Here at last is the famous BONJOUR by Darryl Blood. I have waited many moons for this.

http://www.fafcom.com/flash/faf-bonjour.swf

Plus the super savvy HOT WINGS

http://www.fafcom.com/quicktime/faf-wings-lg.mov

Keep on rockin to http://www.darrylblood.com also

Chapter 15 Part 6

"There is something in that tree," mentioned Ali Qushji, motioning stealthily with his beard, toward a birch tree behind him. "The bird in the tree is looking at your satchel. Why is that?"

 

Afanasy squinted towards the topmost tier of branches. He saw only twigs, and snow-covered leaves, and an ebony-colored raven that must have weighed seventy-five pounds, with a leather vest and some kind of tarnished brass collar. The raven looked away, trying not to look obvious.

 

"Foma, come here a moment, would you?" asked Afanasy, setting his kvas cup into the snow and wiping his hands on his shirt. Foma rolled out from under the truck and slowly sulked to Afanasy's feet. In one circular motion, Afanasy swept the underpaid whelp up by his ankles, pitched him carefully across the meadow and knocked the raven from its perch, picked up his kvas cup again and delicately sipped the last, overly sweetened drops.

 

There was an intermittent cracking of branches as Foma ricocheted down through the tree's limbs and disappeared into a snowbank at its base. For a span of two frosty breaths, all was quiet. Then the snow was disturbed again as the whelp threw himself onto his feet. "Hey, there's blackberries in here!" he shouted, and the raven's feathers began to slowly decorate the white snow around him.

From XEROLAGE 8 (circa 1987) by Joe Schwind:

I have searched in vain for more Joe Schwind online... I hope you have better luck. Back in the pre-internet and pre-photoshop era, Mr Schwind was cranking out piles of inspired hand-pasted photocollages for Xexoxial Editions (http://www.xexoxial.org/) and, it seems, some stuff for the Church of Bob Dobbs as well. There is a bevy of silly graphics at the Bob Dobbs site, and some of it is from Schwind and the marvelous Paul Mavrides :

but not really enough to justify wading through the pages and pages of ridiculous "crazy" nonsense there.

I recommend mailing an envelope of cash to Xexoxial at Rt 1 Box 131 LaFarge, WI 54639 and waiting to see if anything comes back to you.

Hmm... need a fresh perspective? Look no further!

http://www.giantheads.com/rl.html

"My brother is in Mexico."

Anyone current with French comic guys? This is amazing: http://peep.s.free.fr/ and click on EXP video. Pretty hair-raising stuff using simple line drawings and tons of ink!







I think this is Ronald Grandpey, whom I read in an old anthology called Le Simo. Here's what one site (http://latelier23.free.fr/bd.htm) says. I'll make my sad little translation and keep it to myself. You should click on the links and goggle in amazement.

Ronald Grandpey (Rennes)
Découvert dans la revue le Simo (avec Raison d'Etat, réédité par la suite), Ronald Grandpey a publié de nombreuses planches dans plusieures revues, dont Chez Jérôme Comix (dont il a réalisé le site internet http://chezjeromecomix.free.fr ), misma (http://misma.free.fr ), Le Nouveau Journal de Judith et Marinette... Il entretient une pléiade d’auteurs obscurs : Franky Bartol, Peep-s, Pedro de la Vega, Black Brasero… Peep-s , après avoir signé un flip book (Crève en chemin, Ed Flblb) a réalisé un clip pour le groupe toulousain Experience (visible sur http://peep.s.free.fr). On trouvera quelques pistes sur les travaux de Ronald Grandpey via http://antimatiere.free.fr ) voir aussi : http://www.experiencenet.net

I haven't gotten very far with this lead. Ferraille Illustré appears to be a collection of French Canadian comics (BDs) for readers in France? I found an old (2000) copy and it is really great. Simon Bossé did the colorformsesque cover (above) and there are nifty contributions from Siris, Caro Caron, Obom, Dominique Pétrin, and strange margin doodles from others. Who are they? Is this thing still in print? I'll write more when I figure this out. Here's what appears to be a site: http://supermarcheferraille.free.fr/

