A boy named Charlie Brown

For a kids' show Charlie Brown was oddly schadenfreude, guy could hardly catch a break.

Graphik Muzik

Still really obessed with Michael Allred's work. His older, darker stuff espescially. There's everything in the world to be said for impressive, bold colouring but I'm not entirely sure if anything can trump a nice b&w.
The writing here is immense too, its the contrast between the pulpy narative, the emotive dialogue from the girl in the mask and the shlocky Adam West stylings of the Cheetah character that get me the most excited about this page in particular.

Woah, mixtapes!

Three years ago, I made some "mixes" and uploaded them on to the internet and forgot about them, now I'm on my old desktop and I found the old links to them!

They weren't mixes in the ultra hip dj sense of the word, more like a mix tape of the various bands and artists I was in to back then. All I really did was place the tracks next to each other in some program and try and fade them in to one another.

There were about four of them I made before I lost interest or whatever but, listening back to them now, they weren't so bad. Its interesting to look back on these and see the sort of music I was in to when I was 17. To be honest though, being 17 doesn't seem that long ago, and when you think about it, it isn't really. Seems the older I get, the shorter the years seem to last.

I still listen to most of these bands now I think, and listening back to it I get a lot of reminders of what was on my mind at the time. Fun! Have a listen.


Here's one I named grass tunnel, I think there was a lot of poppy electronic stuff on here. It had múm, thom yorke and some other bands on it:

Here's another, I think this was more post rock based. It starts off with an excerpt from a godspeed you black emperor song:

These two were the best I think, I'm listening to another one now and it has a klaxons remix on it, I don't wanna embarrass myself by posting that. If anyone actually listens to these, it'd be nice to know what people think!

i'm singing. i'm hollering. i'm singing.

Cap n Jazz are a great band to come back and listen to. Youthfully bold, whimsically abstract and most of all summery! It feels good to sit out the sun and listen to Analphabetapolothology for the first time in what seems like quite a while. An energetic way to wind down my evening.

Such good song titles too, all so cute like they were part of a little kid's first real sentence. The songs can get poignant at time but its never insincere, I like that.

I think I like this song best, but I can't be sure. They're all so rad.

http://www.mediafire.com/?hyvyxm0miml - download the album here and lemme know what your favorite is

Felt - Primative Painters

Heh, y'know its true what they say about you learning something new everyday! Whilst I was looking for the two Felt videos I just posted on Youtube, I found this little gem by a band from the 80s with the same name.

Recognize the female vocals at all? Its Elizabeth Fraser from The Cocteau Twins, god I love her voice. Ethereal as anything but it has some real soul to it at points. Must be where bands like Celebration get their inspiration from, and I can say without a doubt that Dave Sitek takes a great deal of influence from The Cocteau Twins production and composition style.

Oh! music was so exciting twenty years ago! I guess it still is!

Felt - Protagonists

I swear to god some of the music I was listening to back in year 11 was so much better than some of the stuff I've been listening to of late. Point in case (or is that case in point?) is Felt. I used to listen to Tribute to Lisa Bonet during lunch times in the library.

Felt is a collaboration between Slug from Atmosphere and MURS from Living Legends. Murs was the guy rapping on that Busy P track, serve and entertain or whatever it was called.
Felt had two pretty good albums called Tribute to Christina Ricci and Tribute to Lisa Bonet. Lisa Bonet was the daughter from the Cosby Show.

Anyway, I was on twitter today and it turns out they've got a third album coming out called Tribute to Sarah Palin, or at least that's what MF DOOM says.

Here's a track from it. Protagonists It's pretty good, quite drum heavy, not really saying much on the sampling front. I dunno, it doesn't strike me as anything special, I just remember the production on the other albums being a lot less polished and just a little funkier.

This was one of my favourite tracks off of Lisa Bonet.

Here's another.

I hope you can see what I mean. This stuff is just a lot more soulful and chilled out. Perfect for a summer's day. Actually I definitely remember listening to this during the summer.

Speaking of which,its fucking hot here so I'm sat at home in my boxers, nice.

Winsor McCay - Rob Liefeld

Interestingly enough, these strips were produced in the early 1900's. I find that surprising some how, especially in the second image. Something about its style and humor just seem so contemporary. Both strips are incredibly striking, the dream like nature of the first is almost frightening - the way that elephant gets closer and closer in those last six panels. Incredible sequencing and use of space within the panels, not to mention the elephant just looks balls out insane.

Alan Moore paid homage to McCay and his "Little Nemo..." strip in a series he did a while back called Promethea, I've never checked it out. I should do, its apparently very esoteric. I'm not sure if I think this is a good or a bad thing when it comes to comics.

Hmm, can't wait till I start work, got so much stuff to buy!

Little Nemo in Slumberland - 1905 to 1914

Little Sammy Sneeze - 1904 to 1906

Promethea 1999 - 2005

Also...



This guy is Rob Liefeld, (he created the character Deadpool who recently showed up in the Wolverine Origins flick) he's considered by a lot of people now days, myself included, to be one of the worst artists in the modern comic books industry, but in a lot of ways he's definitely a large part of comic book history. He shot to fame in the 90s and was one of the catalysts of the boom the comics industry experienced over the course of the decade, the source of a lot of controversy and the recipient of a lot of criticism and out right abuse. It's all a bit boring to go in to really, but the crux of it all is that his art and writing are pretty terrible and he helped popularize the gritty, angsty, hyper violent, hyper visceral, hyper sexual style that became extremely popular in the 90s.

Its his absolute lack knowledge regarding the human anatomy that gained him the majority of his criticism.

All of that said, one reason I can never really fault the guy is that you can just tell all he absolutely loves the medium. The way his eyes light up when the interviewer starts name dropping Daredevil and the Silver Surfer, you can tell that he's just a big goof who loves that he's able to write for the company whose output he grew up reading. I think its that level of devotion to it that got him his big break and that keeps him somewhat popular to this day.

Here's a video of him and Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) goofing around with Stan Lee. I just couldn't stop laughing at this. I can't tell if Stan's making fun of them or not.