Cory Doctorow at 11:38 am • 
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If you love Sharpies (as I do), but actually manage to hold onto them until they run out, rather than losing them at the rate of several a week (as I do), then you might benefit from the refillable, stainless steel Sharpie ($5.78), which would spare you the sad sensation you get when you drop your dead Sharpie into the trash.
There's only one time in my life that I actually used up a Sharpie: when I was signing the title-pages for something like 5,000 hardcovers of this graphic novel, and I had the curious sensation of uncapping a fresh Sharpie and signing until it ran dry -- it was something like using up an entire chapstick, a weird kind of accomplishment.
Sharpie Stainless Steel Fine Point Permanent Marker
(via Core 77)
Cory Doctorow at 8:17 am • •
The forthcoming Bioshock board-game (!) has some pretty wicked-cool miniatures that look like they'd be fun to play with, separate of any virtue they have as tokens for their game.
BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia PRE-ORDER [Plaid Hat Games]
A look at the miniatures from the Bioshock Infinite board game [Super Punch]
Cory Doctorow at 6:56 pm • •
Etsy seller Shenova (who also does some nice-looking, science-y leggings), makes these $135 Mars Curiosity rover dresses to order:
This super special space chic fashion forward dress has a real NASA image from the Mars Curiosity Rover, also with a rover "track" print on the other side. It it made from custom printed non-fading, durable Lycra stretch fabric with a cotton stretch black backing for a lovely slimming effect. There is also a cute silver strap detail at the top. Very comfortable fabric, easy fitting.
The Curiosity lettering is hand studded with crystals for extra fanciness. You'll surely impress your friends with this one! Hem is 32" but can be adjusted if you add a note.
NASA Mars Curiosity Print Rover Dress Space Chic
(via IO9)
Cory Doctorow at 3:05 pm • •
Finland's Head Hunter is selling a set of accessories that you can use to turn yourself (or a mannequin) into a terrifyingly credible Judge Death from 2000AD's Judge Dredd. It appears that the costume was made by DeviantArt member Warrior1944, who may or may not be "Peter Olsson, a huge Dredd fan from Sweden," though I'm not entirely sure of the relationship here. Looks like 2000AD is gearing up for some legal enforcement against Head Hunter, so if you're planning on getting this, you should probably hurry.
Head Hunter has promised four Dark Judges, and a short film to be produced in Finland, using all of them.
JUDGE DEATH 1:1 STATUE/SUIT
(via Geeks Are Sexy)
Cory Doctorow at 5:50 am • •
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a recent graphic novel adaptation of the classic 1928 HP Lovecraft story of the same name, masterfully executed by INJ Culbard.
The dirty secret of the Cthulhu mythos is that their originator, HP Lovecraft, wasn't a very good writer. In addition to his unfortunate tendency to embrace his era's backwards ideas about race and gender, Lovecraft was also fond of elaborate, tedious description that obscured the action and dialog. Which is a pity, because Lovecraft did have one of the great dark imaginations of literature, a positive gift for conjuring up the most unspeakable, unnameable (and often unpronounceable) horrors of the genre, so much so that they persist to this day.
Enter INJ Culbard, whose work adapting various Sherlock Holmes stories into graphic novels for Self-Made Hero press I've reviewed here in the past. Culbard is a fine storyteller and artist, and makes truly excellent use of the medium to deliver a streamlined Lovecraft, one where the protracted, over-elaborated descriptions are converted to dark, angular drawings that manage to capture all the spookiness, without the dreariness.
This is really the best way to enjoy Lovecraft.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Read the rest
Cory Doctorow at 6:49 am • •
Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily designed this beautiful Polynesian Luau Bowl for an upcoming Walt Disney World special event. It'll sell for $35, but the on-sale date isn't announced yet.
Summer's coming...
Cory Doctorow at 2:54 pm • •
A new piece from Ukrainian steampunk leather mask-maker Bob Basset. I like the angular forms here -- there's something a bit Roman in it, to my eye at least.
DW new. Steampunk Art Leather Mask
Cory Doctorow at 6:00 am • •
Mr Unpronounceable Adventures is a book of comics by Australian New Zealand surrealist artist Tim Molloy in a Lovecraftian vein. But that only scratches the surface here. Molloy is incredibly fucking weird, and not always in a funny-ha-ha way (though there's plenty of that). The story loops around and around, almost making sense, almost following a narrative, returning to themes, to iconic panels, full of menace and hectic hilarity. It's really good. It's really strange.
Here's what the publisher says about it:
Read the rest
Cory Doctorow at 5:53 pm • •
Hot Topic seems to have borrowed a trick from Australian pop-culture leggings favorite Black Milk with a line of Disney-licensed Little Mermaid full-print tights. Hot Topic's version costs about 75 percent less than the Black Milk stuff (and no shipping or duty for US buyers) -- though I have no idea whether they're comparable in terms of wear, fit, or the labor conditions in their manufacture (Black Milk makes its wares in Australia; Hot Topic doesn't say where its stuff is made on the site, which almost certainly means Pacific Rim/subcontinental sweatshop).
