I saw this on the Jungle45 blog and listened to it like 20 times LOL!
enjoy!
-samax.
Freitag, 30. Juli 2010
WHOA! Planet Asia + TriState drop a THROWBACK joint!
I saw this on the Jungle45 blog and listened to it like 20 times LOL!
enjoy!
Intoxicated by Self
Greetings, fam! I'm pleased to show you some artwork from Texas-to-NYC transplant Dawn Okoro, from her aptly (and cleverly) titled Selfsploitation Project.
This series drawings seeks to address the psychology, history, and consequences of sending sexually suggestive photos of one's self by cellphone or posting them on social websites. Long-time GhettoManga readers may already know that I'm a big fan of Dawn's work, because she puts black women in the spotlight, and without being pretentious or boring, knows how to show them in a light that they want to be seen in.
The funny thing about this new thought-provoking series is that it manages to do the same thing, whether viewers want to admit it or not. In the excellent essay Dawn has written accompanying the project, she explains how she came to start Selfsploitation, and her apprehensions about doing it, since she thought some of her fan/patron reaction might be negative.
I agree with that prediction 100%... The post-feminist concern about the objectification of women leads to lots of knee-jerk reactions to art... for some people, there is just no good reason to show nudity (or even partial nudity), and that's all there is to it. nudity = porn = exploitation = bad, bad, bad. I've experienced that backlash to my own work, and Dawn shows forethought to expect it here. Because her previous work could be seen as celebratory of women (and specifically black women), I'm sure there are people with that point of view numbered among her patrons, followers, and fans. Once an artist is identified as 'positive', 'conscious', or whatever... what started as a compliment can easily become a box that the artist can step out of only at his/her own peril...
But EFF you AND your box! Being an artist is about (among other things) taking risks, especially to advance important ideas. The quality of Dawn's work ought to AT LEAST get her the benefit of the doubt, right? And the totality of what she's saying with Selfsploitation is worthy of exploration. A close examination ought to satisfy at least those critics who liked her previous work that she isn't trying to bring her sisters down, or whatever... Anyways, do yourself a favor and click here to head over to Dawn's newly reorganized and relaunched website and get familiar with Selfsploitation and her entire body of work!
enjoy!
enjoy!
-samax.
Lauryn wants YOU!
oh and the art is called Lauryn Wants You, by digital art monster hinxlinx.
Fu-Gee-La by the Fugees
reeeeeemix!
have a great day...
samax.
And the room exploded with applause
"...And herewith introduce to this body for consideration to render into law Bill H5150, in which any person found to be using homeopathic remedies will be considered a danger to themselves and others and be remanded for psychiatric counseling and physical health maintenance by an accredited medical practitioner until such time as they are no longer deemed a threat to their own person, or in the case of communicable illness or mental impairment of judgment or behavior, to the public."Not real but I can dream. Of course, if anything as awesome as dropping the hammer on the billions of dollars a year fake medicine industry ever really occurred Faux News would start shrieking that the Obama administration was trying to outlaw the drinking of water.
Donnerstag, 29. Juli 2010
I used to love Her...
As Lauryn Hill Week continues here on GhettoManga, I figure it's about time I shared some art along with the youTubery...
The mural above (entitled, simply Lauryn) was painted by Polish graf artist SNOE, lest ye sleep on the worldwide reach of this hip hop isht...
the death of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. (as well as cats like Big Punisher and Big L that only real heads know) cast a dark cloud over hip hop in the late nineties... but the multi-platinum sales of the Fugees' second album The Score
and unqualified success of Lauryn's solo record
really had rap nerds and assorted hip hop heads feeling good about the future of this rap shit...
and unqualified success of Lauryn's solo record really had rap nerds and assorted hip hop heads feeling good about the future of this rap shit...Portrait of Lauryn Hill by zimbolimbo
Unfortunately, while we were still hung over from it all, Lauryn pulled up stakes and vanished... before long, thug rap became the new pop, and radio convinced the masses that they didn't like smart rappers (again). Many of the true emcees left starting feeling pressure (whether real or imagined) to dumb it down, or be banished to the underground, never to return. The faithful among us always pointed to the success of Lauryn (and the Fugees) as a modern example of the masses flocking to dope, conscious rhyming in droves. "But don't forget" skeptics said "Lauryn can sing, too..." implying that Lauryn's success had to do with lots of other things besides the fact that she could rhyme your favorite rapper under the table.
