“It’s the mythology
of an abandoned city
running away
from the true
and
the
pretty”
—HT Ditty, sung to a slow folksy tune
Gorgeous, haunting penciled art by Jon J Muth, and a dreamlike narrative makes this… essential.
The Mythology of an Abandoned City (Myt1)
BIUTIFUL- by the director of BABEL, comes an intriguing and well performed, if pessimistic film. Not something to re-watch.
BLOW-UP – Highly overrated film and more than a bit boring
OPEN CITY – Italian neo-realism, not in the mood.
FRED THE CLOWN Graphic Novel -Excellent humor book, with lovely cartoony art. Worth owning
THE BEST OF THE SPIRIT- reads more than a bit dated, not as visually dynamic as I was led to believe. Plus the poor newsprint paper doesn’t help, as it muddies any details in Eisner’s art
AGONY- Surreal does not translate always into Good, as this experimental but not very engaging movie on the life of Russia’s mad monk, illustrates. Plodding.
THE WAY- excellent 2nd film by Emilio Estevez, stars his father Martin Sheen. Great film.
LIMITLESS- Visually imaginative, stylish, entertaining and addictive film
One I’m working on getting funding to allow me to get back up (and running) some segments of this blog that have had to take a backseat to life and finance.
Two, I’m extremely thankful to those of you who subscribe, comment, visit, like, and generally continue to support this crazy, mad, ‘scream in the wilderness’ flow of consciousness thing I have going on here.
Three, why is my battery about to die??
Four, to keep you till I can get this puppy charged and have time to put up a decent post. The pic of the day:
and Richard Gavin
Price or Purchase here: Bicycle Shadow Masters BLACK Deck of Playing Cards by Ellusionist
Adam Hughes was one of the artists who exploded onto the scene in the 80s, and three decades later has only grown better and more acclaimed with time. A quick browse of his website emphasizes why he remains one of the most sought after artists of his time.
From the website:
“[Adam Hughes] is best known as a cover artist. He pencils, inks and colors his own covers, using both traditional and digital mediums. His artwork can be seen on an amazing assortment of comic book covers as well as many places outside the comic book industry. His work can be found in magazines like Imagine FX and Playboy and on trading and sketch cards for sets like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and many others. He also published his first coffee table book in 2010, collecting his more than 20 years of artwork for DC Comics. Cover Run: The DC Comic Art of Adam Hughes debuted at number 2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list when it was released, and is currently in its third printing.
As of July 2011, Adam is the monthly cover artist to DC Comics title Batgirl. He tours, appearing at close to a dozen conventions a year (see the appearances list of this years shows), and when he isn’t drawing or attending comic cons, he likes to relax with his best girl by his side, his wonderful 2 Old English Sheepdogs, and what he calls “his 2 crummy cats”.”
You get yourself a GREAT hardcover art-book, AND support this fun blog as well! That’s what we call a win-win!!
Podcast of the Day: SIDEBAR interviews Artist Extraordinaire Thomas Blackshear
I’ve praised SIDEBAR before. along with shows such as COMIC GEEK SPEAK, B-MOVIE CAST and 11 O’CLOCK COMICS, it’s a show that I’m always thrilled to get new episodes of.
And this Blackshear episode is a MUST listen. Just brilliant, informative and fun
(it does segue-way a bit into the artist’s faith and I, being a well-known heathen, that part of the conversation does nothing for me.
This idea that God’s going to listen to your request for royalties, or what painting to paint, in a world where he doesn’t give a damn if people get massacred in Rwanda, or children starve in Philadelphia, has always struck me as an uncomfortable combination of misplaced ego, conceit and bullshit.
But hey, I get the same reaction when football players or boxers or any athlete thanks God, for their win, as if God has nothing better to do in a world drowning in blood, than give a damn who wins a sporting event.
So yeah that bit of the conversation while I don’t embrace it, neither do I mind it, people believe what they believe, I let them, and take from the conversation what does work for me. And there is much to take away from this conversation.)
Listen to this 68 minute podcast here, and you can thank me, and them… when you’re done. Tell them HT sent ya!!
And you can subscribe to their great show by using this RSS feed in your podcast player of choice. !
WEDNESDAYS WORDS is a new weekly installment that ranks the most interesting, intriguing books of the week (old, new, reissues, digital, etc). Contributors represent a variety of genres and sources. Each book includes Title and publisher blurb.
