shark.

I'm on a comics kick after just finishing reading Scott McCloud's Making Comics.

McCloud's words and pictures are eloquent and he makes his subject accessible without skimping on his incredible wealth of knowledge. It's great stuff whether you are simply interested in comics, or you want to learn how to make them.

I loved Understanding Comics and now I'm keen to read Reinventing Comics. McCloud was an efficient draughtsman in the 80s, when he wrote Zot!, but his artwork has really matured. His line is full of variety and texture.

As far as excellent artwork is concerned, Les McClaine's homage to Herge, Johnny Crossbones, is also worth well worth checking out.

McClaine also offers really good tutorials on his own creative process and on colouring. In the words of the gorilla and the shark: NICE!

Top 50! Get in!

Last night, in my second race of this year's Leinster League, I finished in the top 50! This is pretty much a dream come true. There is something very powerful about it.

When I began fell running, last year, I hoped to finish my first race - up Howth Head, as it happens - in the top 100. I did; exactly 100. In my second race I crept into the late 70s. And that was as my racing for 2007.

This year, with more consistent training under my belt, I was aiming to average 75, but I had a disappointing first race, finishing 90 (not even in the top third!).

Yesterday's race was great. Despite the chill in the air, it was a beautiful clear evening and there was a great atmosphere around the race.

My average position is now 69. If I can put some more good results together, as my friend Ben Crane says, Barry Minnock will be looking over his shoulder! (Not really, Barry.)