Maybe they're right. In addition to being one of the best emcees we've ever seen, Lauryn was also a fabulous vocalist and songwriter. It didn't hurt that she looked like a supermodel, either... maybe her success was a perfect storm that is nigh impossible to duplicate. How many of her fans were riding with us purely for her movie-star looks and fashion sense, and couldn't care less about her back-packer rap skills?
Let's say they do. That the world really IS starving for raps with substance. We've still got to face the very real probability that after all this time, the Lauryn we remember is gone, buried with BIG and 2pac... even if the NPR interview, and the Rock The Bells Tour, and the (maybe) new (but likely just unreleased) track really do mean she's coming back, will any possible new joints she releases show a continued passion for conscious rhyme writing draped over the top of street-cred-sustaining, cypher-smashing, face-palm-inducing spittery? Will a mother of five who's been outta the game this long even care about these increasingly invisible true school hip hop values? I'm not holding my breath or anything...
but damn, I hope so...
-samax New Universities Dictionary Illustrated (1922)
Pages from New Universities Dictionary Illustrated (1922). The book is all but disintegrated from age and weathering but I managed to save the artwork. No artist information can be found in the book though there seems to be a signature on the Plumage page. I can't determine if that is the artist name or the previous owner of the book.
Giacomo Nanni covers Nembo Kid 376
Original cover by Curt Swan and George Klein; Pubblicazione Settimanale 1963 (cover reprinted from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen; DC 1963). Giacomo Nanni's website is here.
Mittwoch, 28. Juli 2010
SOLOMON AZUA is ONLINE (READ IT FREE!)
your man Jake Ekiss of the mighty Space-gun crew is posting his sci-fi action comic Solomon Azua online, so you can read it free! Pages will post one a day Monday-Thursday until the 6 chapter adventure is complete. To start reading at the beginning, just click here. Or if you want more information about Solomon Azua, including my interview with Jake, click here
-samax
Gabe Ostley, Sam Little, and Steve Steiner covers Captain America 286
Original cover by Mike Zeck and John Beatty; Marvel 1983. Gabe Ostley's website is here, Sam Little's is here, and Steve Steiner's is here.
Lauryn Hill Week continues...
...have a great day!
La, La lala, la, la, lala, la, la, lalalaaa...
samax.
A woody wagon is a surfin' goodie
Like most kids of the early 1960s I was an avid watcher of Bozo's Circus hosted by Bozo the Clown. Similarly like most kids I really, really wanted to win Bozo's Treasure Box of toys, not knowing I had to be present on the set to have any sort of success in doing so. Millions of kids wanted to be on the show but the bleachers only held about thirty seats so odds were that would never happen for most.Yet, Bozo wasn't a mean clown so the show also held contests that the local stations over America that carried the show could attach to the program so the kids at home wouldn't be left out. Most of the millions of viewing children didn't have the resources to travel to Chicago to sit on the bleachers under the big tent. Eventually the majority of the children watching would have realized they had no chance of winning anything and would quit mailing in those cards and letters so involving the syndicated stations with contests was a really good idea.
Being typical, I entered one of those mail-in contests, had the post card sent off and promptly forgot about it. Sure, I watched the show but I was a kid. There were plenty of things to do in Saginaw in my youth. Play in the orchard, swim in the creek, explore the cattail swamp forest, try to cajole the semi-wild horses in the neighbor's field to come up to the fence and climb around the giant cubes of crushed scrap metal stacked in the back of the Eaton plant. We didn't have hundreds of television channels and computers and video games to play with. Mostly we had nature for that.
