Yesterday, I came across a marvellous book by John Venn Mortensen called Post-It Monsters (Sticky Monsters in the American version).
This is the work of a Danish TV director and illustrator who spends his free time making macabre drawings using post-it notes as his canvasses.
Check out his blog or this pinboard for more pictures.
They are sinister but great fun and will appeal to fans of Tim Burton and monster lovers everywhere.
Paul Reubens career looked to be over when in 1991 he was arrested on suspicion of wanking in a porn cinema in Florida. This was an actor who had risen to fame as the camp man-child Pee-Wee Herman and suddenly the sleazy mug shots in the tabloids made him look anything but a harmless kids entertainer.
Prior to this public disgrace he had embraced the Pee-Wee persona so completely that he never appeared in public out of character, a fact he now acknowledges as maximising the fallout from his indiscretion.
It is probably no coincidence that the 1985 movie, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, has a far lower profile than other Tim Burton movies even though I’d rate it as superior to many Burton made afterwards and certainly better than Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks or Alice In Wonderland. It has rightly maintained its status as a cult film and is deserving of reappraisal.
I remember being bowled over by it at the cinema when it was first released and recall how members of the audience leaving on bicycles rode off imitating Pee-Wee’s mad laughter.
In the U.S. the character’s cult status was consolidated by the Playhouse kid’s show which was uniquely surreal in a way that stood out from the safe and sensible alternatives. As one fan stated in a documentary about Pee-Wee’s rise and fall, Sesame Street taught kids to spell, Reubens taught kids how to scream! Continue reading
The 9 year old son of a friend I visited while in England was mad on Batman. Not the latest dark incarnation or even Tim Burton’s gothic version, but the 1960s TV shows. He had all the episodes on DVD and watched them continually so was able to tell us what was coming next and quote key lines. I asked his Mom & Dad if he liked the recent movie versions and they said that he hadn’t seen them yet. This was a deliberate policy on their part to preserve the innocent pleasure he is getting form Adam West’s camp depiction of the caped crusader. I grew up watching these shows so could understand the appeal. They are hugely dated now and were oddities pretty well as soon as they were made.
Certainly, the contrast between the colourful comic strip action and the shadowy sense of menace in the new Dark Knight film could not be more pronounced. At the cinema in Brighton where I saw it, the parental guidance alongside the 12A rating said that the movie contained “moderate violence and continuous threat” which I’d say was quite accurate. Continue reading
Emily (the) Strange was not a planned birth. In 1993, in embryonic form, she was just a T-shirt created by Rob Reger, inspired by a skateboard sketch by Nate Carrico.
After that, she was a series of stickers handed out at shows. Gradually her look and personality have been fleshed out.
Reger is also co-founder of Thuja – the first group to become identified with the Jewelled Antler collective whose label and bands helped define the sound of New Weird America.
She wears black and is fascinated by all things gothic. She feels at home in the realm of Tim Burton. She likes spiders because spiders are black and like to live in dark corners. She feels at home in cemeteries. She doesn’t read ‘normal’ books. Her parents fret about her and tell her she should get out more.
In short, Emily’s world is the flipside of everything Barbie stands for and aspires to. What Barbie girls love, Emily hates and vice versa. While Barbie luxuriates in a fluffy pink land of dreams – Emily relishes in the realm of dark nightmares.
What they do share is the rejection of what most would perceive as the life of the ordinary with its endless responsibilities and sensible choices. While Barbie wants to escape into the glamorous world full of handsome princes, beautiful clothes and pure luxury; Emily abhors this shiny, happy world . She would feel at home in a dungeon or in libraries full of large tomes gathering dust on shelves.
She stands for the exact opposite to the lifestyle tips presented to readers of glossy magazines.
She is a heroine for our times.
In their Oscar acceptance speech, the Coen Brothers expressed thanks for being allowed to play in their corner of the sandpit. The other corner is surely reserved for Tim Burton who, like the Coens, has consistently made movies that follow a unique vision and which steadfastly refuse to pander to Hollywood conventions. Continue reading
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