bitrated

check out 8bitpeoples. it's a record label that promotes musicians that either program or emulate 8-bit chiptunes. (plus they have free downloads.) i don't know if any of you are at all interested in the 8-bit music style, but if not, now's the time to start. i've already mentioned the high voltage sid collection; that's a collection of emulated c64 music - some of it from c64 games, some of it original work by the composers for those games. regardless of the application, most of it's great. the composers (at least the bigger names) were/are a group of very talented guys. same is true of the artists on 8bitpeoples, although they draw additional inspiration from, and directly utilize, the sound chips of the nes, atari 2600, and game boy.

oh, and in other news: i'm in a show next weekend at the cpop gallery in detroit. road trip!

noelyoungstudio.com updated

check it out! there's a fair amount of new stuff on display.

http://noelyoungstudio.com

guns for eyes

i've been a devoted fan of the webcomic achewood since sometime in 2004, and i'd always felt satisfied by the daily portion of online cartooning it offered up. however, recently, achewood author chris onstad has become increasingly sporadic in his publishing between increasing familial demands and touring the nation to tout his new book. good for him; he absolutely deserves all the laudations and doting a cartoonist could hope for. as i've said at nearly any opportune moment or lull in conversation, achewood is basically one of my favorite things, period. still, this is all apropos of describing that, with less daily achewood to read, i've begun to divert my attentions elsewhere in order to plug the gap between the second cup of coffee and actually beginning the workday. for while achewood used to be my one and only, i try to be a realist in our dismissive and fleeting generation, and "out of sight, out of mind" is our neglectful and shoe-gazing motto. (what the fuck?)

anyway, so i stumbled upon scary go round recently (which, by the way, is now linked in that sidebar to the right, along with achewood), and it is awesome. while much more innocent than achewood - or maybe just more british, substituting achewood's depressive and vulgar characters for a set of depressive but whimsical ones, and hip hop slang for a cockney slur - scary go round author john allison is equally engaging as onstad if not as consistently hilarious.

thematically, the two are similar as well. each features a diverse and idiosyncratic cast of characters, and story arcs in both strips seem to teeter innocuously on the borderline of the surreal before dropping off the face of reality entirely, and then resolving as if nothing ever happened. in short, they both work wonderfully in the format of a daily serial strip. what's so excellent about scary go round, though, is the way it further resembles a favorite television sitcom. it's tamer than achewood, but without losing any of its bizarre appeal; and while achewood has some characters to whom we can relate on an emotional level (specifically, the near-suicidal cat roast beef), john alison writes an entire cast for a generation of twenty-somethings who spend too much time at a computer. there's everything from high school playground angst (the young couple of dark esther and football hooligan eustace is especially nice) to nearing-thirty unemployment (and nearing-thirty unemployment as a merman).

it's touches like that - like adding a merman to the primary household in the comic's world - that make scary go round so great. i've gone through and read most of the archived strips, and my favorite plotline follows eustace and some classmates on an exchange in france as they try to thwart the new easter bunny that french president sarkozy has brought to france from canada - it's established early on that it is actually a ferocious wendigo, and it is devouring the countryside while speaking in verse. (as an aside, part of the strip's appeal for me might come from a shared interest with john allison in cryptozoology - another plotline has the characters searching for a series of old-world gods in order to save the planet.) this mix of the unbelievable with the everyday provides the perfect backdrop for good writing. look at, like, anything joss whedon has ever done, and you can see why this formula, when mixed with a bunch of snappy banter, works so successfully.

finally, the art is really good. look back to the first scary go round strip in the archives and you'll realize this hasn't always been the case, but it looks like john allison has come into his own. basically, go read it. it's great.

hey kid, you wanna make ten bucks?

something to meditate on:

somefield

i stumbled upon barnaby ward's website earlier today. take a look; his work is incredible.

the beast

i found this on a blog concerning the "great apostasy" of the american people, as foretold in the scriptures of blah blah blah. basically it's a rad collage of the beast (who appears to be dressed as an 18th century american statesman with some kind of zohar-illuminatis pyramid attached to his forehead) holding uncle sam, douglas macarthur, and a naval officer on strings and leading them after a dinosaur-headed chimera around which is orbiting a fiery psychedelic planet earth.

if this is what happens when we americans have strayed from the flock en masse, i'm all in.

noelyoungstudio.com update ::: 06.20.08

noelyoungstudio.com has been heavily updated. check it out!

one night in andar

last weekend, i participated in the 48 hour film project with a bunch of friends (as credited in video, whom most of you know, whatever, shut up, someone else might read this blog, it's a possibility). heeeeere it is. i mainly did the animation with zach pearl. it was a tiiiiime.

giant sloth

uh huh.

thursday

WHEN IS THIS GONNA STOP?!

thursday

meh. i guess you sort of have to see it. problem is, it's not that good. it's also not that bad, though.

