HR Giger has passed away as of this past May, just found out about it tonight.

‘Alien’ artist H.R. Giger dead at 74

Love him or hate him, he was certainly one-of-a-kind and one wonders where the ‘goth industry’ would have been without him – much of its art can certainly be considered a Giger ripoff at some point or another.

Definitely not art for the timid or faint of heart, most well known for the xenomorph alien, movie artwork and set design in Alien (reused in the sequels), the ELP and Debbie Harry album covers, and a bit more obscure, one of the original attempts to make a movie out of Dune. I actually have copies of both Dark Seed videogames on my shelf, need to break those out sometime…..

In whatever eerie, disturbing bio-mechanoid resting place you now inhabit, rest in peace, Herr Giger.

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wally:

kaiju!

and finally – oops!

but it was a great one! Here’s a quick video from Pinball News, I think they shot this video Friday…..

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of Bill Watterson!

Bill Watterson makes brief return to cartooning

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although it is now a month old (doh!) this has to be Anna Minard’s funniest column yet – well DONE, sir!

Never Heard of ‘Em (by Anna Minard) – Nico

including classic words like “I used to hear 30 seconds of a punk song and feel like my ears were going to throw up.” and “This is just all bells and talk-singing and waggling noises and some lady who sounds like she lives in a tree.”

too funny.

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Finished watching the recent BBC television anthology show Black Mirror tonight. Scarecrow has the series on DVD, albeit only Region 2 PAL format for now (no USA release yet).

This is one dark show. It’s basically two series (so far), each one is three shows, none are connected to one another. Think of Twilight Zone meets the (somewhat subtle) horror aspects of The Matrix, with the forboding, ever-present sense of doom from The Prisoner and a bit of the bleak outlook from Max Headroom to top it off.

These shows make you think, but make no mistake – they are very, very dark. Not horror per se, but just very dark in tone and outlook. Hard to say if they are being cynical or simply realistic but certainly Rod Serling would be a fan, there’s no question.

I’m not going to talk about any of the plots, because to even read about them on Wikipedia would spoil some of the effect – just watch the show. But there are some things in each show that are hard to watch, be forewarned. I personally thought the first series was a bit better than the second, although the second episode of the second series is a complete mind-trip in the best 70s dystopian sense, updated for the 21st century. The other two episodes for the second series were a bit weaker IMHO, somewhat predictable. But all of them certainly make you think (or even worry)!

Black Mirror on IMDB

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Obviously!

More war propaganda posters can be seen here. Some are quite ridiculous and have not dated well, including at least one very racist one targeting the Japanese.

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….with a dash of Yellow Submarine thrown in! Very cool project and notable also because of the way the project only exists until they knock the building down …

Stunning street art transforms Paris apartments

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So over the past few years I’ve seen an increasing trend (news to nobody I’m sure) of retro art inspired by previous art. That is, you have ‘fake’ movie posters or wholly new ‘ads’ for TV series re-imagined, like the book imaged below, which I saw in a Barnes & Noble recently (and was able to resist buying it, even!).

I’m sure the myriad of artists on Etsy have long been in this game, came across some cool recent examples there, too:

The Geekerie

Sci fi movie pulp covers

Star Trek: The Art of Juan Ortiz

(a few more pics)

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Even *I*, mr fraidy-cat of heights, would likely have to check this out….trip to Dusseldorf, anyone?

Tomás Saraceno
In Orbit, Suspended Installation at K21 Staendehaus by Tomás Saraceno

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