I have to admit, I’m a big fan of TV series. It all started with Friends, which was a big part of my teenage years, and it got out of control this last few years with That’s 70s Show, Absolutly Fabulous, Spaced, The IT Crowd, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Mad Men… The one think I really love about TV shows is that it’s like a almost never ending movie. You get to really know the characters, and they become part of your everyday life. The first time I went to NYC, I kept looking around, half-expecting to spot Phoebe playing guitar somewhere.
So, new year, new series.
Bored to Death is a quite young TV show, seeing that it started last September. There’s 8 episodes as of now, and it has been renewed by HBO for a second season. The pitch is pretty simple : Jonathan Ames is a writer struggling with his second novel who just got dumped by his girlfriend because he drinks too much white wine and smokes too many funny cigarettes. Now alone in his Brooklyn appartement, bored, he posts an ad on Craiglist proposing his services as a non-licensed private detective. The series then follows his cases, along with his pursuit of his ex, his relations with his editor boss and his comics illustrator friend.
Although the dialogues are really good, the characters interesting and the whole show very funny, the thing I like the most about it is it’s incredible inspiring effect on my own creativity. Proof:
1. The intro
The intro is VERY nice. It’s basically text in a book taking life and becoming characters. A picture is worth a thousand words, but this opening sequence is worth WAY more. Enjoy :
After seeing that, I just wanted to get a book and animate it. It reminded me of thoses fantasticboot cuts I saw a while back :
You can see many more inspirating boot cuts on Su Blackwell’s website. There’s also a TON of idead on this OffBeat Earth post. What was once nearly a sin (cutting a book) is now a very artistic activity. Go cut your books !
2. Comic book fun
In the show, Jonathan’s friend Ray is a comic book artist. He does various stories, mostly about his own life, but in a superhero way. The style is very Marvelish, but it’s so funny to see how Ray interprets his own life to turn it into comics.
After seeing Ray’s drawing, you can’t help but grab a notebook and try to sketch your friends comics-style. I did a drawing of myself actually, clicke HERE to see it. Haha ! You can see more drawings (all by Dean Haspiel) at HBO’s website.
3. Jason Schwartzman !
Jonathan is played by Jason Schwartzman. This is a good opportunity to look back on his carreer. This guy has been around for quite a while. I first saw him in Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore“. He then reappeared in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie-Antoinette” and again in Wes Anderson’s “Darjeeling Limited“.
This three movies are very different, but all are interesting and visually inspiring.
And, as if Jason couldn’t get any cooler, he’s also a musician, with a solo project named Coconut Records. He’s the one who wrote and performed on the opening song of the series. Is that cool, or what ? Go play that video again.
4. Brooklyn and NYC
To finish this post, a quick word on the settings of the show. Most of it is in Brooklyn, and HBO has put up an interactive map of the locations shown on the series (scroll down and click on the map). With every new episode, new places are added on the map. That way, next time you wander around Brooklyn, you can check out Bored To Death’s settings !
So, I hope you’ll check Bored To Death and use it to fuel your creativity !
Copyright Adweek.com
Once upon a time a quiet, but slightly mad, Welsh illustrator met a loud, but extremely mad American journalist and a legend was born. One horse race, a drug-fueled drive from Las Vegas to California, several wrecked hotels, many wrecked minds and countless destroyed mimeograph machines forged the lifelong friendship of Ralph Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson.
Steadman’s slightly acerbic satirical doodles at “Punch” and “The Daily Telegraph” in the UK had gained him a respectable, if small, following amongst the liberal readers and critics, but it wasn’t until he snagged a commission from “Scanlan’s” to illustrate Thompson’s piece on the infamous Kentucky Derby in 1970 that his surreal and twisted scratchings came to life.
Copyright Ralph Steadman
“This man had an impressive head chiseled from one piece of bone,” recalled Steadman later. “and the top part was covered down to his eyes by a floppy-brimmed sun hat. His top half was draped in a loose-fitting hunting jacket of multi-coloured patchwork. He wore seersucker blue pants, and the whole torso was pivoted on a pair of huge white plimsolls with a fine red trim around the bulkheads. Damn near 6-foot-6 of solid bone and meat holding a beaten-up leather bag across his knee and a loaded cigarette holder between the arthritic fingers of his other hand.”