Ariel leggings
Ursula leggings
(via The Mary Sue)
Cory Doctorow at 7:35 pm • •
New Zealand artist Bruce Mahalski has put a new sculpture of an AK47 assembled from animal bones up for sale, with a starting bid of NZD3500. It's quite a beautiful piece of work.
The latest bone gun by New Zealand bone artist – Mahalski – is a life-size AK47 machine gun(330mm x 940mm) featuring found animal bones from rabbit, stoat, ferret, sheep, hawk, pheasant, wallaby, snapper, snake, blackbird, tarakihi, hedgehog, broad-billed prion , shear water, thrush, seal ,cat and possum (plus part of a skull from the extinct moa ). The gun is made entirely of bones mounted on an invisible wooden frame and is displayed standing upright on two rods on a piece of recycled matai timber (1130mm x 2000mm). You can see more pictures at - www.mahalski.org
KALASHNIKOV - AK47 (LIFE-SIZE REPLICA) Brand new item
(Thanks, Bruce!)
Cory Doctorow at 10:45 am • •
The latest piece from mad assemblage sculptor Roger Wood is this delightful ray-gun: "Another mental health break from clocks with this Steampunk ray gun and charging stand."
Cory Doctorow at 11:56 am • •
A mere $200 gets you this pelicanoid case with four of Muzzleshot's muzzle-suppressor-shaped shot-glasses, machined from solid aluminum and covered in a matte black anodized finish.
Muzzleshot
(via OhGizmo)
Cory Doctorow at 3:58 pm • •
From the Neiman-Marcus gift catalog, a trailer that converts into an elaborate, beautiful bar, and comes with a year's supply of Bulleit bourbon and rye. There are two for sale at $150K each, with 10 percent going to an HIV/AIDS charity.
A chorus of cheers rings out the minute you pull up. Tailgating will never be the same now that your Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Woody-Tailgate Trailer is on the scene. Designed by interior designer Brad Ford, it's impressive on the outside, but what's on the inside truly astounds: sleek leather furnishings and details from Moore & Giles, rich wood finishings (handcrafted from reclaimed Bulleit Bourbon casks), elegant glassware, and a top-notch entertainment system, including a flat-screen TV, Blu-ray Disc™ player, and a state-of-the-art sound system, plus a one-year supply of Bulleit Bourbon and Bulleit Rye*. You park, open the hatch, and slide out the bar—cocktails anyone?
Bulleit is delicious bourbon, but I recently bought a bottle of Elmer T Lee Single Barrel and holy cats, is that stuff astounding.
BEST GIFT, BAR NONE! & BULLEIT TO GO
(via Neatorama)
Cory Doctorow at 5:54 am • •
(The cover; my feet, a KISS matrioshke, and spring-loaded gag eyeballs included for scale)
IDW's Artist's Edition series is a line of enormous (15" x 22") hardcover art-books that reproduce the full-page, camera-ready paste-ups used to create classic comics, from Groo to Spider-Man, offering a rare look at the white-outs, annotations, corrections, and pencil-marks that give tantalizing hints about the hidden workings of these amazing pages.
A recent and most welcome addition to the series is MAD: Artist's Edition, a spectacular tribute to the early years of the magazine and especially to the brilliant satire of Harvey Kurtzman, one of the great heroes of satire, which features an introduction by Terry Gilliam himself.
MAD: Artist's Edition isn't just an amazing book, it's an amazing object, a massive and weighty presence that drew me magnetically to it as soon as I got it back to my office. I spent the next several hours on a rug on the floor with it, clambering all around it (it's much easier to move yourself than a book this size!), marvelling and delighting at it. I snapped a few highlights (full-rez photos here) to give you a sense of what's going on here.
(Love, Kurtzman style -- from Shadow!)
Let's start with the obvious: Kurtzman was a genius of parody, with a wolvertonian grasp of the grotesque and a sense of humor that was capable of expressing itself in both broad and subtle strokes. This was a man who could capture both drama and comedy, as in this sequence from Smilin' Melvin', where the punchline is just a lagniappe on top of a sequence that is as illustrative as it is absurd:
(Q-Tips and the sound-barrier, from Smilin' Melvin')
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Cory Doctorow at 6:21 am • •
Bruce D. Mitchell is an amazing sculptor who works in the film industry; his "Conceptual Executioner" site showcases a series of gorgeous masks and helmets from 2010. He implies that they have been offered for sale at some point, though no prices are given, leading me to believe that it's one of those, "If you have you ask, you probably can't afford," deals. At least we get to look.
I Have been working in the FX industry since 1992. I have contributed to the creation of various creatures, costumes, miniatures, set pieces and props. I have met and worked with some awesome talent and learned something from each of them. I will be showing my own work on this page. These are the pieces I have been making and showing in Gallery's and special venues. The Masks and Helmets are all wearable and incorporate some function. All pieces were created in my home studio. One thing I would like to say to any producers. Please do not look at this as a menu but rather what I have conceptually achieved so far. . . Thanks for viewing.
Bruce D. Mitchell Conceptual Executioner
