Model: Dolly / Photography: Restrained Elegance
YES, it’s ink. And I am very very pleased. I really wanted to be included in this anthology, and I am so grateful to Rose Caraway and all her hard work.
Kindle, audio, and paperback available HERE.
Ω
The amazing animated video to The Jezabels’ “Come Alive”
This is truly fucking amazing.
Via BoingBoing:
The amazing animated video to The Jezabels’ “Come Alive” features a swirly, timeless impasto style. All smoke and fire and light, every frame’s literally a stark, beautiful painting.
It was directed by Darcy Prendergast & Xin Li from Oh Yeah Wow, using oil paint on glass. It might seem grim for a monday morning, but stick with it! The Jezebels are on tour in early 2016 and their second album, The Brink, is out now.
Ω
In Time for Halloween! VideoScope #96 is in the House!
Do we like the above illustration for House of the Long Shadows? We emphatically do not! But who cares, it makes for a killer cover and the insides of VS#96 are even better! This issue is dedicated to the memories of Christopher Lee and Wes Craven, and includes a moving tribute to the latter by The Phantom himself, who beat the dark mean streets on both sides of the continent in Mister Craven’s company. All parties would be pleased to learn that son Damien has discovered the Nightmare on Elm Street series and intends to beat his own mean streets (on Halloween in search of candy) as none other than Freddy Krueger, so there you go. Some nightmares never end.
VideoScope #96 is now available at better bookstores and newstands everywhere! As ever, tell ’em Drax sent ya!
Ω
Pluto Update
Pluto in Enhanced Color
Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Inst.
Explanation: Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and images of our Solar System’s most famous dwarf planet, taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in July, have been digitally combined to give an enhanced view of this ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface. The featured enhanced color image is not only esthetically prettybut scientifically useful, making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct. For example, the light-colored heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are geologically different, with the leftmost lobe Sputnik Planum also appearing unusually smooth. New Horizons now continues on beyond Pluto, will continue to beam back more images and data, and will soon be directed to change course so that it can fly past asteroid 2014 MU69 in 2019 January.
On Thursday, September 10 2015, NASA released a batch of newly downlinked hi-res Pluto images:
They’re all here.
And, why am I only seeing this now? Stephen Colbert vs Neil deGrasse Tyson on the merits, wonders, and status of the NINTH PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, dammit. Which places me firmly in the camp of the sentimental vs the scientific but however you cut it this clip is wicked fucking funny.
Ω
Aubrey Morris, High Priest, RIP
Morris always left an unconventional stamp on even the smallest, and seemingly conventional, roles. Small and rotund, with gleaming eyes, and occasionally wearing round spectacles, he could convey obsessions and monstrosity at odds with his corporeality. His visual characteristics included a wide smile, which displayed a prominent upper row of teeth, and a sly, sideways glance. With his distinctive, precise speech pattern, he could draw out vowel sounds amusingly, or unnervingly. — The Guardian
Yes, Aubrey Morris (1926—2015) played so many excellent little and unforgettable roles: the crazy grave digger in Wicker Man, Mister Deltoid in Clockwork and hundreds of others. But I must admit that my flat out favorite crazy character he came up with is none other than…
PETROS, HIGH PRIEST OF THE SURVIVORS OF LEVEL 7!
In the 1975 episode of SPACE: 1999, Mission of the Darians, Morris is an eerie judge and executioner of radiation scarred mutants on a massive 900 year old ruined space ark, and man, he’s creepy, especially when he screams…
“MUUUU-TAAAAANT!”
The poor “mutant” is locked into a disintegration chamber that glows hellishly white with a high pitched mechanized scream. And as the unfortunate mutant’s flesh melts away, Morris looks on, calm and serene.
Brrrr. It’s a standout episode all on its own, made that much greater by the unforgettable inclusion of Aubrey Morris, who will be missed and remembered by many fans across the planet tonight. Yes, Morris gave us so many memorable characters. But this one’s my favorite.
Ω
VideoScope #95 is in the house! SUMMER MADNESS!
It’s the usual trove of great shit and then some! Available now at better bookstores everywhere, and visit The Phantom @ videoscopemag.com!
Ω
CROWNED by Mary Soon Lee
Rhysling Award winner Mary Soon Lee has created a fantastic world that is marvelous in scope. Drawing upon elements from Asian and Celtic culture while incorporating dragons, bloody wars, horsemanship, kingship and other tropes of the genre, she never ignores the human cost of heroism. Gorgeous black-and-white illustrations by M. Wayne Miller complete this first book of The Sign of the Dragon , an epic fantasy in verse.
Available from Dark Renaissance Books.
Ω
In Honor of EIJI TSUBURAYA’S 114TH BIRTHDAY: MOTHRA METAL!
Also, Google’s in on it, too…
Ω
The Art of Johannes Theodorus ‘Jan’ Toorop
•
Johannes Theodorus Toorop was born on 20 December 1858 in Purworejo on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia).[1] His father was Christoffel Theodorus Toorop, a civil servant, and his mother was Maria Magdalena Cooke.[2] He was the third of five children and lived on the island of Bangka near Sumatra until he was nine years old.[3] He was then sent to school in Batavia on Java.[3]
In 1869 he left Indonesia for the Netherlands, where he studied in Delft and Amsterdam. In 1880 he became a student at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. From 1882 to 1886 he lived in Brussels where he joined Les XX (Les Vingts), a group of artists centred on James Ensor. Toorop worked in various styles during these years, such as Realism,Impressionism Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
After his marriage to an Annie Hall, a British woman, in 1886, Toorop alternated his time between The Hague, England and Brussels, and after 1890 also the Dutch seaside town of Katwijk aan Zee. During this period he developed his unique Symbolist style, with dynamic, unpredictable lines based on Javanese motifs, highly stylised willowy figures, and curvilinear designs
In the late 19th century (in 1897) Toorop lived for 20 years in a small house on the market in the seaside town Domburg, Walcheren, Zeeland. He worked with a group of fellow artists, including Marinus Zwart and Piet Mondrian. There was no joint endeavor or common style among them. Each followed his individual personality, but they sought their inspiration in “the Zeeland Light”, in the dunes, forests, beaches and the characteristic Zeeland population. Toorop was the center of this group.
Thereafter he turned to Art Nouveau styles, in which a similar play of lines is used for decorative purposes, without any apparent symbolic meaning. In 1905, he converted to Catholicism and began producing religious works. He also created book illustrations, posters, and stained glass designs.
Throughout his life Toorop also produced portraits, in sketch format and as paintings, which range in style from highly realistic to impressionistic.
Toorop died on 3 March 1928 in The Hague in the Netherlands.[1] His daughter Charley Toorop (1891–1955) was also a painter, as was his grandson Edgar Fernhout.
Ω
Катюша (Katyusha)
•
This video is a single channel trailer for a three channel video piece based on material collected at Pyramiden, a mining community established by the Soviet Union in the Svalbard territory in the high Arctic. At its peak Pyramiden was home to more than 1000 miners and their families. It was evacuated in two days in 1998 leaving a ghost town. The three channel version of “Katyusha” will refer to three characters. The “Guide” takes the form of a grey sea bird, the Northern Fulmar. As the piece progresses we discover clues to the identity of two “Lovers”, a ballet dancer and a basketball player. The elaborately painted floor of the basketball court in Pyramiden is a central motif, as is the abandoned ballet studio in the northern most corner of the town – once the most northerly ballet studio on earth.
Ω