Thompson’s gonzo style of journalism – putting himself at the heart of any story and relaying his experiences of the moments in a dark stream of consciousness – held a mirror up to Steadman’s crazed artistic sensibilities and made him look ever deeper into his own nightmare visions of the world.
Copyright Ralph Steadman
The spray and ink blot style of illustration was not a new thing. From Ronald Searle’s grubby little prep school boys of St. Custard’s to Gerald Scarfe’s cruel caricatures and around Quentin Blake’s whimsical drawings for Roald Dahl, the calculated mistake of splashed black ink had always been a feature of satirical portraiture.
Steadman turned it into an art form with elements of collage and touches of fine art in amongst the savagery. He’s won many prestigious design and illustration awards, worked with other authors, done graphics for companies and records and written his own novels. Yet it’s his work with Thompson that fuels the legend to ever-greater heights: bats and rabid dogs, bleak desert landscapes composed of twisted telegraph poles and infinite perspective lines, bloated bureaucrats with gaping mouths and US matrons with cruel features and monstrous bodies.
Copyright Ralph Steadman
And it’s his drive and creative zeal, even at the age of 73, which sets him apart. “I must have a feeling that: ‘Oooh I’m really excited about this!’ The most depressed times I have is when I just don’t wanna do anything. A living hell is not being creative, being utterly devoid of any creative impulse whatsoever.”
Check out the work of Ralph Steadman at his official website
Read his excellent autobiography
I’m following Tricia’s new series of “People you should know”, and today it’s graphic artist Chris Ware!
You may have come upon Chris Ware’s most famous piece of work, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
So, you might ask, why should I know this guy, if he does complicated and headache-inducing comics ? Well, here are some reasons :
1. He is VERY talented :
Let’s be clear : Chris Ware is a genius. A never-goes-out-and-looks-kinda-weird genius, but a genius all the same. To begin with, he almost never uses computer. Yep, that’s right, all this over-detailed artwork is hand-drawn. The typo too. He HAND DRAWS all text in his books. If you think it’s not that difficult, just take a look :
This is all made by hand. I can barely write an address on an envelope without scratching it all and starting over a dozen times.
2. Nobody else can tell a story like he does
Ok, Jimmy Corrigan is weird and to this day, I’m not sure I understood everything right. But you have to admit, Chris Ware has a unique and marvelous way to tell a story. It’s all flow, sequential, flashbacks, fantasy… Here is an example :
See what I mean ? It’s just square boxes, and then it’s so much more. Just try and follow the train of thoughts here. Magical.
3. He’s very prolific
This guy is crazy. He does so many things, I can’t keep count. He is a contributor to the New Yorker, he does lots of jazz-related work, he self-publishes numerous graphic novels… The insides of his brain must look like a very busy factory. But that means YEAH for us Chris Ware lovers, because we can’t run out of stuff to read/see/enjoy.
4. He has created great characters
Jimmy Corrigan, sure, but also Rusty Brown, the nerd collecting action figures that lives in his own world, Quimby the Mouse and his love/enemy Sparky that cat’s head (yes, cat’s head), the Super-Man, a depressed anti-hero, Big Tex the cow-boy, the lonely girl with the fake leg… And much more.
So, I hope by now, if you didn’t already know Chris Ware, you’re eager to see more.
I’m leaving you with a video of Quimby animated by John Kuramoto for This American Life, set to Andrew Bird’s song “Eugene.” Enjoy !
Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.
BELOW IS A LIST OF KEY POINTS REGARDING THE ABOVE IMAGE. I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO MAKE THEM SUCCINCT. AFTER ALL, WHO FEELS LIKE READING COLOSSAL BLOCKS OF TEXT ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON?<EXPECTATION=SILENCE!>
If you are still unconvinced that…
finding and purchasing this Dunny and shirt > putting pants on + emerging outside of the confines of your home + transporting yourself to Kid Robot
…watch this video!
