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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 21 June 2016
[philosophy] The Philosopher’s Jumper … a black wool jumper suitable for a philosopher – only £125! ‘Since 1953 (when the German philosopher Martin Heidegger bought one in a shop in Hamburg), the black jumper has been the philosopher’s costume of choice. It has taken pride of place in the wardrobes of philosophical figures as diverse as Herbert Marcuse, Iris Murdoch, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Philosopher’s Jumper, designed in collaboration with Bella Freud, invites us to share in the philosophical life: one of soul-searching, interesting relationships, impassioned argument and bold speculation.’
20 June 2016
[internet] Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet… fascinating back story behind one of Youtube’s earliest web series which turned out to be professionally done … ‘As far as Beckett was concerned, it was a race against time before someone else pipped them to the post. He said: “Somebody was going to create a scripted show on YouTube that uses the vlogger format and if they were marketing savvy they would make it feel real so there would be talk about it. “If we didn’t do it, then somebody else would.” The business side was headed up by their friend Greg Goodfried, a lawyer who later became one of the show’s producers. His wife Amanda, then working at the Creative Artists’ Agency (CAA), was tasked with maintaining Bree’s Myspace page. They had a plan, they had the webcam, they had the scripts. All they needed now, was the right girl for the part.’
16 June 2016
[euref] The Five Main Reasons you should Vote Remain…
15 June 2016
[web] Hail-Hydra.com… where on earth could Hail Hydra! dot com redirect to? :)
14 June 2016
[comics] Providence Ghoul Photoshoot Interview with Susanna Peretz… Peretz is the creator of the Ghoul masks used in a photo in Providence #7 … ‘The products and materials alone came to around two thousand pounds [nearly $3,000 U.S.]. On top of that you have to consider two months work to produce the pieces, studio costs, assistant’s fees, actor’s fees, location hire, camera, lighting… It all adds up but it is this attention to detail and realism that sets Alan’s work apart.’
13 June 2016
[hetzog] Lo And Behold: Reveries Of The Connected World Trailer … the official trailer for Werner Herzog’s film about the Internet … ‘Have the monks stopped meditating? They all seem to be tweeting.’ [via Kottke]
10 June 2016
[anime] How Akira sent shockwaves through pop culture and changed it … ‘Akira sailed in on a river of blood and cartoon nudity. It looked different to previous anime features, as Otomo took Hollywood films like Bonnie & Clyde as inspiration. The result was a visual paroxysm: the final product pried open audience’s eyes by using a record 327 colours, 50 of which were created specifically for the production. (Akira Red is a thing, apparently.)’
9 June 2016
[books] Real Book Thieves: Most Commonly Stolen Books… from Libraries and Book Stores … ‘Graphic Novels. The majority of book thieves are young, white males, and this is what they read.’ [via Kottke]
8 June 2016
[comics] Original hand-painted color guides by Frank Miller … some interesting original art found on The Bristol Board …
7 June 2016
[comics] BATSOWL – The British Batman of 1918 … the remarkable find of a British prose story similar to Batman produced for children in 1918 … ‘However, the notion of costumed ‘bat-men’ didn’t originate with Bob Kane’s creation. One such earlier character was Batsowl, who starred in a series of prose stories in the British comic Illustrated Chips in 1918. I’m not suggesting for a moment that there was any connection of course. Bob Kane was born in 1915, so it’s highly unlikely he’d have seen a British comic when he was three years old. However, there are some interesting similarities between the two characters’
6 June 2016
[comics] A New Theory on Providence’s Ending … where is Alan Moore heading with Providence? … ‘The monsters do not need to be made real. The monsters of Providence ARE real already. What they actually want is nearly the opposite. The Apocalypse sought by the monsters is similar to the one Moore initially seemed to be setting up in Promethea. The monsters are preparing to REMOVE themselves from reality, where they are (despite their best efforts) mortal and vulnerable, instead ascending to the immortal state of dreams and fictions.’
