Stumbled upon UK illustrator and book cover design virtuoso  Adam Simpson and found his cover for last year’s Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog by Aussie writer P. Robert Smith. It’s rare you find yourself looking at a book cover for more than three to five seconds. This one won’t let you take your eyes off it until you’ve figured out what’s going on with every tiny Where’s Waldo-esque character. You are amazing, Adam!

Hope the holiday break was as reinvigorating for everyone else as it was for us. My computer took a shit and I had to get it fixed, hence the crickets and tumbleweeds over in this little corner of the internet for the past week or so. It was nice to step away for a bit, but I did get the feeling like the world was jogging away from me while I sat in a lawn chair and sipped hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. Time to get off my ass! Time to get off your ass! Time to catch up with the world! Time to jog up to it and goose it as you run by it, then run backwards to face it and give it the two-fingers-to-the-eyes-I’m-watching-you move and then turn on the afterburners!

So what happened while we were away?

Someone came up with the best idea I’ve seen in a long time: Oprah, Read This [via]

Some people unleashed a final avalanche of year end lists and this guy made the definitive one. [via]

Some stuff got expensive.

Some big guns came to the aid of a Chinese writer.

Or wait, was this the definitive year-end list?

What else…um, some asshole set himself on fire on a plane, that blue cat alien movie made a shit-ton more money, and Rush Limbaugh didn’t die.

Some randomness from my week without cyber drugs:

Oh hey, Lexy. Who are you gchatting with?

Oh hey, Steve. Why’d you just close that gchat window?

Walking home from the store we found a park. I said it would be a perfect place to throw a ball or a ‘bee around. Magically, these were on the bench, waiting for us.

I lit off fireworks and danced on New Years Eve.

I drank but did not get drunk. While the ladies were inside dancing, the men leaned against a strangers car and talked about relationships. The first New Years where I felt old. I did not feel good or bad about being old. Just okay with it.

We bought fish. Not for keeping…

But for releasing.

To start the year off with some good karma.

In hindsight I realize this could potentially be environmentally irresponsible, releasing a goldfish into an ecosystem that isn’t used to it. I imagine I’d have a tsunami of bad karma coming my way if I destroyed an entire habitat.

Shit. Need to think these things through more.

Oh well. Here’s to hoping they don’t tip the balance too much.

I know I said we were gonna take off for the break but it just felt wrong to leave you hanging out there in the wind like that. We need to stick together in this world, so we’re going to be keeping it chill here over the break instead of ceasing all communications.

Anyway:

I got my issues with The Rumpus. Sometimes they can be a little too NY and SF focused and can kinda forget that anything of artistic and literary merit is happening anywhere else in the country. And also, after some pretty admirable efforts on my part to do what little promotion I can with the small amount of credibility I have to promote Stephen Elliott’s book, I have yet to get that attention reciprocated onto me and my project. Wouldn’t kill them to link to some of the cool shit that happens here. Not that that’s why I dedicated all that time and money to pumping up Adderall Diaries. It’s a damn fine book by a damn fine writer, and I believe in both. Wouldn’t kill him to show a little appreciation over there is all. I’m just saying.

Whatever. The Rumpus is cool. I’m just airing some sour grapes. It’s kind of petty to be ripping on one of the few places on the internet for things of substance. And I’m starting to sound like the nerd who wasn’t invited to the party.

My favorite thing they got goin on nowadys is Pornographic Barn Owl. Simple, subtle, sublime. Often laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes sweetly sad, always hilariously honest. Imagine if Raymond Pettibon was way funnier and drew a weekly strip. I’m waiting for the collected works of Ian Huebert to come out. I will buy that shit.

Geez, I thought I was supposed to be keeping it chill…

Check out the hyper-natural work of environmental artist Jenny Kendler if you want to get in touch with your inner animal.

I made a new friend. Her name is Gianelle Gelpi. She arts here. I wanted an excuse to post the above image because I think it is amazing. Click the link and check her out. And don’t be scared to check out her side project Furry Fangs:

Wow!

Here we have a case of my ignorance of artistic styles and movements getting the best of me.

When I look at these I hear French accordions chugging to life and tumbling into a jolly yet melancholic (and slightly drunk) tune, swimming in cigarette smoke and sunglasses. I know that’s called something and I know there’s an artist who pioneered that style, but I don’t know their name or when they lived. All I know is I like them.

Some questions for the peanut gallery:

-Is it important to know why you like something? Follow-up: Does analyzing this thing that you like reduce your affection for it?

-Is it anti-intellectual to admit your ignorance and not be ashamed of it?

-Is it mildly scandalous that I run a magazine with a heavy bent towards fine art yet I have little-to-no knowledge of art history?

After roughly three or four years sitting in front of a computer one can get a little sick of pouring over images created on a computer. Let’s take a refreshing look at a lo-tech, high-skill way of producing a palatable cover…

Looking more like sale sign in a store front window than a book cover, Lauren Weber’s treatise on keeping things frugal uses its mistakes to its advantage. Why spend the money on a fresh piece of paper when you could do the grade school trick of erasing your mistakes and drawing over them bigger and brighter?

Bad Seed follows up And The Ass Saw The Angel two decades later with a story of a traveling salesman with a taste for seducing the women to whom he sells his beauty products. Things get upended in Bunny’s world when his wife commits suicide, thus sending him on a journey with his son, Bunny Jr., to try and escape the guilt he feels and the devil-horned madman who seems to be chasing them.

The UK cover bears mentioning due to its bad-assness and could fill a spot in this department on its own, but we’ve got a theme here and we’re sticking to it.

The US cover veers dangerously close to some sort of Sunset Strip, Ed Hardy, Chateau Marmont bullshit with the pinks and yellows and gothic lettering. It barely (just barely!) gets saved by the smudgy charcoal drawing and the presence of Nick Cave’s name, which could take even the corniest, sequined-est, fake-tanned-est thing and make it cool.

The most compelling title of the bunch is David Small’s Stitches. The memoir of a fucked up childhood, which may sound kind of standard fare for most memoirs, but sounds a hell of a lot more interesting when you find out it’s in graphic novel form by an award-winning children’s author.

Small’s washed out water colors seem like the perfect fit for a story about Kafka-dream/nightmare-reality wherein you wake up one day, you cannot speak and you are told you are expected to die soon.

Summation: Fuck computers. Let’s sling some ink.

In more-people-stealing-my-ideas news: the people at Sing Statistics took the idea of publishing stories and illustrations together and took it to dizzying new heights with We Are the Friction. An eyebrow-raisingly impressive list of contributors makes this collection look like a must have for the small-press collector/fiend in your life. The Brits done did it again.

I’m sick today and the only thing that’s making me feel better is Martine Johanna‘s crazy ass ilustrations. Her work, at times, feels like a mix between Alfons Mucha and J-horror films. Frightening and beautiful all at once. Just what I need to clear my sinuses.

Penguin commissioned Ruben Toledo to draw up some covers for some of their classic snooze-fests in celebration of fashion week or some bullshit.

Penguin’s heart is in the right place, trying to spruce up some old dogs with fancy new covers, and the drawings aren’t bad, but good book covers these do not make.

It makes these books look like a Tim Burton picture book adaptation of the classic stories. If you’re going to get some new artists to gussy up some old novels how about doing it with a little bit of balls and/or ovaries?

How about Aurel Schmidt takes on Bukowski:

Or Dante by Neckface.

Or better yet, let Angela Boatwright tackle Emily Bronte.

There. All fixed.