I just wanted to mention a few things on this lovely Saturday evening (on which I have eaten way too many gummy bears). I’ve recently updated the About Page so that it more aptly claims what we’re about. It also tells the fabulous and true story of where, exactly, the name Stickers & Donuts came from. Surprisingly, it was not a sudden stroke of genius. It also has the “life stories” of all three of your writers. The page also indicates ways you can subscribe to S&D (daily emails, RSS, widget) if you can’t remember to come visit on your own.
Since I am in the way of general announcements, I’ll remind you that we also have our interviews collected here and our bookmarks of favorite blogs & web-pages here. Finally, please do leave comments or send an email if you like something we’re posting or just want to say hello. We are very kind and like to respond (Tricia often leaves several delightful anecdotes to commenters on her posts).
And, just for fun, so there is a visual element to this post, here are some icons. I can’t actually tell if they are necessarily Mac Dock Icons, or if you should just use them like a sticker on your sidebar. Anyway, I used this Social Bookmark Iconset as a template (which I found on Smashing Magazine’s collection of free RSS Icons). If you right click you can save ‘em and use ‘em, if you are so inclined.
Although Heath Ledger’s Frankie Valli solo (on bleachers!) in 10 Things I Hate About You is exceptional, I prefer the scene where pugnacious Patrick Verona lights his cigarette with his bunsen burner(!) My appreciation for silly science things stems from my previous life as a science nerd (behemothic-I-want-to-make-a-glow-in-the-dark-tomato-plant «TRUE STORY» proportions).
I recently passed by foursided, a picture-framing gallery in Lakeview, which had the most glorious vintage science posters in the store window. My eyes twinkled. One poster featured a ring stand-hugged flask that floated above a bunsen burner (cliché image, I know), while the other poster discussed vision and wavelengths (lots of colors!). Often featuring magnificent hand sketches and an elusive sans-serif “science” font, vintage science illustrations are gorgeously quirky. Apparently there are others that share my fascination with vintage science illustrations, because I FOUND A LOT OF NEAT THINGS. Here is a selection of my findings, in science lesson form.
1. FACT! Flexor muscles allow you to bend your joints. These tins serve as the ideal hiding spot for little trinkets, and as a good reminder of the often overlooked flexor muscles. Tiny Tins (Flexors) from aminyitray on Etsy, $10
2. FACT! Fuzzy bugs are more pleasant in sketch-form, rather than alive-crawling-on-your-leg-form. Fuzzy Wuzzy Insect Pendant from Schmutzerland on Etsy, $27
3. FACT! KING PHILIP CAME OVER FOR GOOD SEX. Do you remember biological classification? No? Silly child. Well, perhaps you should get this BALLER SHIRT WHICH HAS A VINTAGE IMAGE OF MAJOR PHYLA. For those of you who are concerned about how others will respond to your new shirt, FEAR NOT! It comes in two color combinations! Light blue (shown above), and brown (shown below in a clo-clo-close-up image of the shirt) Tree of Life shirt from isotope on Etsy, $18 (Note: isotope has lots of interesting vintage science shirts, so I highly recommend that you take a peek.)
4. FACT! Reindeer = Caribou. These cards don’t feature an authentic vintage illustration, but after sifting through lots of science encyclopedia images, I couldn’t resist including these cards. Also, I like reindeer. Reindeer Antlers letterpress cards from Springtide Press on Etsy, $18
5. FACT! Vena Cava is a fashion label that occasionally makes pretty things, but generally bores me. DOUBLE FACT! De-oxygenated blood travels through the superior and inferior vena cava. TRIPLE FACT! The aorta is the largest artery in the body. Aorta and Vena Cava ring from aminyitray on Etsy, $40
6. FACT! Girls and boys who use skull-adorned pocket mirrors are excellent at hand to hand combat. Skull Pocket Mirror from badgeland on Etsy, $2.49
7. FACT! Without the Moog synthesizer, we would be without many hottt electronic tracks. Note detail below! Moog Synthesizer Schematic shirt from isotope on Etsy, $14
8. FACT! Biology purses are cooler than rolling backpacks. Biology Book Purse from prettytheory on Etsy, $40
9. FACT! Wearing a necklace that shows an injured hand proves that you are not afraid of blood, bitches, and hand to hand combat. Wounded Hand Pendant from aminyitray on Etsy, $25
10. FACT! The experience of reading any book can be improved if you use a tuberculosis, diphtheria, and tetanus bookmark. Yum. Bacteria Bookmark from DamageNoted on Etsy, $1.75
Final note: If you really like vintage science illustrations, you will love this Flickr pool.