I don't go around looking for brilliant French artists, they just seem to come out of the woodwork. Is it because they dress well? Or those 170 vacation days every year? Arthur de Pins here...
http://www.arthurdepins.com/crabes_film.htm

Five million years ago, the Atlantic Ocean covered North America all the way to the Ohio Valley. As the ocean receded to form our present-day geography, a family of squids was stranded in a remote setting in the North Georgia mountains. This motley melange of mischievous mollusks, influenced by the rural ways of the redneck locals, quickly "adapticise" to a world of fighting, feuding and fornicating with a Faulknerian flambé of ferocious sea creature livin'. The humor lies in the "adapticization."


I don't even have cable, so I don't know what I'm missing. Squidbillies, for anyone with Cartoon Network, looks pretty funny and the backgrounds look unusually gorgeous (for an Adult Swim show, which usually seems to pride itself on Ugly)! Written by the guys who did Aqua Teen Hunger Force, for better or worse... I am under the impression this started to air this past week. And you thought there was no good news this October!!!

Wait, forget everything else I said. Here! Here is a video in which the entire world is yarn. Yarn! Steriogram's Walkie Talkie Man. By Michel Gondry! If this were the only film of Gondry's that I ever saw, I would immediately sound the Greatness alarm. And yet, it is only one of the dozens available for viewing. Ahhh. http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2535202?htv=12















Herewith is a fuzzy little realplayer version of a lovely new video by Gondry, for Devendra Banhart's A Ribbon. Really marvelous, to my eyes.
http://www.xlrecordings.com/broadcast/~aribbon/

And please find following.. the Vines' Winning Days video, also by monsieur Gondry... complete with ridiculous haircuts that the Vines will have a hard time explaining to their grandchildren in 20 years.

http://www.thevines.com/video.html

Anyways... here is the link to the whole goldmine. I love everything this guy does, for the record, so I say go forth and click your little mouse into the wee hours.

http://www.director-file.com/gondry/promos.html

I enjoy the Boston Weekly Dig, which should be obvious from the repeated clips from it on this here blog... they just keep devoting pages to people in the Boston area whom I cherish...

The latest and greatest is an interview with NEPTUNE, your source for quality hand-sculpted instruments. Scary, architectural instruments welded out of cast-off industrial scrap metal. No kidding. They are great guys, the music is truly sui generis, and they are at least as fun to watch as to hear. What more do you want??? Read the article

http://www.weeklydig.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/article.view/issueID/0d7d855a-f039-4ab4-9cd9-bf69d6212ec4/articleID/d4fda25b-b9ef-48a5-abb8-ea91eff0dfa3/nodeID/5666324c-2898-4bdc-a362-4afcac799fcd

and find out where you can you go see them yourself... http://www.misterrecords.com/neptune/

Hi I am Ub Iwerks. Yes that is an actual name of a person. Why not look at some rockin Ub Iwerks cartoons? I mean, what else were you gonna watch tonight? The Amazing Race? Why don't you watch Ub instead. You'll thank me for it. http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/reviews/ubiwerks/

 

How do you post a description of a flavor? I like root beer- here's a website... no, it doesn't work. Rootbeer is not an online commodity. Hence the confusion about Marc Bell. Marc Bell is another Canadian art geyser, hewn from some kind of primeval Canadian elm or something, which gushes forth amazing drama in comic form. He is not really on line at all, so there's nothing to post. Yet post I must!!! Here are photos of someone turning pages of Marc's magnum opus, Shrimpy and Paul. http://www.thedramastore.org/item.php?id=297 The rest is up to you, I imagine.