3 June 2016
[murder] I know who killed the Black Dahlia: my own father … a compelling story about a retired cop investigating his father for the murder Elizabeth Short … ‘Steve says that, for him, the Black Dahlia case is like a loose thread in a sweater: you tug on it gently, thinking you’ve come to the end, and it continues to unravel. There has never been a comfortable end point to conclude his investigation: each piece of evidence leads to another, in turn leading to another crime. All told, Steve believes he’s located a trail that connects his father to dozens of murders, stretching across California. Details from murders in Los Angeles lead Steve to a string of murders in Chicago, which then led him to Manila and the slaying of a 28-year-old woman named Lucila Lalu, whose dismembered body had been found situated oddly like Short’s.’ [thanks Phil]
2 June 2016
[web] The Perks Are Great. Just Don’t Ask Us What We Do … What working for an adware company is like … ‘Tyler was not pleased when a colleague finally explained the business model to him. “Wait, really? That’s what we do?” he remembers thinking. “We’re that skeezy toolbar company that your grandmother installs that she can’t get out and she’s got seven of ’em and her computer doesn’t work anymore?” Oops.’
1 June 2016
[doom] Doom was video gaming’s punk moment … a look back at Doom … ‘People talk about how Reservoir Dogs made violence into ballet – well Doom turned it into a mosh pit. In Doom, violence was the communicative medium of the world. And it was astonishing, breathtaking fun. All great popular works simultaneously reflect and re-construct the subculture they emerge from. They have an energy that crackles with life and youth, you feel it under your skin, it bursts through your veins like adrenaline. Doom dragged video game design away from the structures set out by the 1980s arcades and set a new blueprint. It told us that things were going to be different from now on and you’d better be ready.’
31 May 2016
[billboards] Evening Standard Billboard Flashback: May 2006 … ‘PRESCOTT CAUGHT OUT AGAIN’ …
27 May 2016
[work] Job candidate lists ‘desk where nobody can see my screen’ as deal breaker … ‘Cooper said, “I find that I work better on my own, and in as secluded a space as possible. When nobody can see me, or even if they don’t know I’m actually there, I achieve a Zen state of productivity and you can watch my output increase tenfold. It is not, repeat NOT about playing Minecraft on company time…”’
26 May 2016
[comics] A leather-clad Tinkerbell … a reread / review of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshal Law … ‘The first couple of issues mix cartoon satire and the grim ‘n gritty flavour of the time fairly uneasily. Putting it out front; the first sequence, when we stalk and murder a strippogram dressed as a superheroine, isn’t good. It’s all shown through the killers eyes and the killing is blatantly sexualised. Not just the death-by-claw-penetration, which you could perhaps make a thematic case for, but the fact that in four shots of the corpse falling from a tall building every one of them is a titshot. That’s something nobody was uncomfortable with back then – these were adult comics, Biff Bam Pow not just for kids – but is profoundly uncomfortable now. And Lynn, the Marshal’s girlfriend in his secret identity, gets three pages of loving relationship which ends with them getting it on before she’s dressed in Celeste’s costume and is leered at, stalked, raped and murdered to better motivate our protagonist. A woman in a refrigerator before they’d been named.’
25 May 2016
[food] 24 Absolutely Horrendous Vintage Recipes … ‘HAM IN ASPIC’…
24 May 2016
[life] List: Things the World’s Most and Least Privileged People Say. … ‘My children aren’t vaccinated!’
23 May 2016
[movies] Some thoughts on Blade Runner … by Nathan Jurgenson … ‘Bladerunner is also very much like the cyborg genre in other ways, for example, in its approach to sex and gender. Deckard (a cop who is finishing off the genocide of a group of sentient slave laborers who attempted to cast away their chains) becomes attracted to the Rachael replicant precisely because she is confused and vulnerable. For both Pris and Rachael, and also Samantha in Her and Ava in Ex Machina, the men in these movies are sexually attracted not to wires and circuits but childlike vulnerability. Pris and Ava are in on it, manipulating men by pretending to be childlike fantasy objects. Samantha and Rachael instead merely reflect that same desire in those making and watching the films. Deckard makes this most explicit when he has Rachael in his apartment and starts kissing her. She tries to escape, but Deckard doesn’t let her. She says no, and he says her no is really a yes, and repeats this until she complies. Deckard is attracted to telling her how to say yes, how to desire, to make decisions for her, and ultimately be her savior. Like most cyborg movies, the cyborg is a fembot, and the movies ultimately say more about sex than technology.’
