Vigorously Lazy

I hired Jen O’Malley to lay out the new issue. We’re at Stardust working on it all day today. I would tell you to come over and say hi, but we’re very, very busy and must avoid all distractions. So please leave us alone. Sorry, you can come chill with us if you want to.

Got read a good submission yesterday from David Peak that got me thinking about horror. He wrote a bit about the video boxes of 80’s horror movies, which no one can deny the awesomeness of. It made me wonder if there were horror novels out there that reflected that era. Because as the above shows, there’s some vanilla bullshit out there right now.

I’m not going to go into how boring and unscary this cover is, or how that cover blurb is borderline embareassing (Most likeable book? Not exactly saying it’s a “triumph of the genre”, more like saying, “I had very little urge to barf.”), let’s just say horror novel covers these days are garbage and move on.

And now for some good old fashioned nostalgia…

Holy shit, did you not just piss yourself a little when you looked at this? Okay, maybe you didn’t cause you’re 26 years old, but imagine looking at this when you were 5 when you actually played on the sidewalk near storm drains and actually made paper boats. Nightmare city.

Yes! Getting a little bit more schlocky now. It seems to me that there was a groundswell in the 80’s design world that just decided to throw subtlety and innuendo completely out the window. And I love them for it.

I guess this would be considered the Penguin Classics version of horror books. The Cthulhu mythos is really interesting but there’s so many better renderings of Lovecraft’s infamous god that this one seems a bit Marvel Comics in comparison.

Why do horror book covers suck so bad right now? I think people are too lazy or apathetic to be scared nowadays and the book covers reflect that. Gimme the old nightmare days. I want to see a new golden age of scary-as-shit horror book covers.

Anybody got any old favorites they want to share?

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.

Issue #3 contributor and all around fantastic artist owleyes has exploded onto the blogosphere in the last few months with andiamonds. Certainly interesting to get a looksee into all the freaky things that influence his work.

Enjoy your freaky Friday and equally freaky weekend!

Who knew combining Gregory Maguire and a shitty tattoo would result in something mildly cool.

So, you think this green movement is the best move society has made since outlawing murder? Think again, says Amy Stewart. In Wicked Plants, Stewart reveals that the leafy green world is filled with trecherous organisms have no interest in producing tasty salad fixins and nourishing oxygen. In fact, they’d like to see you dead. And not just weird Amazonian plants with long scientific names. There’s plants right outside your door that have it in for you.

I would have tightended up the boarder a little bit, but for the most part this cover does a good job presenting the reader with the elegantly deadly subject matter. Well done, nameless Algonquin designer.

I got a package in the mail the other day with some very pretty stamps on it.

I was already pretty excited about that, then I opened it up and saw a new photo zine thingy from Rose!

It’s all about discarded umbrellas. It made me think about all the shitty days that must have happened to all those people who gave up on their umbrellas like that.

Surely you didn’t think we were done with business cards after the Kluge. The Mama’s boys hooked me up with bookbinder extrodinaire Monica Holtsclaw of Boombox Bindery to do some gilding for us. How off the sicktor chain is this? Pretty off the sicktor chain. It blows my mind that someone is doing this type of thing in my town. Thanks Monica!