Must say, I love the new whitehouse.gov web-site that launched today along w/Obama’s presidency. Worth taking a look around. A white house blog and everything!
It’s almost election time, and that means lots of cool, free, printable posters by professional designers!
AIGA (the professional organization for designers) sponsored an awesome contest where members created and submitted VOTE posters. While the organization picked 24 winners, I had tons of fun going through all the posters to find which ones I liked best.
The one above is a winner in my heart. So funny, and true. So true, that when I posted it in my cubicle a coworker became so obsessed that she printed out about 10 tabloid sized AIGA posters, envisioning specific ones being plastered everywhere from the kitchen to the men’s bathroom. Success!
Anyway, the poster was created by Rob Alexander, who works at visitoffice.com, a design agency which I’ve just come to discovered does work for the McSweeney’s-related Pirate Supply Store (you know, the store that supports those kids’ writing centers).
Who wouldn’t want a bottle of Captain Blackbeard’s Dye and Scurvy BeGone Capsules? (I am actually totally in love with this stuff. You can shop for it here.)
I digress.
Back to the vote posters. (All of the ones below are free except for VOTE! by Obey. We don’t blame them, it’s a high-quality print!)
So, go to AIGA, checkout the posters, and download your favorites. Print them at work on tabloid paper. Post them everywhere. A BONUS Palin-related poster, after the jump! (more…)
See all parts of the Luke Williams interview, as they are posted, here.
Last time I posted about these beautiful and funny Thanks for Nothing (ex. Thanks for nothing… you’re blocking my driveway) cards by Luke Williams for Gilah Press you guys (and I) loved them! So, when Luke offered up-close pictures (and an interview to-boot!), I was thrilled and decided I had to post again. I’ve also got info on where you can snag a set for yourself!
“To help suppress any potential drastic measures, these cards allow you to subtly deliver your true feelings towards a particular public service with minimal confrontation.” — Luke Williams
Check out all of the pictures that follow, & then get ready for my interview with Luke, coming tomorrow! (Hint: he actually makes more than just these beautiful cards!)
If you already know about these annual reports, scroll down to read about the new data-collecting web-site!
This may be old news to you, but as I was reviving my English major spirit by reading Penguin’s Blog (Penguin the book company), I learned about graphic designer Nicholas Felton’s personal “Annual Reports.” I became so obsessed, that I had to post about them here.
Felton records everything from how much he drinks and walks to where he eats to how many books he reads. At the end of the year, he compiles this data in an amazingly designed “Annual Report” (check them out on his web-page).
You can also order a printed copy of his reports, but they’re all sold out (that’s why everyday after January 1 I’ll probably check his web-page to be sure I get a copy!). (Is it weird that not only I, but other people as well, want the “Annual Report” of some man we don’t even know?)
I became so obsessed with the idea of graphs, data, and a corporate-like personal report, that I started recording my past year (which I decided, for various reasons, was July 9 to July 9). Luckily, I compiled and saved 169 lists over the past year (I’m an obsessive list-writer), so I have a lot of data. But I didn’t know how I was ever going to make such pretty graphs.
The Web-Site!
That’s why I’m so excited that is that Felton is creating a web-site, called daytum.com, just for the purpose of beautiful data-collection. It’s currently open by invite-only in beta, and I’m hoping, hoping, hoping someone will let me in!
(A couple of blogs lately have also mentioned mycrocosm, another resource for collecting and graphing daily life-data. It looks cool, but I do love that daytum is designed by Felton!)
