Ray Fenwick’s Drama Club

 

Ray did a comic strip  called “Hall of Best Knowledge” which was obsessive and silly and award winning. He certainly knows his way around a  a brush and ink. He’s got some new work up after he retired his “HoBK” called “Drama Club” which is also excellent. In fact, he has used… a colour or two in his new stuff! He’s also just signed a deal with Fantagraphics and sounds like a fun guy. For a few hours of entertainment you can’t go wrong. (Does this man sleep?)

Drama Club
Hall of Best Knowledge
His website

Bawidamann – Pinup Artist

UPDATE: This article has been moved to 1over100.com

Andrew Bawidamann has made the 40’s pinup his own. Lots of slick renderings of army gals packing heat make for an interesting couple of minutes cheescake. If you collect gig posters, check out his collection.

Link

Web 2.0 Colour Palette aka Secret Online Weapon

View the jpg above, or download the Photoshop colour palette, couresy of Miles Burke. Cheers, Mate!

Nine Inch Nails Creates Year Zero With 42 Entertainment

I just read Brian Cain‘s Year Zero blog post down at Campfire, and I liked it so much I completely stole and reproduced it below. I was happy to note that Brian uncovered 42 Entertainment as the force behind some of these very creative and media-blurring ideas.

Nine Inch Nails have a nice arg style campaign going on currently to support the new album “Year Zero” that will be released on April 16th.

It’s well done by the folks over at 42 Entertainment and, more importantly, goes along with our entire motto of blurring the line between marketing and entertainment.

As Trent Reznor puts it, “What you are now starting to experience IS ‘year zero’. It’s not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record – it IS the art form…”

That’s the secret guys…eyeballs are no longer captive to forcefed taglines and images of shiny products in the noon day sun. If you wanna connect with your audience you have to approach them with something they want to see.

It’s working for Year Zero in a big way. And even more interesting is the fan made materials that are starting to appear. This homemade clip for one of the new songs off the album holds just as much power as the official video that was released a few days ago.

– stolen from Brain Cain’s Year Zero post at Campfire.

Keeping Abreast of the Buzz in the Biz: My Not-So-Secret Weapons Revealed

Many of these sites have been mentioned on this blog, or even exist in the sidebar, but they are worth repeating. If you want or need to know more about global internet trends, then there are a few fun ways to put your finger on the pulse.

VIDEO:
What are people watching? What are people linking to? What are people talking about? Two sites do a very good job of covering this from two different perspectives. ViralVideoChart measures links, Videmeter measures views.
ViralVideoChart.com
Vidmeter.com

SEARCH:
People look for things that interest them. They have a specific intent in mind when they type words into a search engine. This stuff is gold, and both Yahoo and Google have interesting pages to track trends and cultural shifts.
Yahoo! Buzz
Google Zeitgeist

BLOGS:
Blogging makes the internet world turn. It is word-of-mouth in a rocketship. Knowing what people are talking about is the key to understanding them and what they really want. These sites are worth their weight in wit.
WTF [Where’s The Fire] by Technorati
BuzzFeed

We only feature movies, music, fashion, ideas, technology, and culture that are on the rise and worth your time. – BuzzFeed

ONLINE ADVERTISING:
There are a million ad blogs, but the best aggregation I have come accross for one stop shop-talk is the Ad Feed.
TheAdFeed.com

There. Now you know a few of my more obvious secret weapons. I’m going to have to dig a bit deeper next time…

Submit to The Bruise

cold_elf wants you to share pretty things you’ve made at The Bruise.

the bruise is a magazine.
the bruise = sound + image + word.
the bruise likes you.
the bruise seeks your input.
the bruise will never hurt.
the bruise believes in art as a powerful and unifying tool for mutual support.

The Bruise is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research and production environment that will explore the intersections between art, sound, interactivity, intermedia and virtual space. The Bruise is your friendly contusion, your fibrous abundant quota. We go 50-50 with you. We seek to share, support and exchange ideas, images, sounds in the spirit of the FREE CULTURE – The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. A good example is the current “open source” development. What is posted on The Bruise will never be for sale or valued monetarily within the planned economy. The Bruise wants your to participate and help establish in a different paradigm – New World Economy, one that supports the nurturing of a sustainable ecology, human rights, and a culture not rooted in domination, egotism, and competition.

Mentos Make Art Pop NSFW?

NSFW is an acronym for Not Safe For Work. It usually denotes images of a sexual nature that may not be appropriate if your boss walks up behind you. But the internet is a new frontier, and what could be more lawless than a brand campaign that lets users draw what they want? Mentos Make Art Pop lets people pop Mentos gum out of virtual packs to make pixelated drawings. There doesn’t appear to be anyone moderating the images at this time. Of course, what better way to make your mark on the world but to draw a big pair of boobs, or perhaps a penis? Of course, this is may be counter-balanced by adorable puppies or little airplanes. I guess the real question here is, does it make you want to buy the gum? You decide. Go pop your own art.

I, Robot Researcher, Do Solemnly Swear…

NewScientistTech reports that South Korea took a page from Isaac Assimov’s famous I, Robot series and began work on a Robot Ethics Charter. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy claims a five member task force, which includes a science-fiction writer, have been pondering this since November of 2006.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen anything to worry about from the robot camp. But the robot researchers are creeping me out a bit with comments like these:

“Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives,” Park Hye-Young of the ministry’s code of ethics team says. “Others may get addicted to interacting with them just as many internet users get hooked on the cyberworld.”

Uh… what are these rules for again?

Rorshach Test Image Spotted in 300 Trailer

Someone on YouTube discovered that exactly 1 minute and 52 seconds into the latest 300 trailer, there was a test image of Rorshach, from the upcoming Zach Snyder movie, Watchmen. Of course, Warner demanded that YouTube remove the copyright-protected material, but here is a picture of what was shown: Rarshach on the moonlit streets of NYC, holding the bloody happyface pin of the Comedian. Thanks to Simon for this little tip.

Artist Creates KICK-ASS Personal Annual Report

Feltron is my new personal hero. Not only is he a brilliant designer, but he is insane in the best possible obsessive-compulsive way. He has meticulously recorded, documented, and designed a beautiful annual report on his life in 2006. It includes air miles traveled, restaurants eaten at, types of beers drank, number of iTunes tracks played, breakdowns of movie genres watched, and much much more. And I thought I was crazy to carry around a set of Mundane LifeFocus™ Cards to keep track of my daily routines.