Then one day a month or after I had mailed off the entry to the television station I entered my Kindergarten class. Everybody started yelling when they saw me. After Mrs. Hill, the teacher, quieted everyone down she told my classmates and I that I had won one of the local Bozo the Clown contests. I was surprised since I don't recall seeing the show the previous day but all the kids new. Even my teacher claimed to have watched the show entirely by accident. She had turned the television on but wasn't wearing her glasses so she couldn't see what station she was tuned into. Mrs. Hill told us she was turning channels and heard heard my name and hers being announced, saying we had won a drawing from the Bozo show.
The prizes were a corsage for my teacher and a 45 record for myself. I was a kindergarten celebrity! While what we won may not seem like much now today's equivalent would be like clicking a spam banner on a website and actually winning an ipod instead of a come on or a computer virus. Everyone in the class was really pleased about us winning except for Vicky. She seemed a little jealous and managed to swipe and break my blue pencil that had the square eraser in the white base on the end. I really liked that pencil. Pretty soon the entire class forgot about the news and moved on to other things.
Eventually my record arrived in the mail and I played the heck out of it. I even took it to school to play in the classroom. The recordings on the 45 consisted of surf music, something that was all over the radio in the 1960s. There was a peppy vocal tune on the A side and an instrumental on the flip side of the record. The record was published by the Legend label (LEG-124) in 1963. The A side tune is What Is Surfin' All About by Jerry Norell and the The Beach Girls. The B side is the instrumental Salt Water Taffy by Morty Jay and The Surfin' Cats.
Being in Saginaw, Michigan I only had the vaguest notion of what the ocean was really like and exactly what surfing was as an activity. Not many people surfed in Lake Erie. The water, when not whipped up into foaming death swells by apocalyptic storms, had a tendency to melt fiberglass and plastic. Surf movies didn't play much in that part of the country either and my parents weren't the sort to take us to that kind of flick anyways. I was aware surf music existed from the radio but my household was usually filled with the sounds of instrumentals and Elvis. My only real exposure to music other than full orchestras and The Pelvis was from television or my uncles. They listened to a lot of the new stuff coming from the emerging rock scene and while I liked it they didn't appreciate me hanging around because my incessant questions kind of interfered with their weed smoking and listening pleasure.I kept the 45 as a treasured memento of youth and it moved along with me to California. It still remains in storage though it is heavily scratched from years of use. Still played great though. A copy of the record is extremely difficult to locate in pristine condition and demands a pretty high price for what it is, probably due more to the rarity of the record than the quality of the artists. Information on the production and artists is nearly non-existent and I have no idea how many of the records were pressed. To make a search all the more frustrating many of the available resources routinely get the names of the songs and artists in error. I'm sure this is from a sort of "Purple Monkey Dishwasher" error through repetition. Since fact-checking is difficult the errors were perpetuated through many sources so it is here I set the record straight.
The story of how a copy of this obscure 45 was made available as a prize from Bozo's Circus out of Chicago is probably forever lost to time, but that's okay. It's all about the music, anyways. Today for your listening enjoyment here is a tune that probably hasn't been heard by anyone, anywhere other than a hard-core 45 collector in more than 40 years.
Cowabunga, Moon-Doggies!
FYI, check the street-view of that map in the Saginaw link. That hedge of bushes? Straight outta Satan's garden. I don't know what that plant is called but it is the best natural deterrent to bad guys and revenuers entering a property next to a flaming moat filled with rabid T-Rexes. When I read Sleeping Beauty I easily imagined the impenetrable hedge that imprisoned her castle was somehow magically duplicated at my house. It is that evil. The hedge is dense, tough and sends out long roots that extend for several yards in all directions just under the surface of the earth, from which project upwards wicked, long and nearly unbreakable thorns that easily penetrate the thickest leather. Many people with both nasty intent and good intentions limped away from the property after failing to circumvent The Hedge. My own mother recalls running afoul of them on several occasions in her youth.
