Opening July 17 at the Portage Theater in Chicago, Nitrate and Kinogesist: An exhibition of Rare European Silent Film posters 1892-1929 and new artworks by Dave McKean inspired by silent cinema. Above you can see the front and back of promotional postcard for the show. The show is organized by Century Guild, and you can see highlights from their currently ongoing show, like this:
Earnest or mocking? You'll probably like this Che Guevera/Obama Hope t-shirt no matter your politics. It's Alex Bogusky's effort to redefine America's image. You can see 14 more ideas here.
This is the cover of Heston Blumenthal's The Big Fat Duck Cookbook:
And here are a few of the interior pages:
That striking art is courtesy of Dave McKean.
Heston Blumenthal is the award-winning owner of The Fat Duck restaurant. Apparently, one of his "signature techniques is the use of a vacuum jar to increase expansion of bubbles during food preparation."
In this video, Heston uses water and chocolate to make chocolate mousse (which seems to be a big deal):
Back to the book. The Wall Street Journal said:
"The Big Fat Duck Cookbook is the biggest (10 pounds with box), the most expensive ($250) and the most flamboyant (four brightly colored silk marker ribbons, uncountable full-page color illustrations and gatefolds, mainly caricatures of Mr. Blumenthal gliding through a dreamland of foods) cookbook in a bumper year. But like its author, who turns out to be a clear and even affecting writer, there is gravity holding the rocket in orbit. In the back, you will find deadly serious essays on such matters as the effect of heat on meat protein or "ice cream science," by himself and his entourage of university food scientists along with detailed rundowns on new kitchen tools such as refractometers. But all of this is stagesetting and infrastructure for the recipes with the wacko names, the sci-fi techniques and the eureka tastes and flavors... Makes you want to call Bray immediately to get a table at the earliest opportunity, which is two months from now. Meanwhile, there's the book."
That's right, the book lists for $250, although you can buy it new for $150 at Amazon.
You can see more photos here and a fairly lukewarm review if you're wrestling with whether or not to buy it. Via Neil Gaiman, who mentioned the cookbook as a sort of justification/explanation for the price of the Absolute Sandman volumes.
Ward Jenkins visited the Kidd's Toy Museum in Portland, took lots of photos, and posted them here. My favorite is of this vintage Oswald the Lucky Rabbit toy.
1. Here's a large collection of artwork by Dave McKean, including lots of images I'd never seen. The images are wrapped around a long interview with him, but it's difficult to read due to the layout and I didn't spot anything of note.
(You can see the rest of the boxes I've found to date here.)
I was lucky enough to receive a magic box in the mail today from the creators of Coraline. Enjoy the photos. I have more to say below.
I'd known for about two weeks that I'd be getting a box at some point, and a few days ago learned that at least one other person had received one. I allowed myself only the briefest of looks at that other box so I could save a bit of surprise for my own. But I needn't have worried since everything about that box, including the box itself, is different from what I received. There are 50 boxes in all. I can't wait to see what the others contain.
One of the items in my box was a key, and the tag on the key is labeled with a password for the official site for the Coraline movie. Below are the codes I'm aware of. Each one reveals a different short video:
stopmotion [Making of the figures and sets.] buttoneyes [Introduction to the "cast."] moustachio [A stop motion short about Bo Henry's dancing mustache] puppetlove [Henry Selick considers how we look to the puppets.] armpithair [Suzanne Moulton shows how she gives the puppets armpit hair.] sweaterxxs [Althea Crome knits tiny sweaters.]
Coraline is the first film by LAIKA and comes out in February 2009. It's based on a novella by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. When I first read the book, I was largely disappointed, possibly because McKean's minimalist illustrations seemed so different from the psychedelic collages I'd expected. But I reread it last week, and it was as if the book had become magical over the intervening years. The story is excellent, similar in many ways (many good ways) to Return to Oz, which terrified me as a child. And I found that I liked the art - - the simplicity perfectly matched Gaiman's crisp prose. I also discovered to my surprise that the cover glowed in the dark.
It seems that the movie can go down one of two paths - - either become a beloved film akin to the Nightmare Before Christmas (which Selick directed), or fail as a company killing bomb a la Final Fantasy The Spirits Within. I had feared Coraline would amount to the latter. The book is far too scary for young children, yet the early shots I'd seen of the puppets looked too childish for adults. After watching the short videos and looking at the photos included in my magic box, I'm more optimistic. It looks as though the artists have chosen to adhere to Gaiman's story, but jettison McKean's cold and frightening interpretation of the characters.
Compare this:
with this:
The result is a film that should be enjoyable by children and adults.
I'm certainly rooting for Coraline's success. The world should reward people who make magic boxes.
Update: After writing this, I looked at Gaiman's site and saw that he thought the same thing about the film's look, but is somewhat concerned about the shift - - "My only concern is that the images that are getting out all look really sweet, and not creepy."
Rogue Artist Ensemble is currently performing a stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch (on sale at Amazon). The LA Times has an interview with the designers and a photo gallery. Comic Book Resources has another photo gallery.
This video features a slideshow of images from the show
And this video features actual footage from the show:
The LA Times has an interview with the designers and a photo gallery. Comic Book Resources has another photo gallery.
