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Quimper
Quimper is the kind of band whose music perfectly suits its name. Jodie Lowther and Johnny Vertigen piece together crystalline songs that chime on the surface but susurrate inside. It is electronic...
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Green Glow
This has been an exciting week for fans of weird music. Not only did Quimper release their new EP on Friday, but The Residents are embarking on another tour and Peter Murphy is bringing out his tenth...
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Strange Girls: Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman is the kind of artist whose style has been mimicked over and over, to the point where, even if you aren’t familiar with her name, you probably know her style. Achromatic photographs...
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The Death of Archie?
DC Comics used to print what they called “imaginary stories”- short, non-canon tales that allowed writers to do outlandish things with their characters that simply couldn’t happen in normal...
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Sue Townsend (1946-2014)
Yesterday, a friend informed me that the British author Sue Townsend had just died, at only 68 years of age. Townsend was best known for the diaries of Adrian Mole, chronicling the life of a young...
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So Young, But So Cold: Mary Goes Round
The Sisters of Mercy didn’t release many albums, but almost all of them are perfect. The only exception is Vision Thing. While it must have fans, the only song in that captures the same mood as the...
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Comic Creators: George Herriman
I’ve decided to start a feature focusing on some of my favourite comic strip artists and writers. I want to focus on all forms and genres of sequential art, from newspaper cartoons to manga to...
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Weird of the Day: The Sand Noise Device
Originally posted on The Weirdest Band in the World: Reason #1,386 why we should have gone to Moogfest: A bunch of students from Cal State presented a contraption called the Sand Noise Device that’s...
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The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories, edited by Apostolou and Greenberg
Originally posted on the Little Red Reviewer: The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories, edited by John L. Apostolou and Martin H. Greenberg published in 1989 where I got it: purchased used . . . . ....
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Strange Girls: Eudora
The supporting characters in Peanuts were often as interesting- sometimes even more -than the main cast. (This is true of a lot of fiction, though.) They may not have been as well-defined to carry a...
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Black-and-White Reviews: Uzumaki
The work of mangaka Junji Ito was recommended to me by Adam Whybray of CageWisdom (a blog almost entirely devoted to Nicholas Cage films) following my review of Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black...
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Pharmakon
Please note that this post is about the musician, not the Sailor Moon villain. Though the latter looks pretty scary (not to mention really groovy), so they probably have a lot in common. Few people are...
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Review: Invisible Cities
I love cities. More than that, I love books about cities. (Especially those with elements of Speculative Fiction.) They really are their own genre. No matter what their subject matter, tone or themes...
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Comic Creators: Dudley D. Watkins
Watkins’ name might not be that well-known, but his work certainly is- to British people, at least. Comic magazines such as The Beano and The Dandy were widely read for decades, to the point of being...
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So Young, But So Cold: Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Cancer’s music is pure atmosphere. While her music may have more in common with Darkwave than French Coldwave, it gives me a similar feeling to the latter, and it can’t be denied that they...
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A Family Gouting
If there ever begins a sudden wave of experimental bands from Ipswich, then hopefully Gout Pony will be remembered as the first of them. Gout Pony is a Trampcore band, so far the only one of its kind....
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Black-and-White Reviews: Phonogram, Volume 1: Rue Britannia
The hard part about buying comics (aside from the cost) is that it’s often quite difficult to judge which ones you’ll enjoy. You need to weigh the art against the writing. If they don’t balance out,...
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Dan Flavin
Neon lights are beautiful. That’s true of all artificial light, but neon is special. Even for elements of a cityscape, there’s something unnatural about them. It never occurred to me that you could...
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Ever Wished That Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Would Return to the...
Originally posted on Pearls Before Swine: Bill Watterson is the Bigfoot of cartooning. He is legendary. He is reclusive. And like Bigfoot, there is really only one photo of him in existence. Few in...
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Rik Mayall
One of my favourite comedians, Rik Mayall, was found dead today. Like Sue Townsend, he died far too soon, at only 56 years old. Mayall really was one of the funniest people I have ever seen on...
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