Three brilliant tributes to MCA, a ‘Sabotage’ parody by James Winters, a ‘Licensed To Ill’ mural by Aroe, and a US departure lounge sign.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I just saw that my friend Pat Hamou did this lovely tribute to Maurice Sendak, this nails it for me. Pat said this about it:

“For Mr.Sendak.
I still remember the first time I laid eyes upon Where The Wild Things Are in my youth, leaving me wide eyed and wondering.
Here’s to the next Wild Rumpus that awaits you.”

Check out Pat’s site for his excellent gig posters and illustrations of Jewish gangsters. He lives in Montreal which is where I’m off to this week to develop my planetarium show with the people at the SAT Dome there.

Forthcoming Mike Mignola cover for the next B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth series – ‘Return Of The Master’.

These beautiful prints are going to be available on May 29th from Dark Hall Mansion in 3 different editions of 5 prints. Tom Whalen has been featured before with his take on the original Star Wars trilogy and he’s been commissioned to created this official portfolio for The Beatles. They’re not cheap but they’re beautiful.

Another tribute to the great Maurice Sendak who has now sadly left us, but has also left us so much great work, including this amazing pop up book.

This book is head and shoulders about all the other pop up books I have (and there are a few). Firstly because it’s the only one to feature Sendak’s art, which is gorgeous as always, and secondly because the paper engineering has to be seen to be believed.

The story centers on a boy looking for his mummy who enters the house of Dr Frankenstein. As he moves through each room he encounters a different character from classic horror stories: The Vampire, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy, The Werewolf and, finally, finds his ‘mummy’ in the Bride of Frankenstein.

At each monster he enquires, ‘Mummy?’, before proceeding to disable them in different ways, seemingly indifferent to their attempts to frighten him. This is where the ingenious paper engineering comes in, the figures don’t merely pop up, they animate at the same time as each page is opened. The Werewolf actually transforms as he extends out of the book, Frankenstein’s monster is one of the biggest pop ups I’ve seen and the boy deals with his assailants happen as you open a flap on the right side of each page.

Again Sendak sends a clear message to the children who read his books: you don’t need to be afraid of these monsters, they are easy to trick or get rid of. I don’t want to spoil it ALL for you by telling you how he does it but it all ends well and there is so much detail in each page that it bares re-reading. The whole scenario was dreamt up by Arthur Yorinks,  paper engineered by Matthew Reinhart and released by Scholastic in 2006 where it won several awards including the New York Times‘ Best Illustrated book award. See the gallery below for some shots, with not too many spoilers.

Another visionary artist gone, first Ralph McQuarrie, then Moebius (not to forget MCA on Friday), now Maurice Sendak!

I love his books, especially ‘In The Night Kitchen’, of which I made a huge poster for my kids’ bedroom when they were 2 years old. I also loved the way he was so outspoken about encroaching political correctness and what could and could not be shown to children. A true original.

Obviously ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ is his best known work, and deservedly so but there’s a lot more in his catalogue than that classic. When I was digging through the archive at Sesame Workshop in 2003 I found a cartoon of ‘Bumble Ardy’, voiced by Ken Nordine written by Sendak and illustrated in his style. This became his last book, published last year in a revised form and you can find it on a Sesame Street DVD called ‘Old School’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a post I had over on my old MySpace blog from Jan 2008:
“On December 27th I installed a ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ window display in the Tales on Moon Lane bookshop in Herne Hill, London. It will be up until Easter and then move to their Primrose Hill shop. I highly recommend the shop for kids books as they have an excellent selection and the shop is packed with loads of fun stuff.”

I just saw this via Twitter which is just beautiful:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

- Maurice Sendak – RIP, you left a great legacy for generations to come.

This is lovely, perfect Sunday afternoon viewing and listening. A compilation of Boards of Canada‘s loops posted on their websites.
Video footage taken from BoC’s 2002 website, by James Tindall.

On June 1st I’ll be traveling up to my friends’ Sarah and Leigh‘s place in Hinckley, Leicestershire for the opening of a rejigged version of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition that we held at the Pure Evil Gallery in January.

Their Factory Road Gallery will host a lot of the posters and original art and there will be local ale, special food and prints, CDs and books for sale. More details here.