Book Description
Publication Date: June 29, 2011
The international comics MASTERPIECE by Moebius and Jodorowsky collected in an hardcover edition and presented in its original colors. With a Foreword by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS. Detective John Difool is the key to the Universe after accidentally discovering the mystical Incal artifact
I have to admit to being one of those who never quite got into the work of the recently departed Moebius, but I think this recently back in print 308 pg hardcover tome is a perfect jumping on point for me. Especially considering it is selling currently for only around $30 which is a far cry from the $175 some people paid to own this book when it was sold out. So yeah, for the money I’m going to give it a spin and think you may want to as well, Take a look and let me know if I’m right.
The WEDNESDAYS WORDS column is a new blog feature, appearing (you guessed it!) every Wednesday. Come back next week to see which books make the list!
If you’re a publisher, writer, or other creative representative looking to submit items for WEDNESDAYS WORDS, just leave a comment on this post with your email/contact info, comments don’t get posted they come right to me, and I’ll reach out to you with the snail mail details.
And as far as readers, if you see items on WEDNESDAYS WORDS you’re considering purchasing then, if you are able and would like to support this blog, please utilize the attached links.
Your helpful purchases through those links, generates much appreciated pennies to keep this blog running. Your feedback and support… just way cool, and way appreciated. Thanks!
Sponsored by Amazon Store: Deals of the Day!
WEDNESDAYS WORDS is a new weekly installment that ranks the most interesting, intriguing books of the week (old, new, reissues, digital, etc). Contributors represent a variety of genres and sources. Each book includes Title and publisher blurb.
Product Features
Detailed information on thousands of modern and antique firearms including the red hot paramilitary-style guns!
Serialization charts/tables and production data have also been updated!
The 33rd Edition is expanded to nearly 2,400 pages!
Includes a revised 80-page color Photo Percentage Grading System to help accurately grade every firearm’s condition factor!
SAME DAY SHIPPING!! GET IT FAST!!
Product Description
JUST RELEASED! NEW! 2012 – 2013 Edition! **SAME DAY SHIPPING!** Great Book!! GREAT illustrations!! 33rd Anniversary Edition Blue Book of Gun Values!! By Author S.P. Fjestad!! The new 33rd Edition of the Blue Book of Gun Values by S.P. Fjestad has been expanded to 2,432 pages, easily making it the highest page count of any firearms value book currently in print. New 2012 makes and models have been included, along with updated values on discontinued firearms and antiques. Once again, the 80-page Photo Percentage Grading SystemTM provides high resolution color images that are the last word to help ascertain any firearm’s correct condition factor based on the percentage of original condition. Revolvers, pistols, rifles, and shotguns are also shown separately, in addition to NRA Antique Condition Factors. Other sections have also been expanded, including Serialization and the helpful Trademark Index, which lists all pertinent information on many of the world’s firearms manufacturers, distributors, and importers. The Blue Book of Gun Values has earned its reputation as the firearms industry’s most used and trusted reference book, with over 1.4 million copies in print! ?ISBN-10: 1936120208 ?ISBN-13: 9781936120208 Your book will be carefully packed and shipped thru USPS! **SAME DAY SHIPPING!**
NEW! 2012-13 The Blue Book Of Gun Values 33rd Edition
Book Description
Publication Date: October 1, 2011
With an emphasis on the delightfully curvy female foot
Our first Ed Fox title, Glamour From the Ground Up, introduced the heir to the peculiar photographic niche long ruled by the great Elmer Batters. California native Fox had not even heard of Batters when he first started photographing women with an emphasis on their feet. In fact, he thought he was the only young man who checked out a woman’s feet before her face, and most of the time couldn’t meet his models’ eyes for fear they’d discern his secret. Then he became the official foot photographer for Leg Show magazine, just months before Batters’ death, and learned of the big shoes he had to fill at the same time he realized there were thousands of men just like himself—except without the talent to capture their passion on film, or as today, in pixels.
Since then, Ed Fox has become internationally known for a sensual photographic style that captures every curve of a woman’s body, right down to the tips of her toes. In Ed Fox II he brings us voluptuous new models, arresting locations–many blending the desert landscapes of Southern California with Fox’s passion for automobiles–and fantasies mild to extra spicy, all shot in warm, caressing natural light. And, like Glamour From the Ground Up, Ed Fox II comes with a 60-minute original DVD, bringing the still photos to vibrant life.
Ed Fox, Vol. 2
Book Description
Publication Date: April 24, 2012 | Series: Metropolitan Museum of Art
This groundbreaking volume explores the epochal transformations and unexpected continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the ninth century. As the period opened, the Empire’s southern provinces—the vibrant, diverse areas of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean—were at the crossroads of trade routes reaching from Spain to China. These regions experienced historic upheavals when their Christian and Jewish communities encountered the emerging Islamic world, and by the ninth century, an unprecedented cross-fertilization of cultures had taken place.
