brian froud.

Trying to contain myself, but this is a pretty big deal.

check it.

Yup that's right, in the near future we will potentially be graced with a graphic novel version of The Labryrinth, which we could pretty solidly say was the best children's film ever made. (Not to mention this will also include a further immortalisation of David Bowie's timeless fashion-mullet-sporting, tight-champagne-legging-wearing, tri-crystal-ball-spinning King Jareth. Not that you needed it, Mr. Bowie. You know you're a legend).  Best news of all is that the infamous Brian Froud is again taking the reigns, steering character design and development for what will probably be the most anticipated graphic novel of the next year.

In case you are unfamiliar Mr. Froud is the illustrator behind not only the original Labyrinth film, but other such gems as The Dark Crystal, Mythic Journeys and pretty much anything Jim Henson ever made. His fearlessly fantastical characters are the very definition of an entire genre of weird, wonderful, and ever so slightly macabre children's films. The assurance of his involvement solidifies the noble intentions of this project in much the same way Alan Lee's appointment as art director for The Lord of the Rings films cemented the fact that they were going to rock.  Upon re-reading, I believe that might be the nerdiest sentence I've ever written. But no shame. No shame.

Brian Froud's website: www.worldoffroud.com


via the guardian.

ballpoint pen paintings by shane mcadams.

Still my favorite work I found this week. Why do I love this so much? Their ability to simultaneously sooth and stoke my psyche is unnerving. I'm plagued by a burning desire to keep some around at all times, just because they make me happy, sort of like the way people turn whole walls of their bedrooms into aquariums. Maybe the key is in the title of the work - synthetic landscapes. It's that blend of the familiar and the surreal which so often makes the head spin and the mind wander.

Anyway, enjoy a more rational analysis here.

And a more in depth feature here.

www.shanemcadams.com 

all images ©  Shane McAdams

la blogothèque.

La Blogothèque est un site dont la vocation reste la même : partager la musique, la passion pour la musique.

And for all of you who are, like me, a little bit sans le francaise, this means: La Blogotheque is a site whose purpose is the same: share music, passion for music.

Can't believe its taken me so long to see this site, a collection of bespoke films created with palpable passion for la musique.  You can even get a take-away. Yes please!

www.blogotheque.net

via The Bone Warmer 

sarah may.

Sarah May is a brilliant set designer. She's also the first I've covered for It's Nice That. Thank you for all your views, keep up with the site and check back here for some of my continued musings.

view the INT article here.

Sarah May's Blog: http://www.sarahmaystudio.blogspot.com/


all images © Sarah May

olivia plender.

Good news for the world of comics -  one of the first mainstream all-female illustrated graphic novel anthologies, Bayou Arcana, is set to launch in the not too distant future.

And while such "all-female" touted projects do so often ring out a touch patronizing, in an industry often known for marginalizing work done by lady-scribes it feels momentous when efforts are made to correct imbalances. So, unpleasant images of head-patting aside, it's certainly worth celebrating such steps in the right direction.

And in light of this news I felt it right to highlight the work of my most favorite new graphic storyteller, the macabre Ms. Olivia Plender. Her inclusion in last years Newspeak: British Art Now  was, for me, the true highlight of the show. Her featured work, The Masterpiece (with its title taken from an Emile Zola novel) was a feverish vignette, of full of pulp glamour and psychedelic excess rendered in moody pencil strokes. Oh and yes, it's all hand drawn.

Such captivating noir harkens back to an era when comics were self-consciously gratuitous and unabashedly sexy. So let les femmes reign supreme! They obviously seem to know what they're doing.

view The Masterpiece in full here.


all images © Olivia Plender 

rinko kawauchi.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling airy, I turn to Rinko Kawauchi. She's a Japanese photographer who I imagine smells like apple blossoms and tastes like sweet mint tea. Her work is all the lightness and serenity I suspect Japan to be; an effervescent world of stillness and contemplation of life as it happens, without haste.

Please excuse my romanticism. Then again, I think Rinko would encourage it.

website here.

all images © Rinko Kawauchi 

taryn simon.

Taryn Simon is very good at what she does. Whether it be posed objects, portraiture or snapshots of nature, her photographs satisfy a primal urge for composition and continuity, the absurd and the melancholy.

In this particular series she undertook the measured task of photographing over a thousand objects confiscated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Illegal firearms, undeclared horse-meat sausages, pirated TV shows, Chinese Viagra, and any other object deemed too tainted to cross America's hallowed perimeter. It's like a smuggler's birthday party just after the piñata got smashed; luckily Taryn was around to politely arrange, frame and shoot the aftermath. Her month long stint at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York yielded this brilliant series, titled Contraband.

It would be wrong to try and cover all of her work here so I'll leave you with these; but her other projects are equally fascinating and include studies of the wrongfully imprisoned, Fidel Castro, and meditations on the nature of kinship.

view her work here.

via It's Nice That.

all images © Taryn Simon