Wimbledon Green is good stuff. In his short introduction, the cartoonist, Seth, spends a bit of time apologizing for the sketchbook quality, the poor drawing, the shoddy lettering, and the perfunctory page compositions and storytelling of the comic. He makes all these disclaimers and yet the story and the art is relaxed, unpretentious, and ironic. And great fun! It reads like a comic documentary.
Here are some pages: (click to enlarge)
As a fan of Osamu Tezuka's Astroboy, I couldn't help but love these photos by Hiroshi Araki. It's not Tezuka's artwork or even Astroboy's personality that makes the manga so fascinating. It's the fact that Tezuka managed to create an empathy for entire society of self-aware robotic beings... beings enslaved by humans.
Though Tezuka's inspiration was Disney, his children's stories were usually more forcefully provoking than his American counterpart. Though it was Walt Disney who said "don't ever talk down to a child," it was Osamu Tezuka who lived up to this statement by never shying away from topics like war, death, loss and then even some of the greater questions. What are we? Who are we? What is consciousness?
A few years back a film adaptation was made of Tezuka's Metropolis manga. It actually share very little in common with the manga but it is great looking. And it does display Tezuka's enslaved society of robots. I recommend it, especially as an introduction to Astroboy.
A few months ago I painted my office four lovely shades of green – camouflage. There were some unanticipated results. Now I am often confused when I enter the room, I get lost on my way to my desk or it may take me minutes to find my way back to the door.
I thought all this was just me but I recently learned that, according to Abbot H. Thayer, large scale camouflage can often be confusing or even dangerous, especially in small spaces.
Learn these kinds of camouflage tidbits in the above shockinigly well-researched volume, Disruptive Pattern Material - An Encyclopedia of Camouflage, by Hardy Blechman. With a seemingly unending amount of jaw-dropping photographs and information, you will be transfixed for hours. I promise. And you may end up painting your office too. Despite the dangers!
• DPM – At Amazon.com
• DPM Edition II – At Amazon.com
"Sir, As a member of the Learned Society of York Magicians, I have often regretted that modern magicians are content to study the history and theory of their subject, and that practical magic has been absent from these islands for more than two centuries. So it affords me the greatest satisfaction to announce to the Public that this melancholoy state of affairs is now at an end."
–John Segundus Esq.
The Daily Raven – Letter to the Editor
March 9, 1807
Today... a book recommendation: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's a great novel and certainly as mythic a tale as any I've read in a long time. For a story about fairies it's incredibly... real.
I've just recieved my copy of this extraordinary book. I'm sure I'll be spending many hours between it's pages; what a visual playground! The park is incredibly well documented. Just flipping through seems to instantly transport one to Aw Boon Haw's surreal, fantastic landscape. My favorite? The bird-eye cel overlay that illustrates the losses of the Hong Kong park.
