[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Blame it on Tweed!
Look Here, Read: An intro to old-school, cut-and-paste photomontage
At one of the local Thrift Stores a few days ago, I came across a stack of back issues of The Photo from the 1980s. Although most of the information in The Photo is out of date for those of us who have embraced the digital age, I still managed to pick out five issues that had articles and other features of interest to me. In fact, the first issue I picked up, the one that was right at the top of the pile — The Photo #22 (1981) — included an article called “Simple Montages” that I thought would be perfect to share here on RCN. One thing I noticed right away about The Photo is that the magazine regularly featured articles about how to photograph the (female) nude, which very strongly indicated to me here in 2012 that the editors circa 1981 thought the magazine’s readership was mostly men! Another thing I noticed is that, although the covers of The Photo generally featured the usual shots of athletes in action, picturesque landscapes, wildlife hi-jinks, etc., every once in a while they would feature a subject that was a little more provocative. Think of it as “fan service” for photo buffs. Or casual sexism in the service of sales, if you prefer. Either way, enjoy!
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Now I don’t know about you, but whenever I see a photograph, painting, drawing, etc., of a naked woman, or even just an image of a beautiful woman period, I wonder how much of my response to the image, if my response is positive, is due to the presence of the naked and/or beautiful woman and how much is due to the formal qualities of the image…
Could a magazine sold in drugstores in 2012 get away with a cover image like the one featured on the front of The Photo #19 back in 1981? Somehow I doubt it…
Look Here: Poladroid Gallery, 08 June to 01 July 2012
As a test of your patience, here (in no particular order) are all of the Poladroid pictures that I’ve posted to Twitter since the last time I posted all of the Poladroid pictures that I’ve posted to Twitter, including two Poladroids that I created but then didn’t post; as a “bonus,” I’ve included a snapshot of my “Krazy & Ignatz” collection, as it appears on the shelf in our living room that I didn’t convert to a Poladroid before I posted it to Twitter but instead just posted it as is:
To view RCN’s Twitter stream, click here.
Out of Context: “But in the tree above, Ann has witnessed the whole scene.”
Heads Up: “Barack Hussein Obama” by Steven Weissman
Coming in September 2012 (subject to change):
Here’s the official description from the Fantagraphics catalogue:
What does it mean to live in America today? If you know there’s no right answer to that question, you’ll want to read Barack Hussein Obama — a book about you; about your country, your family, your president.
Barack Hussein Obama is not a graphic novel. It’s neither a biography nor an experiment, but a whole, fully-realized parallel America, a dada-esque, surrealistic satirical vision that is no more cockeyed than the real thing, its weirdness no more weird, its vision of the world no more terrifying, where the zombie-esque simulacra of Joe Biden and Hillary and Newt and Obama wander, if not exactly through the corridors of power, through an America they made and have to live in, like it or not.
American cartoonist Steven Weissman takes from the lives of the leader of the free world, his friends, his family, his sworn enemies, and gives them a new life that is both withering and oblique, devastating and contemplative, chaotic and pellucid.
Before you lose your will to vote, read Barack Hussein Obama.
You can read Weissman’s “Barack Hussein Obama” strips online via the “what things do” site: click here.
At turns poetic, surreal, absurd, enigmatic, horrifying, and laugh-out-loud funny, Steven Weissman’s “Barack Hussein Obama” is American politics viewed through gamma-ray specs. Here there be monsters. On both sides of the lenses.
Look Here, Read: “A Zen Fable” by Fred Schrier
From Meef Comix #2 (May 1973), here’s “A Zen Fable” by the inimitable Fred Schrier, whose work in underground comics is ripe for rediscovery:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Connections: W. Jesco von Puttkamer and Joni Mitchell
In the dedication on the inside gatefold of her album The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell thanks “National Geographic Magazine,” amongst others, but doesn’t explain why. Here’s why:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The photographer was explorer W. Jesco von Puttkamer, who documented the plight of “Brazil’s Beleaguered Indians” for National Geographic‘s February 1975 issue.
Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns was released in November 1975. In her notes, Mitchell tells us that she “drew the cover and designed the package with research help and guidance from Glen Christensen, Elektra/Asylum Art Director.” She thanks National Geographic Magazine and others, as I’ve already said. She does not, however, mention W. Jesco von Puttkamer by name.
