When I first got involved with this movement a decade ago it was called “Lowbrow”. That term was used by Robert Williams to describe his own work and the work of the artists who sort of orbited him. It was meant tongue-in-cheek, but also it stayed in usage because it unapologetically stated that this art was not trying to appeal to overly academic art critics. At the time, I think people involved knew something big was happening but the prospect of this work (with the exception of Robert Williams) ever appearing in museums or scholarly treatises seemed very remote. Now that is very different, this whole scene has become a whole different animal so to speak.

In the late 90′s the scene was small and mostly confined to Southern California. Juxtapoz magazine was in circulation and really helped shape what was starting coalesce as a “movement”. Juxtapoz focused on figurative and narrative art with a big dose of cartoony freak appeal, but they also celebrated artists who were outstandingly technically proficient, whether that meant an underground cartoonist or someone like Mati Klarwein or Ernst Fuchs. Being unshackled from what everyone else thought was pretty liberating and allowed a lot of room for artists to work within. Out of this scene came artists like Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Glenn Barr, Liz McGrath, Shag, Tod Schorr, and Tim Biskup — all of whom are wildly different yet share some undefinable something that links them. That undefinability has been the main problem with “naming” this scene.

You can read the entire interview here.

Bonni Reid seems to have found a phresh new audience with the American inner city demographic – a hard nut to crack. Check out the comment section under this just-in-time-for-Halloween piece.

Congratulations Bonni, but dont b trippin.

We are the Morlocks. Spray me with hot lead while I have a blood-spattered bikini freak-out. Yup, it’s that time of year again…

I’m going to start off with something decidedly unflashy and flagrantly un-Mod, in fact almost the antithesis of the groovy graphic freak-outs I usually enjoy – but this is one of my favourites, as is the 1962 Robert Mulligan film itself. There’s something almost instantly identifiable about the black and white photography here, something distinctly 1960′s that is shared by other films like Seconds, The Manchurian Candidate, In Cold Blood, and The Miracle Worker. The rest of the film has that same great look that is strangely both warm and cold at the same time. It’s like they ran out of that particular film stock around 1969.

I love the way the child’s humming leads into Elmer Bernstein’s score, the whole thing rising, then falling again, as the camera moves over dazzling close-ups and low angles, over the tiny, intimate landscape of childhood, transporting the viewer back to perhaps recall their own childhood landscape – all in a matter of three short minutes. Simplicity. Economy. Beauty.

Mr. Atomos

A more state-of-the-art digital take on the cool old caper/spy titles of yore, nonetheless still effective and suitably noir. Clever flourishes abound, tightly connected to the jazzy score. I really like the brief sequence panning past silhouetted freeway ramps – it says Los Angeles even more than the California-Mod house at the beginning.

Despite the fact that it’s based on an ancient Brett Halliday pulper – and he’s one of my favourite grade-C hardboiled scribes – the film doesn’t live up to the fun promised in the title sequence. It’s just another tepid effort at reviving a dead genre, filmed entirely in that wearisome modern style of greys and blues and toilet stall greens. I think that whenever these 26-year old directors get the urge to start tinting and desaturizing everything they should just go back and watch something in black and white. Maybe one of these days it’ll give them an idea.

Any self-respecting artist owes it to themselves to discover the zany world of this long-forgotten artist, now resurrected in collected book form by the fine fiends at Fantagraphics.

There’s a page here with various news bits and informative factoids about the artist, who, just to make things all the more perfectly, hilariously rancid, was also apparently a huge prick, hated and resented by all who knew him including his family. If he had worn an eye patch and had a loaded revolver and a flask tucked into his high-waisted pants, I think we’d have the ultimate old-timey cartoonist – even his name is too perfect.

More info here.

“You shall become a part of your wild moon.”

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has had a fairly spotty directorial career in my estimation, but this flick is surely a near perfect gem. The title sequence is equally as inventive and fun as the film itself, yet I almost wish there was a rollicking Tom Waits-ian junkyard tune playing over it, but I can live with the French cafe approach. I just think it could’ve been a little weirder since the film is so decidedly wacky and otherworldly.