How many times have you asked yourself why Steve Oedekerk's "thumb" movies never made a big splash in modern art museums? Here is the answer: Tony Oursler beat him to it.

http://tonyoursler.com/tonyourslerv2/main.html

I still gnash my teeth in astonishment that Seth Scriver is not more widely recognized as the funniest and most consistently marvelous of new artists. I mean, sure, what do I know... but look at this stuff!!

http://www.peanutbreath.com/

The guy is brimming with greatness.

It is super expensive to buy Gary Panter art nowadays, at least in the store. His new stuff costs like $30 or something, which is way beyond my allowance. Do yourself a favor and buy a JIMBO comic or two instead, from eBay or Amazon's listings, unless you already acknowledge the Meister of Zonked-out Wizardry. He was super cool in the 1980s - who else was set designer for Pee Wee's Playhouse?! - and deserves to be wealthy and famous. Which is probly why he sells stuff for $30.

Some great covers and pages at http://www.garypanter.com/work_comics17.html

Here's something you can enjoy with your 2-year-old and your 4-year-old! And your cool friends too. The aura of Montreal grows ever stronger...

http://www.fluorescenthill.com/mov/HB.mov

and here is even more where that came from...

http://www.littleanimation.com/fluorescent_hill/fluorescent_hill.html

What to do with these interminable cold and rainy days. Ya cain't play ball, ya cain't climb trees. What about knitting a robot? Now there's an idear. Get your knitting mallets and go to http://www.jesshutch.com/robotmain.html And while yer at it, sew a Space Invaders quilt (see below)

Holy Cannolies! Here is an eyeful of astounding drawrings from Béatrice Bourloton's blog... http://bbinitials.blogspot.com/

The still pictures are amazing enough. I can't wait to see what the animation looks like! Another student at the ridiculously well-stocked Gobelins animation school. The future is looking mighty nice! 

Gobelins is a French animation school, as far as I can tell. I don't think you need to undertand the language to appreciate the humor in some of these... their site has several terrific little short films. http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/

Another ripoff from the Mother of All Blogs: http://drawn.ca/ - not for the last time, either. A video for all of us, answering the timeless question "Do German people use drugs at all?"

Bear with me. Go to http://www.dietotenhosen.de/neuigkeiten_news_walkampf.php and then find the part that reads

Hier könnt Ihr Euch den Video-Clip zu "Walkampf" anschauen. Klickt auf den Link, der Eurer Internet-Anbindung entspricht:
Für langsamere VerbindungenFür durchschnittliche VerbindungenFür schnelle Verbindungen

and click on langsamere (slow) durchschnittliche (sausage-flavored) or schnelle (fast) to see a tasty animation for Die Toten Hosen!!!!!!

So perhaps you, like me, enjoy the works of pimply sullen teens slumped in the back of the room who could care less about the stupid ol' Health class and are fighting back by filling their notebooks with dense scrawled epics of medieval wars of liberation. Plus, you were terrified as a kid by the cover to Black Sabbath's The Mob Rules. (which can be yours for $35,000 http://www.spiderwebart.com/productsd.asp?snob=100560) ... well, that is why you should tear into Mat Brinkman.

You can read him for free! http://www.fortthunder.org/comix/brinkman/index.html and then you will want to buy Teratoid Heights http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966536320/104-1217529-2778345?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance (I like the listed reading level on Amazon as ages 4 to 8. Yessir. Buy this one for the six-year-old on your list and watch his face just light up!)