Of course, I realize that 1975 is a long time ago, but it was only today at a garage sale that I purchased the National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our World (1979) for a buck and instantly recognized the reprint of W. Jesco von Puttkamer’s photo on page 72 as one of the primary reference sources for Joni Mitchell’s drawing.
Look There, Read: An interview with Graham Moore, collage artist
Earlier today, Michael Dooley of Print Magazine’s Imprint blog posted his interview with artist and designer Graham Moore, entitled A Designer’s Midcentury-Mod Music-Graphics Mashups. It is Moore’s collage art that is the focus of the piece. If I could own one of the collages displayed along with the interview or on Moore’s website, it would be GrahamMoore_04.jpg/mo-dernes.jpg (see below), which I imagine to be an enigmatic glimpse of the 1960s through the lens of a parched but ultra-stylish future:
I would love to see more collages by Moore along the same lines, but, alas, “Mo Dernes” seems to be a one-off… although here’s a piece from Moore’s sketchbook that explains the silhouettes of the women:
See also here and here on Moore’s site for more sketchbook variations on the silhouette theme.
Magritte did a lot with silhouettes. I’ll post some examples when I have a moment…
BONUS IMAGES:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Update (10 October 2012):
Just thought I would mention here that I contacted Graham Moore after I posted the above images and information and asked him if the mo-dernes collage was for sale — it was! — and even though his asking price was a little beyond what my meagre acquisitions budget can ordinarily sustain for a single work of art, Graham kindly made it possible for me to own the piece by allowing me to pay for it in affordable instalments spread out over about three months.
And as I told Graham by email when I finally had the artwork in hand, I’m very pleased with my purchase. Mo-dernes is a page cut from Graham’s sketchbook, and as such, I expected it to be smaller than it is. In fact, the piece is fairly large for an old-fashioned, hand-cut, magazine-image collage. And needless to say, aesthetically speaking, it really hits a sweet spot for me in terms of composition, colour, and content. I won’t torture you with a formal analysis of what you can see for yourself; however, I must say, this time around, with the actual artwork in front of me, I’m especially taken with the way that the physical texture of the orange paint that Graham has mopped and dragged across the grain of the paper echoes the virtual black-and-white texture visible most clearly in the skin of the models inside the silhouettes. Lovely!
Look Here, Read: An original MISS PEACH Sunday strip by Mell
In our collection of original comic-strip art, my wife and I already have several Miss Peach dailies by Mell Lazarus (see here, here, and here), but my personal grail has long been a Sunday strip from the 1960s, when Mell’s drawings of his cartoon kids were at their most expressive and his wit was always razor sharp. Well, my quest is finally complete! Because yesterday I won an ebay auction for a big, beautiful original Miss Peach Sunday strip dated 12-2-1962 with a great gag featuring Francine and Arthur. (And at a good price, which is important, because our budget for original art is currently stretched to the max!) I don’t have the artwork in hand yet, but here’s the image from the ebay auction, and though it looks pieced together from smaller scans, it is probably as good as or better than anything I could possibly produce with our little scanner/printer:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The strip is a whopping 24 inches wide by 18 1/2 inches high, and it comes with a tissue paper overlay roughly festooned with Mell’s crayon colour notes, intended as a guide for the printer:
And you know what? At this moment I feel like I never need to buy another Miss Peach original. I have what I wanted. I’m happy. And I’m done.
Unless…
Look Here: Eight colour illustrations by J. R. Flanagan
At the Thrift Shop this morning, I purchased the illustrated edition of Henry van Dyke’s The Story of the Other Wise Man published by Harper & Brothers back in the early 1920s; the book has no dust cover, but since the rest of it is in good condition, and it only cost me 99 cents, I have no complaints. Although it is alarmingly easy to crack the spines of old books like this one simply by opening them too wide, never mind flattening them out on the scanner, I feel that the binding in this instance is both sturdy enough and loose enough to survive a bit of a workout, so…
Here are all eight of artist J. R. Flanagan’s colour illustrations for The Story of the Other Wise Man, freshly steamed and pressed for the Web by yours truly:
The Story of the Other Wise Man also includes many lovely line drawings by Flanagan, but I’ll save those for another day.
Ragged Claws Network 