This extraordinary age is brought vividly to life by leading international scholars, their writings accompanied by sumptuous illustrations of the period’s most notable arts and artifacts. Resplendent images of authority, religion, and trade—embodied in precious metals, brilliant textiles, fine ivories, elaborate mosaics, manuscripts, and icons, many of them never before published—highlight the dynamic dialogue between the rich array of Byzantine styles and the evolving Islamic aesthetic. With its masterful exploration of two centuries that would shape the emerging medieval world, Byzantium and Islam provides a revelatory interpretation of a period with profound ramifications for the modern era.
Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The WEDNESDAYS WORDS column is a new blog feature, appearing (you guessed it!) every Wednesday. Come back next week to see which books make the list!
If you’re a publisher, writer, or other creative representative looking to submit items for WEDNESDAYS WORDS, just leave a comment on this post with your email/contact info, comments don’t get posted they come right to me, and I’ll reach out to you with the snail mail details.
And as far as readers, if you see items on WEDNESDAYS WORDS you’re considering purchasing then, if you are able and would like to support this blog, please utilize the attached links.
Your helpful purchases through those links, generates much appreciated pennies to keep this blog running. Your feedback and support… just way cool, and way appreciated. Thanks!
Sponsored by Amazon Store: Deals of the Day!
WEDNESDAYS WORDS is a new weekly installment that ranks the most interesting, intriguing books of the week (old, new, reissues, digital, etc). Contributors represent a variety of genres and sources. Each book includes Title and publisher blurb.
This is a rare one item WEDNESDAYS WORDS and the latest I’ve ever put one together, but put it together I did. Enjoy!
Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson [Hardcover]
Book Description
Publication Date: September 13, 2011 | Series: Creepy Presents
All of horror legend Bernie Wrightson’s Creepy and Eerie short stories, color illustrations, and frontispieces are finally collected in one deluxe hardcover! These classic tales from the 1970s and early 1980s include collaborations with fellow superstars and Warren Publishing alumni Bruce Jones, Carmine Infantino, Howard Chaykin, and others, as well as several adaptations and original stories written and drawn by Wrightson during one of the most fruitful periods of his career! All stories and images in this collection are restored with care and reprinted in the same oversized format as Dark Horse’s award-winning Creepy Archives and Eerie Archives series.
As far as one book recommendations go, you would be hard pressed to find a better one than CREEPY PRESENTS BERNIE WRIGHTSON! First the hardcover book, which I’m perusing, in between writing this post, smells great.
I know that sounds like an odd statement, especially to all you digital i-something babies, but for those of us raised and reared on paper and ink, there are few things as evocative as the new book smell.:)
Add to that the fact that DARK HORSE who published this book, publishes really high quality books, and you have something special as much for construct as content. Something that can not be effectively… digitized.
So despite being printed in China, DARK HORSE is very quality-conscious and demanding… and it shows in the finished product. It’s a gorgeous art compilation book, containing the best art and stories from Wrightson’s time at Warren Publishing!
And lastly it’s Bernie Wrightson, one of the most celebrated sequential artists of the late 20th century; and here in the 21st, his work still remains… unrivaled.
While this book is no FRANKENSTEIN BY WRIGHTSON (Also Published by DARK HORSE, and copies getting scarcer and more expensive every day), it is vintage WRIGHTSON and as such most definitely should be an essential part of anyone’s desert island survival bag!
And at the current ridiculously low price you would have to be an unhinged art-hater, not to own a copy.
So there! Go here for more and to get your copy if so moved to:
Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson
Bernie Wrightsons Frankenstein
The WEDNESDAYS WORDS column is a new blog feature, appearing (you guessed it!) every Wednesday. Come back next week to see which books make the list!
If you’re a publisher, writer, or other creative representative looking to submit items for WEDNESDAYS WORDS, just leave a comment on this post with your email/contact info, comments don’t get posted they come right to me, and I’ll reach out to you with the snail mail details.
And as far as readers, if you see items on WEDNESDAYS WORDS you’re considering purchasing then, if you are able and would like to support this blog, please utilize the attached links.
Your helpful purchases through those links, generates much appreciated pennies to keep this blog running. Your feedback and support… just way cool, and way appreciated. Thanks!
Sponsored by Ebay Store: Deals of the Day!