I am not always as keenly attuned to the future as I should be. I don't have cable so I really wasn't aware of Michel Gondry until Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came out. Which is one of my favorite movies. Human Nature, his first film, is fantastic when Rhys Ifans gets to take over, and a little trying at other times. However, the collection of Gondry videos that Palm Pictures put together is probably my single favorite DVD of all time (until a proper Ladislaw Starewicz collection comes out). If you haven't seen it, take a few days off of work and dive in. It is inspiring, funny and really not as shallow as it should be. Some of my favorite junk on there is the early stuff for his band, Oui Oui, and another insane French hiphop nugget called "Le Mia." http://www.palmpictures.com/videos/theworkofdirectormichelgondry.html

... which actually reminds me that there are still a lot of cool video jobbers from France that they do not share with us baseball-hat-wearing SUV-driving neandarthals in the US of A. But they should, cause we need 'em:

1. La Vieille Dame et les Pigeons, which is the hilarious, superb prequel to Triplets of Belleville. By Sylvain Chomet and Nicolas de Crécy, as was Triplets before de Crécy had his name taken off. Or so I'm told.

2. Delicatessen is still not on English-language DVD, last time I checked. What kind of nonsense is that??? This is my favorite non-animated (?) film of all time.

3. The first flick (as far as I know) from Jeunet and Caro (the Delicatessen guys) called Le Bunker de la Dernière Rafale. It's a student flick, but it's enjoyable and makes the miracle of Delicatessen all the more mind-boggling, after seeing what they can do with some friends, killer props and an abandoned bunker.

4. The bug movie to end all bug movies - better even than Joe's Apartment, I daresay, - MICROCOSMOS. It's touching and elegant and filming it was technically as mind-blowing as filming anything else you've ever seen. Plus you will cry in empathy for a dung-beetle.

5. Going out on a limb here, a little, but we McAmericans deserve to at least check out Dobermann. Which is visually rich and bugged-out funny, if hyperviolent and not very soulful, like Tarantino. I've seen it several times and I still think the good outweighs the bad on this. The 2-disc version from France has all of Jan Kounen's short films and commercials, some of which are amazing (like Gisèle Kérozène) and some that are just eye candy. Another flick by the same guy, called Blueberry, has tremendous visual effects but is overall unwatchable (the botoxed acting by Juliette Lewis is no help to the French actors trying to sound like cowboys.. although it is unintentionally funny). Released in the states as Renegade.. rent and skip to the shaman scenes... they're pretty marvellous, in a Naked Lunch sort of way, and they are obviously the reason the rest of the film got made. I will look forward to whatever Kounen does next.

It's video day at AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE.

Here's an upcoming flick to watch out for: FARRAH EPISODE 4. Yep. It's coming!! And it will be as amazing as all the other Probot Productions. Go to http://www.probotproductions.com/index.html and send money for your copy of PREQUEL. I'm not kidding! It is everything George Lucas forgot to be after 1980. See? I told you.

Hey! you are saying! what's with all the great videos, Das, and no mentions of Marumari's BABY M?! Oh, of course. The seminal work by video artist Bob Quinn, who has since gone on to give the earth a wedgie with BATTLE BEYOND BELIEF (see http://www.crap-mill.com/Shows&Comics.html ... but ask a grownup first if it's OK), is actually available for complimentary viewing ON YOUR COMPUTER! http://www.marumari.com/video_babym_23.html

The Joel Trussell chowder caused me to stroke my chin and fondly recall E*rock. Here's a whole pile of E*rock http://www.audiodregs.com/erock/menuframe.html but this one will always be my favorite http://www.audiodregs.com/animation/physical1.html Isn't that cheerful?!

Joel Trussell makes music videos, apparently. Here are a couple. Make sure you watch #3 - the Viking one. http://www.abacuscreativemanagement.com/artists/trussell/videos/
Now I will go make some music videos. Looks easy!

I will not pretend to be the biggest fan of Wallace and Gromit, or Chicken Run... sorry.. but this bit of news gave me the gloomies. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1820035,00.html I mean, come on... I love Creature Comforts. Don't you?

http://www.1stavemachine.net/ - A gem (from http://boingboing.net/)... this whole site is engorged with CG fabulousness that gives me the excited-11-year-old heebie-jeebies. The same heebie-jeebies that overwrought sci-fi movies promise and never (well, except Fifth Element... or City of Lost Children) deliver. Drink several grape sodas, eat some Nerds and stick this into your eyes!!

