Month: September 2007

The Pop Comix of Guy Peellaert

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Found over at the always groovy World of Kane blog.

Belgian advertising illustrator Guy Peellaert was one of the first cartoonists to embrace Pop Art and incorporate Andy Warhol’s appropriation of mass market iconography into his work. His first comic, Les aventures de Jodelle, (Jodelle’s likeness modelled after yé-yé chanteuse Sylvie Vartan) appeared in 1966, swiftly followed by ‘Pravda la Survireuse’ (her likeness based on Françoise Hardy) for the magazine ‘Hara-Kiri’ in 1967.

Hard to believe this is the same artist that went on to design the cover for Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs’.
I realized I’ve been looking at Peellaert’s work for some time: it’s the cover of this Mansfield CD.

Stephen Gill: Archaeology in Reverse

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Continuing to photograph where his award-winning book Hackney Wick left off, Stephen Gill has made Archaeology in Reverse in his cherished area in East London. Still making pictures with the camera he bought at Hackney Wick market for 50p, this time he focuses on things that do not yet exist. This magnificently produced book features traces and clues of things to come in a poetic, sometimes eerie and quiet photographic study of a place in a state of limbo prior to the rapid transformation that this area faces during the build-up to the Olympics in 2012.

I think I blogged about Stephen Gill before…oh wait, yes, I have.

The IT Crowd, Season One

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When it first came out last year, I watched two shows, laughed, then forgot to download the rest. Now, because of the mentions of Season Two on BoingBoing, I went back and caught up. And so should you if you haven’t heard of this British comedy. “The IT Crowd” is a sit-com about two IT nerds–one slobby, one uptight–in a faceless company, whose geeky male environment is flipped upside-down with the appearance of an equally incompetent female manager. Much comedy is made of this threadbare set-up, getting progressively sillier each episode. Stick with the show until about Episode 4 before giving up–I bet you won’t.

Thankfully, all the eps are on YouTube until somebody notices.

Here’s the opening sequence

Episode One: Yesterday’s Jam: 1 2 3
Episode Two: Calamity Jen: 1 2 3
Episode Three: Fifty Fifty: 1 2 3
Episode Four: The Red Door: 1 2 3
Episode Five: The Haunting of Bill Crouse: 1 2 3
Episode Six: Aunt Irma Visits: 1 2 3

Here’s some outtakes/bloopers: Part 1 2
Here’s some cut/extended scenes: 1

May I just note, appropos of nothing, that I find Katherine Parkinson very hot. Thank you.

Opening the gates of the NYT, and an early restaurant review

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Kottke.org, by way of Chuck Taggart’s blog, went nosing about in the recently unlocked New York Times online archive and found the earliest restaurant review. That’s worth reading for many reasons, including a list of the types of dinner to be found in New York in 1859 (Stetsonian! Delmonican!). But what tickled me most was the excerpted account of dining at the last on the list, an unnamed “Third-class Eating-house”:

The noise in the dining hall is terrific. A guest has no sooner seated himself than a plate is literally flung at him by an irritated and perspiring waiter, loosely habited in an unbuttoned shirt whereof the varying color is, I am given to understand, white on Sunday, and daily darkening until Saturday, when it is mixed white and black — black predominating. The jerking of the plate is closely followed up by a similar performance with a knife and a steel fork, and immediately succeeding these harmless missiles come a fearful shout from the waiter demanding in hasty tones, “What do you want now?” Having mildly stated what you desire to be served with, the waiter echoes your words in a voice of thunder, goes through the same ceremony with the next man and the next, through an infinite series, and rushes frantically from your presence. Presently returning, he appears with a column of dishes whereof the base is in one hand and the extreme edge of the capital is artfully secured under his chin. He passes down the aisle of guests, and, as he goes, deals out the dishes as he would cards, until the last is served, when he commences again Da Capo. The disgusting manner in which the individuals who dine at this place, thrust their food into their mouths with the blades of their knives, makes you tremble with apprehensions of suicide…

Not too different from now, except we can add TVs blasting out cable news and twats on cellphones.

Danny Gregory’s Upcoming Book

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Now this is going to be cool.

In the next few entries, I’ll describe some of the things I’ve been doing instead of posting and journaling but let me begin by telling you about my newest book. It’s called “An Illustrated Life: Drawing inspiration from the private sketchbooks of artists, illustrators and designers” and it’s been so exciting to work on it. I contacted every person whose work I’ve admired over the years and asked them if they would be willing in sharing pages form their illustrated journals and allowing me to interview them about their process, their tools, how they use their books, and what impact it has on their lives. To my delight everyone I asked said they would be happy to be part of the project. I accumulated an embarrassment of riches: dozens of pages from more than fifty amazing people and now the book is overstuffed to bursting.

Check out the sample pages, including ones from Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, and plenty others I’ve never heard of. I love to have a nose about in people’s sketchbooks (when they let me!), so I’m looking forward to this.