19 May 2016
[books] H. P. Lovecraft in 1919 … What was H. P. Lovecraft up to in 1919? … ‘Much of what we know of Lovecraft for this year comes from his amateur publications and his few surviving letters—only a handful have survived from this period—but it was a quietly formative year in his life. The discovery of Lord Dunsany gave shape to his experiments in fiction, and he began to find his own voice and preferred style, while the hospitalization of his mother gave him an unexpected freedom, living alone for the first time.’
18 May 2016
[movies] Behind the Scenes of Alien … amazing gallery of photos and designs from the production of Alien …
17 May 2016
[comics] Philip Pullman: Why I love comics … ‘Their importance for children should not be underestimated. Pullman recalls visiting a school in Swindon in the early 1990s and noticing a copy of Watchmen, the now iconic comic-book series deconstructing the superhero genre, that was created by British writer Alan Moore, sticking out of a boy’s schoolbag. “I said to the boy: ‘So you’re reading Watchmen,’ and he said yeah, in the tone of ‘another adult’s going to patronise me’. Then we had a discussion that was analogous to literary discussion. Children take to comics naturally and are able to talk about them with great freedom and knowledge.” Did he let his two sons, both grown up, read comics? “I was shoving them into their hands!” He remembers in particular Judge Dredd.’
16 May 2016
[comics] 19 Comic Books To Turn You Into A Comics Reader … Great list to look up if you fancy a comic or two.
13 May 2016
[politics] I worked for Zac Goldsmith’s failed campaign – and this is what it looked like from the inside … ‘It doesn’t really matter that Zac Goldsmith can’t hold a pint, knows bugger all about Bollywood or football, and was, for a bizarre five minutes, jokingly rumoured to be the “Croydon Cat Killer”. These were unfortunate but forgivable blips. Running a campaign that draws ready (and ideologically coherent) support from the likes of Katie Hopkins is harder to excuse.’
12 May 2016
[kubrick] Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel, The Shining … with hand written marginalia from Kubrick … ‘Any problems with the kitchen – you phone me.’
11 May 2016
[comics] On the Winter Soldier’s Unprecedented Creation … a look-back at Captain America’s sidekick Bucky and the creation of the Winter Soldier … ‘Then came May 25, 2005, the day when issue No. 6 would reveal the Winter Soldier’s identity. “I was terrified that that was going to be the end of my career,” Brubaker recalls. “My fear was that people would think we’d jumped the shark or something.” It wasn’t an unreasonable fear. Previous status-quo-shaking comics events had marred sales and reputations — for example, there was a widely mocked ’90s tale about Spider-Man being revealed as a clone, and none of its creators emerged with their names unsullied. No. 6 hit stands, and, on page 17, readers got their first clear view of the Winter Soldier, his rifle trained at Captain America’s head. A friend of Cap’s who’d been captured by this mysterious figure tells our hero, “I think — I think it’s Bucky!” The man had long, brown hair — a request Brubaker says came from Quesada, who wanted to make it clear that Bucky wasn’t a kid anymore. He had a bionic arm with a Communist red star on it — Brubaker and Epting were tapping into the tradition of comic-book pseudoscience. And, lest we forget that he was still Bucky at his core, he had that classic little domino mask on. A reinvented icon had arrived.’
10 May 2016
[life] Existentialist Firefighter Delays 3 Deaths … ‘SCHAUMBURG, IL—In an ultimately futile act some have described as courageous and others have called a mere postponing of the inevitable, existentialist firefighter James Farber delayed three deaths Monday. “I’m no hero,” Farber said after rescuing the family from a house fire on the 2500 block of West Thacker Street, and prolonging for the time being their slow march toward oblivion.’
9 May 2016
[movies] The Time they used a Whippet Dog as a Xenomorph … fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a failed special effect experiment for Alien³ …
5 May 2016
[internet] The Internet of Stings … from Tom Morris… ‘Every night you stay; I’ve hacked your Airbnb. I’ll be watching you, because I’ve put spyware on your laptop. Every smile you fake you post on Instagram.’
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