My favorite radio DJ gets interviewed in the (Boston) Weekly Dig: http://www.weeklydig.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/article.view/issueID/9d7b53a0-a2a3-4492-8831-93544f236fa4/articleID/55ed964d-1337-4e89-ad75-707388c12e11/nodeID/8ea67746-b4d9-4901-88ec-65210e243151

If you are at all able, check out Melody du Jour on WZBC, Fridays 7am (6:30 really) until 10. It's a musical continental breakfast: civilized, but it will leave you well-fed. WZBC can be streamed at http://www.wzbc.org/index.html

I generally steer away from really tasteful authors, but feel obliged to come clean about someone I have completely fallen in love with this past summer. Maybe I'm the last guy to discover her, since she won the Booker prize and whatnot, but nobody has had the good sense to tell me about her so here goes: Penelope Fitzgerald anyone? Go with The Beginning of Spring and The Blue Flower and if they don't make your whole life more well-constructed, then just keep going: Human Voices, The Bookshop and Offshore. That's all I've gotten thru so far, but there's not a missed sentence in the lot. Holy frijoles! I love Penelope. The writer to end all writers (except Kafka). http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/104-1217529-2778345?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dblended&field-keywords=penelope+fitzgerald

This may be the most hilarious thing I have come across since Mark Leyner. Please share this with someone you care about. Full disclosure at http://crossroads.net/honyaku/easis/

I can't take responsibility for seizures caused by http://www.paperrad.org/ but I will advise that you turn the contrast down on your monitor before going there. There is a lot of intense craziness here and the more you see, the less you understand. I have been bathing in Ben Jones art for several years and can say that it does not appear to cause irreversible brain damage. It just feels like it does. Go!!

...And if it is still available, definitely invest in the paperrad MIX TAPE CLUB. Hours and hours of nonstop audio oxycontin. Bleaaargh!!!

... and it bears mentioning that if you ever find a paperrad newspaper ("Paper Rodeo")anywhere, cherish your good luck. If you have ever experimented with lifting comics from the newspaper with silly putty and wondered what the resulting dada palimpsest would look like in print, you will be deeply satisfied.

I should also mention the spectacular comic book called ROCKETO which actually compelled me to go to a comic book store! I try to avoid these icky places but ch-ch-check this out!! http://speakeasycomics.com/title.asp?tid=12 Super duper talented illustrator here, Frank Espinosa. Looks like 1940s BATMAN comics, reprints of which really spirited me away when I was a tot. Great, gritty drawrings. Dare to enter the comic store! Or order online.

Pure marvelousness from Italy (I think?)... http://www.laurinapaperina.com/projects.htm. Another compelling reason to keep up with the Mother of All Blogs http://drawn.ca/ which is routinely raided for links here...

I am still grumpy about Joe Ranft's passing and now I understand that Jerry Juhl is gone too. http://www.jimhillmedia.com/article.php?id=1669 Ergh. Anybody who tried to go back to their childhood in the 1970s or 80s, and figure out why they have fond memories of Sesame Street and Muppet Show, even Fraggle Rock, must needs pause to appreciate how much work and soul Mr Juhl put into his job as writer for the muppets. I mean, really. Think about how much lame garbage is passed off as kids' entertainment and then think about some of the crazy wonderment that these Henson guys came up with, and gave to all of us kids back in the day. I tip my hat to Jerry Juhl and to Joe Ranft, who seemed to have a similar role as "soul" of Pixar, and scan the horizon for more talent with LOVE. Any suggestions???

Hey there~!! Check out this hot hot video for EDITH PIAF!! Ha HA HAAHA!! No, really. Check this out http://www.cube-creative.fr/site/html/nt/nt_lc/akoa_hd.html

SpaceInvader2

SpaceInvader2, originally uploaded by elyofborg.

This just makes sense, dunnit? Let's try that at home.