Finally, something we’ve all been waiting for! Make My Logo BIGGER Cream!!

This informative ad is brought to you by the very clever people at Agency Fusion.

Saul Bass and Duke Ellington – how can you go wrong? It’s amazing how wonderfully analogue and handmade this looks next to the slickness of today’s, well, everything. The oft-imitated and instantly recognizable Bass owned the 50′s and 60′s and he was the perfect guy to go with jazz and angular music, and of course with Bernard Herrmann, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator. I could post nothing but Bass on here, but instead you can see a couple more beauties here and here.

The film is fantastic as well, with a later career Jimmy Stewart going up against some new breed actors like George C. Scott and Ben Gazzara and showing ‘em how it’s done, but probably worth checking out just to hear Jimmy grapple with the word “panties.”

Source The Comics Reporter: “If you stop and think about it, it’s hard to think of anyone who’s broken out of that once-vital corner of the comics world in a dozen years,” writes the Comics Reporter. Reacting to the news that Washington City Paper will stop using freelancer Robert Ullman to illustrate the Savage Love column, the Reporter wonders if the alt-weekly market for illustrators, cartoonists, and comic artists has “begun its final decline” as papers have to focus more on bottom-line pressures. “I think that’s the way it’s trending, definitely, but I’m not ready to pull a sheet over the corpse quite yet,” Ullman says. “I don’t know, I would think that with all the conglomeration that’s going on with alt-weeklies these days, that there’d be more money for things like illustration, not less.”

Much imitated, never quite equaled, and in my opinion the best thing about the film. I like the way in which it conveys a sense of the disturbing and darkly off-kilter without really being graphic in the least. There’s still plenty of room for the viewer’s imagination to fill in the blanks. Now if only the film had done more of the same. And I also blame director David Fincher and Seven in part for today’s glut of idiotic torture-porn fare and all that grey/green digital colour diddling.

Cooper’s other work includes some eye-catching title sequences for The Painted Veil, Dawn of the Dead, Donnie Brasco, and Arlington Road.

Re-purposed for these crazy modern times. I hate the word “re-purpose” – why did I use it?

Many more at Project for the Old American Century.

Other artists include Shag, Glenn Barr, Tony Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth McGrath, Daniel Martin Diaz, Bob Dob, Nathan Ota, Dave Cooper, Chris Mars, Gary Taxali, Ana Bagayan, Daniel Peacock, Yosuke Ueno, Paul Barnes, Martha Rich, Esther Pearl Watson, Mark Todd, Jason Houchen, Scott G. Brooks. Bonnie & Mark will be in attendance as well as many of the participating artists.

DvA Gallery is located at 2568 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, Phone: 773.871.4DVA. Info@DvAgallery.com
Opening April 26th, 2008. Book & toy signing 4-6pm. Exhibition opening 7-11pm.

Many of you may have already read this story, about how my illustrations were published without my permission in this 350-page, $100 book being sold in dozens of online shops throughout China, Japan, and Spain (real “bricks-and-mortar” stores are carrying it there, oddly). The work was lifted from the Little Chimp Society website, along with the work of over 90 other illustrators. If you could share this news via your blog(s) and other social networks (like Facebook, Delicious, etc… using the “Bookmark” button below), it would help all of us affected and maybe even result in the removal of the book from these stores. Thanks!

MINI X Seven

Rotofugi is located at 1953-55 W. Chicago Ave. Chicago, IL 60622. For More Info call 312.491.9501

I also did an interview for Inkstuds radio recently with Robin McConell. Listen here.

Doug just finished this fantastic oil painting.

Speaking of shows, we’ve added an Events page here on the site, which you will notice Mark Pilon is totally hogging right now.

We’ve also flipped the world on its ass by creating profiles on both Facebook and Twitter. Follow us! FOLLOW US DAMMIT!

http://www.absolutvancouver.ca