el orfanato

i missed this time after time when it was screening in minneapolis theaters - i feel like after its limited run at the lagoon it showed up somewhere like, beats me, hopkins or whatever - so i was very excited finally to get a look at it now that it's been released on dvd.
i watched the orphanage this afternoon, when it was bright and sunny and there was a real nice breeze coming through the window, which i realize isn't exactly the witching hour, but the hype that surrounded this movie at its release is confusing in retrospect. basically, it's not much of a horror movie. first off, there's the clever and adorable little mascot on the poster, above, who is a pivotal character to be sure, but doesn't deserve to market a movie in much the same way that, like, jigsaw's stupid puppet face was used to sell those terrible saw movies. secondly, the trailer was goddamned terrifying, but as with so many horror trailers they mostly just mashed all the orchestra stabs and whiz-bang spook moments they could into 90 seconds. and third, everyone i know who did see this movie on the big screen told me that it was the most frightening thing they'd ever seen.
so, that being said, this movie completely failed to live up to the hype that had been impressed on me. however, as happens so many times when one sees a well known movie, or reads a well known book, without knowing much of anything concerning the particulars of its plot, i was totally blown away by the orphanage, just not at all in the way that i thought i'd be. i can't honestly say that i was scared by this movie at any point, although it is plenty eerie.
even though it's the (mind-bogglingly wunderkind phenomenal) directorial debut of juan antonio bayona, executive producer guillermo del toro's mark has been left all over it in the beautiful production design: lots of dark corners; vignette-framed scenes; use of hi8 and night vision cameras; and props, costumes, and makeup rather than cgi all make for a visually stunning movie. bayona's camerawork is real impressive, though, and he has a talent for holding the suspense by only showing glances of anything visually shocking.
further, bayona's knack for directing his cast is very apparent. the reason the film truly succeeds is a result of how deeply affecting it is. the female lead, laura (belen rueda), is wonderful, and had me so closely involved that basically, without giving a whole lot away, i think this might be the only horror movie that's made me tear up. and it's unabashedly sentimental, which is where i feel it sort of detaches itself from the horror genre. where a film like the ring, for instance, features an emotionally touching performance from naomi watts, and alludes to the possibility of a happy resolution, in reality it's just pulling its punches so that it can hit you for real at the end. that's manipulative, and that's fucking good psychological horror. the orphanage wants its audience to be afraid, but to realize in the end that there's happiness in tragedy.
all in all, if this is going to be classified as a horror movie, then it's the best one i've seen in a while, and a better, clearer effort on del toro's part than 2006's pan's labyrinth. it is beautiful, and a great example of a universally enjoyable scary movie.

tuesday

breeders are in town may 30th. i had a dream with a kim deal cameo last night. totally bizarre.
here are some photos of female musicians i like. (how lame is this?)

sam weber

i found this guy via the beasts! flickr pool for that open call i entered a couple months ago. he's an illustrator from new york, and his work is kind of gorgeous. worth taking a look at.

kings of power 4 billion %

australian animator paul robertson's new film is out. this is straight up nerd shit, i guess, but he is also basically a fantastic animator.

anyway, if you played video games until around 1995, and if you have at least a passing interest in japanese cartoons (or in pointing out that japanese cartoons are pretty stupid), you might dig this. it's a little gross, and real real weird:



i just found and took another look at his last film, and while it's maybe less accomplished technically, i think it's a lot more engaging. it's mostly a parody of old two-dudes-rescuing-their-girlfriends beat-'em-up games. anyway, here's "pirate baby's cabana battle street fight 2006":



. . . aaaand that's enough of that. enjoy! it sucks outside!

procrastination

monday - dammit!

friday

i realize that in many opinions, supporting or even enjoying this makes me a chauvinist. i don't really care about that. what i care about is that folks are still taking the time to make things that are both innocent and sexy.
this comes from pinuppost.com, and while it could easily be excused away because of totally retro-chic irony (costume vs. tattoo), a lot of the material on the website is modern while still containing no explicit nudity (no privies, and no funny stuff). (some of it's pretty tacky, like, suicide girls leather-and-lace shit, too, which is sort of a shame.)
bottom line being, in an internet where something like "lesbian ejaculate" could return in excess of 6 million google hits, it fills my heart with a little sunshine to see not only that this exists, but that it's popular.

thursday

tuesday

ick, dude

i was having a discussion with my parents and sister last night about bugs - in specific, why arachnids are the worst things alive on the planet; and how the whipscorpion is the scariest thing that actually exists - so i did a quick google image search.



this is the giant tanzanian tailless whipscorpion which, according to the accompanying article, is "mostly harmless." that's not the frightening part, however. the article (and mind you this is the FIRST ENTRY RETURNED IN THE SEARCH) is part of an invertebrate collectors' guide based in the united states. the principles of detection lead me to believe, through a fast analysis of available facts, that there are many individuals interested in the import of giant tanzanian tailless whipscorpions to the u.s. what the hell, everybody.

at first, i just believed that this woman was deranged:



. . . what a stupid idiot!
but who knows? maybe the whipscorpion will become some kind of adorable glamour pet!

this might be one of the few reasons i enjoy living in a place where it gets cold enough every year to eradicate any possibility of indigenous giant monsters.

gasket project

some bhb factory interior drawings: environment, equipment, painting templates for products.

gasket project

alright so i felt bad about drawing other stuff, so i sat down again and drew this. more bhb sculpture garden concepts.