Humour Us...

Ok guys, I want you to bear with us here, and please weigh in on a rather stupid issue that is bugging us to an incredible extent. We've been arguing about it for half an hour now. Voices have been raised. Sanity has been questioned. Tim has started claiming that certain people are colour blind. I've been saying "IT'S RED. IT'S RED. IT'S RED." over and over again, while rocking in my chair and staring, wild eyed, at the computer screen. Kaia is literally jumping up and down with rage, saying "It is brown! It is the colour of poo!"

Here's the question: What colour are the Stumptown mugs?

Please, for the sake of our sanity, vote in the poll on the sidebar to the right. Please. Kaia has threatened to make me sleep on the couch. In my own house.

What's That Behind You?

So my BFF Tim is in the early stages of starting a new band, something in the hardcore noise range, and they're trying to think of a name. I have been lobbying for about a month now for them to call themselves Backphat. Is that the best name ever or what? Fun to say, slightly distasteful in a groovy way, and clearly displays its cool points through the use of the trendy street slang word "phat".

Just when I thought Tim might give in and saddle his fledgling musical combo with the name Backphat, it turns out that there's already a band in Japan called Backphat! Can you fricking believe that?! There really are no new ideas in the world. I am disheartened.

Juxtaposing Your Week

Include Me Out

Been looking at this blog, Seven Days, for a bit; it's the home page for the work of illustrator Cristiana Couceiro. Couceiro lives, works and is inspired by Lisbon, Portugal. Obviously she is a fan of vintage photographs too, with hopeful images of the past yanked out of context and into collages yielding a suggestion of the past and of meaningful symbols, but essentially just modern enough to not denote anything in particular. The pieces also look a lot like a particular strain of old Penguin paperback covers, do you know the ones I mean? The ones that look like these, basically (especially the one below, labelled It's Not For You to Choose). Same colour palette and use of pale coloured circles, sometimes the font is the same too. Hence an added expectation that the text and the symbols in these pieces will mean something, but still they have only the feel of old pieces of functional graphic design; time and nostalgia turns it all neatly into art.

It's Not For You to Choose

These pieces do continue to make me feel like I'm missing something. Maybe I am? I don't know much about the artist. Maybe these are books covers, I just don't know the books. (Also Couceiro does some conventional illustration, magazines and advertising etc.) The titles seem designed to be confusing too; unless there's another connection I'm missing the titles seem entirely divorced from the content. I also wonder what percentage of the images here are found, and how much made new? Some of the photographs do seem newly posed, modern models in old fashioned dress. It's all really working for me, anyhow. Collage is fun. I would love to see her sketchbooks/scrapbooks.

You've Hit the Button One Hundred Times Before

You Are Everything I Cannot See

Who Can Doubt it Now

When Your Feet Are Living the Ground

Feeling Like a Tape Recorder

To Stay Here Would Be Just Fine

I Find it Hard to Explain How I Got Here

I think I got the Couceiro tip from This Girl Called Automatic Win. Lass has good taste in art (and links, and recaps, and long hilarious soul-searching sessions).

T&S is Luv

Tegan, Sara, Amanda Palmer, Amy Cook

My goodness, how hot do Tegan and Sara look in this photo? Plus two other musicians who I don't know who they are but they're pretty attractive too. Notice also the incredibly smart also hot political broadcaster Rachel Maddow, below.

Out magazine published these two photos in their "Out100" list of the famous gay folks of 2008. Check out the rest here. Actually the whole list and accompanying issue kinda SUCKED. The entire 100 strong list had like 20 women, no kidding. Said women were usually photographed as arm candy to the latest waifish handbag designer or avant-garde artist dude. In fact, these two here were the only hot photos of women I had heard of in the whole list. It gets worse! The cover of said issue featured Gus Van Sant, Cheyenne Jackson, Sam Sparro and Katy Perry! I'm not going to have a huge rant about annoying idiot Katy Perry, but suffice it to say, I do not think that 'I Kissed a Girl' was a huge step forward for gaykind. Could they not have found one actually gay lady to put on the cover, let alone one who irritates the fuck out of me with her stupid song?

Oh, gay men. I know that you think lesbians wear too much plaid and can't dance, and we think you play 'It's Raining Men' too often, but really, you could have shared your Out100.


If only I could have shown you a cute photo without having a rant. Bah.

Chainring Heart

This is what I just ordered from Microcosm Publishing:

Papercutter #7, Bad Lyrics Project, Biff #3, Big Hands #3, Buzz #2, Coffeeshop Crushes #1, Cramhole #2, Dreamwhip #13, Flying Lesson #10, Green Zine #14, Indestructible book, Journalsong #6, Kerbloom #66, La-La Theory! #2, The: A Fancy Word For Widow, Likes / Dislikes zine, Listy #3, Papercutter #6, Post is the Most #2, Really Gay!, Snakepit #16, Sourpuss #2, YOU. zine, When You Can't Stand Yourself, Go Outside, Sounds of Your Name 1.0 (free copy), Patch #127: Slingshot Woman, Patch #058: Chainring Heart, Patch #084: I Heart Tofu, Patch #088: I Read Zines, Patch #102: Fix Shit Up, Patch #116: Record Playerz, Patch #137: Camera, Patch #120: The Pedal Power Don't Stop, Patch #119: You Can't Hug with Nuclear Arms, Patch #014: Feminist Fist, Patch #187: $0 per gallon, Patch #130: Sweetheart Chainring, Patch #029: Peace Dove, Patch #149: I Heart Vibrators.

That's 38 items, people! Someone please stop me before my zine obsession gets out of hand!!

To be fair, this was partly a group order, with the patches and everything. Plus most of these items were one or two dollars, and the most expensive was four dollars. We had to get Microcosm to send the zine and patch package to an intermediary in the states, because they don't mail overseas. What a hassle. But so worth it.

