Beautiful illustrations by Carson Ellis. Sometimes reminds me of Gaugain and Le Douanier (check her website, her blog and a tv interview).
Here’s a nice interpretation of Led Zep’s Houses Of The Holy cover:
(thanks Gina for the tip)
(Batistei, Bucharest)
(Smardan Str., Bucharest)
I remember seeing The Bear That Wasn’t on Cartoon Network when I was a kid and being enchanted by its beautiful yet thought-provoking story. Chuck Jones made the animated short adapting Frank Tashlin’s book (hope amazon will be selling it again soon, i can’t buy from resellers in Romania).
(photo from Kip W’s The bear that wasn’t photo set – thank you Kim for scanning the whole book. Mind the beautiful typography in the title.)
The story beautifully touches the problems of urbanization, mass production, human alienation, workaholism and of course, the environment’s. It sounds over-ambitious for a cartoon, I know, but it’s amazing to see how easily these ideas are presented while keeping the cartoon entertaining even for small children (that will grow up and write rants like these :D). Graphic lines that entangle and move the characters, camera cuts made in an almost-comics-like manner (Samurai Jack’s got nothing on this :P), suited and colored to match every masterfully-drawn character’s personality, music that gives you that 50’s industrial feeling but still manages to describe different social statuses and sometimes even have a hint of techno sound, and last but not least, the wonderful storytelling make this cartoon a true gem.
Enjoy:
Too bad sometimes we let others convince us we’re just “a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat”. Luckily some of us don’t buy that for too long.
I know most would be horrified by this product, but for me they are pretty much like Proust’s madeleines, reminding me of my grandparents’, as a kid, sitting comfy on the big old sofa, Christmas Eve, eating pork scratchings and smoked sausages, sipping some good home-made rosé wine out of a tailor’s-finger-pad-sized glass…
To my delight I’ve found these Mr. Porky (note the hilarious butcher – the POS had him full monty, uncovered as packs were sold :)) ) in an irish pub here in Bucharest yesterday. They went smoothly along some vodka beers. Or was it the other way around? :))
Should you take a provocative spanish voice, sometimes reminding of Pink Martini’s China, a ravish voice like Faithless‘ Maxi’s or Keith’s and some great instrumentists with classical background, pour on some drum’n'bass, Bregovic sound and latin music, you might get a feeble ideea about N.O.H.A. (Noise of Human Art).
Unfortunately they aren’t so easy to find on youtube and such (this is their best known song, not an official video though), but you can check out their MySpace for more details, music and for some great downloads as well (definitely try Pijama, Gipsy Valley or Dive in your life – Balkan Hot Step for instance was the track played in this Nike Shox ad).
I’d love to see them live, they seem to put on quite a show. And I know I’d dance my brains out :)) Maybe sometime soon…
(thanks Iulian for the demo)
Later edit:
Here’s N.O.H.A.’s MySpace videos. Take a look at them live:
BALKAN HOT STEP LIVE
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Shin hanga meets french style in Tadahiro Uesugi’s beautiful illustrations. I love the way his light shines in a mediterranean kind of way, feeling like a stroll on a warm sunny sunday afternoon (reminds me of Kosuke Ikeda a bit). Either way, they’ve got charm. Tons of it.
After a few searches, I also found a flickr set with Tadahiro’s work. I forgot how I’ve found him in the first place (I think it was through this Amazon recommandation), but here’s a Drawn! article about him.
Nice colours and compositions by Ukitakumunki.
Lim Ri Kai is his name, i think.
(via Leinil Yu)
I loved the movie when I first saw it. It was a pleasure seeing its poster few days ago. Superb unicase-stenciled typo and great design (hope I’ll have time to use the typo and Paul’s laid back silhouette for a tshirt soon :D)
