Blacklash
Aamer and Nazeem from Fear Of A Brown Planet have put up a video wrapping up the responses to Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Blackface skit.
The Obama Story
When Lala went to Brooklyn (la-di-da!) last month she got me this amazing comic on Obama. It’s over 200 pages long!! Anyway it was written and illustrated by T.S.Lee (who, according to Google, has also written and illustrated The Darwin Story). Enjoy!
Extroverted Nerds
Apparently the guy who played Doogie Howser loves magic and he once described magicians as a rare breed cause it requires being an ‘extroverted nerd’. My friend Nicole told me that’s a good way to describe me. Anyway, here are my 5 favourite magicians of all time.
1. Ricky Jay
This dude is so nerdy that not only does he collect rare books (man that’s geekier than owning Action Comics #1) but he made sure that his own books become rare collector’s items. A first edition of his book Cards As Weapons is currently on ebay for $399!
Anyway, his best recorded performance is Ricky Jay And His 52 Assistants. Check out an excerpt below.
2. Derren Brown
Derren Brown is my favourite mentalist and his books on mentalism are great. There is a great chapter in Tricks Of The Mind where he tells magicians not to be dickheads when they do a trick. You know that look that magicians get when they do the reveal – the one that goes “Ha! I tricked you! You’re an idiot”. Well, he says don’t do it.
He’s also super in to debunking psychics and religion. If you get a chance hunt down his performance Evening Of Wonders. It is amazing. The first half is fun and the second half becomes really spooky.
This video is him performing some basic mentalist standards (Evening of Wonders is alot better!).
3. Penn and Teller
Everyone knows Penn and Teller. But did you know that they once made a Sega CD game but never sold? And in the game you had to drive a bus from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas IN REAL TIME! That’s an 8 hour drive! And also, the bus veered slightly to the right so you always had to hold the controller! Here’s Penn talking about it on an interview I found here:
“It was just road after road after road. Eight hours of desert bus. And then when you got in – and I love this – when you got into Vegas and pulled in and stopped, the counter – which was five zeros – went to 1. You got 1 point for an eight hour shift, and then a guy came in and said, ‘Do you want to pull a double shift, Mac?’ And then you could drive back to Tucson for another eight hours for another point.”
Apparently you can find roms of the game online.
4. Fred Kaps
The greatest slight of hand magician EVER! He’s probably most famous for being the poor dude who had to come on before the Beatles made their legendary appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Anyway, here’s the performance he did on the show – doing the Homing Card (it looks better in colour unfortunately) and Salt Shaker routines. I’ve also put in The Beatles performance that followed his, cause, you know, I’m nice like that.
5. James Randi
James Randi WILL GIVE YOU ONE MILLION BUCKS if you can prove that you are a psychic.
Shoot the Tre
We had had a great time in Newcastle, at the TINA zine fair last weekend. Rad day, even if the weather wasn’t so good. Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of Beef Knuckles #2.
Here’s an expert from the new Beef.
Super Radical Gag Family 浦安鉄筋家族
Super Radical Gag Family was the only manga that i picked up on a weekly basis while I lived in Japan. I absolutely loved it because it contained so much poo, snot and vomit in each installment (I love poo. In fact, my comic in Beef Knuckles #2 is about a time I was constipated as a kid).
Anyway, here are some shots from it.
It starts off with the two Osawagi children bumping in to some ‘friends’ who invite them over to play at their house. At first they refuse because they are terrified of their friend’s older sister but are persuaded to go when they find out that the sister is now in jail.
This is their house. Cue lots of visual toilet jokes. I love the bottom right corner!
“What is this house?!”. “Don’t shit right next to the kitchen!” “It stinks like shit!”
Anyway, they watch tv and discover the older sister has escaped from jail an hour earlier.
Everyone freaks out. “She’s going to come back here!” “You have to help us!”
More freaking out.
Anyway, they all run away but the jailbird sister is able to find them because the father has left a trail of toilet paper.
The sister goes crazy, starts beating everyone up, until one of them throws a small ume boshi (pickled plum) and hits her right between the eyes. This paralyses her and they dress her up as Colonel Sanders and leave her in front of their local KFC (well BFC).
The Covers Are Done
Hey! So I spent all Sunday screen printing our covers and I think they look great! To screen them I used a thing called a Print Gocco (プリントゴッコ) which is a self contained screen prining unit that I bought in Japan. The whole thing burns your screens and prints it with the special Gocco inks. This is what it looks like:
I made 110 covers and soon there wasn’t any more floor space to dry them on.
Summershine, what a way to find…
Please excuse this brief nerd out. I was in Shibuya just a few weeks ago. It’s a magical place. I took a quick peek through the 100 yen crates at Disk Union (the loser’s RecoFan) and pulled out a special lucky dip prize – a shrinkwrapped collection of about 22 original Summershine 7-inches. Winner! Amongst the spoils were Honeybunch’s classic “Walking Into Walls” b/w “Mine Your Own Business”, Velocity Girl’s early cruncher “I Don’t Care If You Go” b/w “Not At All”, enough Sugargliders to make my record player cry, and a whole bunch of other willowy jangle that makes me wanna roadtrip to Prahran in the morning. They all smell like a mixture of Old Spice and cinnamon, so I know their last owner had class. I’d post a photo but a) I can’t be bothered, and b) who really gives a shit. So instead, here’s a really great video from The Desert Wolves that has absolutely nothing to do with this post, enjoy.
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