Microcosm are a zine distro and small-press publisher based in Portland OR and Bloomington IN. If you've heard of a zine, they stock it. (And if you don't know what a zine is, here's a handy definition Lucy found: "a small, handmade amateur publication done purely out of passion, rarely making a profit or breaking even." Sounds about right.) Microcosm also do tshirts, badges, patches, stickers and posters. The vibe is very bike hipsterish, pro-veganism, anarchism, feminism, DIY, that kind of thing; I'm pretty sure they make no money whatsoever. Microcosm have also apparently just opened a store in Portland; wish I could go visit it. Check out the super-cute logo also:


I am so excited about the ziney package of joy that is heading my way! It's going to be amazing!

American Elf

James Kochalka has been on my radar for a while, but I was never the hugest fan, I must admit. He's written and illustrated about a million comicbooks, including American Elf, Monkey Vs. Robot, Peanutbutter and Jeremy (a child-like story about a cat and a crow, which I actually rather like), and Superfuckers. He also has a band called James Kochalka Superstar. Are they any good? I have never heard any of their stuff, but their CDs are occasionally attached to the comicbooks.

However, I've just discovered his daily diary comics, and I LOVE them. He writes about his cats, his wife, his two small sons, and various emo and weird and goofy things that fall into the Kochalka universe. The colour work is amazing, as is the super-cute depiction of his kids. Top-notch cat work as always. By the way, Kochalka himself is the bucktoothed elf, and he absolutely looks like that in real life too!

There's something about diary comics that really appeals to me. I admire the full-on dedication of that kind of project, and the slow progression and development of the artwork that follows. But more than that I respond to the accumulation of small details about how an artist spends their days, what they think about, how they draw themselves and the world around them. It's quite moving, really.





Check out more diary comics at americanelf.com. He's been writing them for TEN YEARS. So there's plenty of good stuff to catch up on.


Above, some earlier strips, ten years old now. See how his style and his elf-face have changed!

Barack You Rock!

Brett Yasko, Reason 17, 21st October 08
"So many reasons. But the one I feel in my gut is this: When I look at Barack Obama's life story, I see America."

Can you believe the US presidential election results are just one day away?! ARGH. The suspense is killing me. Except it's not, because our favourite Obama-rama is blates going to win. As Jen's tshirt says, "Obama for yo mama". And for the rest of the nation.

The girlfriend is really into her politics and so has been keeping me far better informed than I would usually be, since I tend to be fairly gormless when it comes to current events. She proudly voted for the Big O. We're going to have a big election slumber party tomorrow night, and try and dull the tension with plenty of moreish snacks and irish coffee (and irish tea and, uh, irish everything else?)

These posters here are from the 30 Reasons site. They have 30 designers submitting 30 posters, one a day in the run up to the election. All to promote the cause of voting Democrat. Here are a few favourites, but the full selection of posters is uniformly pretty great - simple, striking, demonstrating that McCain is a no-go.

Adam Snetman, Reason 13, 17th October 08
"It's been a long eight years, and I'm tired. Tired of an administration that has failed in the face of every conceivable challenge; tired of an occupation of still to-be-determined length, costs, and consequences; and tired of the incompetence, unilateralism, and deception that pushed us into it. Mostly, though, I'm tired of seeing America beaten down, and I'm ready for a leader with the integrity, the guts, and the vision to help us get back up. That's why I'm voting for Barack Obama."

Woody Pirtle, Reason 23, 27th October 08
"After 8 years of catastrophic events resulting from the failed leadership of our current administration, Main Street is "Bushed". We are tired of the arrogance, greed, dishonesty and incompetence that has been so pervasive for what now seems to be an eternity. Our best chance of cleaning up the mess left in the wake of this bungling administration is to show our commitment to a future of change and reform by electing Barack Obama on November 4th."

Megan Forb, Reason10, 14th October 08
"Regrowth of hope. It is time for Obama to nurture America's education system."

Matt Dorfman, Reason18, 22nd October 08
"Why would John McCain have said such a thing? The fundamentals of our current economy include a prolonged war without any endgame strategy, special interest tax breaks for oil companies and a deregulated banking industry that wrote mortgages with flimsy premiums based on non-existent credit. Barack Obama recognizes that these problems are interconnected by the misguided spending of the past eight years. While hardly an instant cure-all, he's the necessary agent of reform that we need."

Dan Ibarra, Reason 24, 28th October 08
"The term "change" is a loaded one now, but the root of the problem is that America has begun to stagnate—whether it's our political, military or economic philosophies (just to name a few.) To keep America balanced we need to at least try new ideas and new directions. Whether you agree totally with Obama or not, it's obvious that if we continue down a single philosophical path without some new approaches and new ideas, this country will suffer even more than it has now."

Rocket Family Resemblance

So it turns out I had totally confused Lauren's picture of Rocketeer with Rocketo in my mind. Mea culpa. Easy to do though, right? Maybe? No.

Rocketeer was an 80s comic drawn by an illustrator named Dave Stevens (who just died in March, actually) with a bit of a 30s feel to it. It is about a young aviator who mysteriously acquires a jetpack to become Rocketeer, and solves crimes by zooming about the place, I presume. And his girl is based on Bettie Page.

The comics ended up with Dark Horse (Portland-based!) but they weren't really that many issues altogether. Yet there was somehow a movie and a 2 video games? The movie starred Jennifer Connolly and Timothy Dalton and came out in 1991, hence the poster above. The movie looks like crap. But the poster is great; clearly based on some particular 30s World's Fair-type poster design which I cannot place right now. And how neat does Rocketeer look? Very, is the answer to that.