Dienstag, 27. Juli 2010
PREVIEW ART for POWER MAN #1 is here
) from ComicBook Resources for you... so check out this Shadowland: Powerman preview art and tell me what you think
As the title implies, this is part of the Shadowland storyline where Daredevil and the Hand have banned superheroes in Hell's Kitchen. The story involves the street level heroes like Moon Knight, (of course) Luke Cage & Iron Fist and more. To peep an interview with series writer Fred Van Lente, click here. anyways, look for Shadowland: Powerman #1 in stores August 18th.
holla!
samax.
How To Read Tea Leaves
It is refreshing to see an Archie Comics feature even as old as this one actively discouraging superstitious belief and practices even though they go about it by insulting the reader in a self-aware "We're So Stupid We're Cool" sort of way. This short (probably drawn by Ernie Colon) predates the long period when the Archie cast was used as an arm of the similarly faux-magical Cult of Suffering propaganda division.From Archie's Mad House #10 (February 1961).
Start the day off RIGHT ---->
ah, yes... Lauryn was on some insane rap isht back then. This track is off the Fugees multi-platinum sophomore record, The Score
, in case you somehow managed to miss it. Young'uns (if in fact there be any of you out there...) get your hands on that record, by any means!have a nice day!
holla!
samax.
that New AHMAD
Jeauh! Even when he's on some smoothed out isht Ahmad's all about the lyrics and substance... yeah, listen to it again... To get in the files for more from the kid, click here. The new record, The Death of Me due to drop August 10th.
holla!
samax.
Montag, 26. Juli 2010
DC Announces All-Star Superman Adaptation
According to comicbook and cartoon writer Dwayne McDuffie (Justice League of America, Justice League Unlimited, Milestone Comics) his next project will be a small screen animated adaptation of Grant Morrison's brain-melting opus All-Star Superman
! I'm not a huge Superman fan, but I can recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story, not just comics fans. If the excellence Morrison and Quitely brought to the writing and art of this book is reflected in any way by the architects of the cartoon, it will be a crown jewel for Warner Bros Animation. I honestly don't expect it to be anywhere near as awesome as the comic, but if they can just scrape the surface of the comic's dopeness, it'll be EPIC!
! I'm not a huge Superman fan, but I can recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story, not just comics fans. If the excellence Morrison and Quitely brought to the writing and art of this book is reflected in any way by the architects of the cartoon, it will be a crown jewel for Warner Bros Animation. I honestly don't expect it to be anywhere near as awesome as the comic, but if they can just scrape the surface of the comic's dopeness, it'll be EPIC!
For those who missed it, All-Star Superman
throws off all the limits the last 30 years of comics have placed on the Man of Steel and shows why anyone would (or should) like him in the first place. Morrison's Superman drips with all the nostalgia that people enjoy about the character, but his writing is so futuristic that it doesn't irritate me. This version of Metropolis doesn't feel like it wants to be 1950, and that helps a lot. Morrison's Superman stories lack the ham-fisted, thoughtlessness I hate and retain the feeling that anything can happen. His Lex Luthor is actually smart enough to match wits with Kal-el, the son of a brilliant alien scientist.
Frank Quitely's art on All-Star Superman is flawless. Like Morrison's script, Quitely's art walks the dangerous line between nostalgia and futurism gracefully and masterfully. I have often walked away from a Morrison/Quitely book wishing that Morrison would work with no one BUT Quitely, and this book made me feel the same way. Or at the very least, that when they collaborate, if Quitely is late with pages, just WAIT on him! Fill-in artists on a Quitely book never, ever measure up, and ultimately ruin the reading of the story as a whole (I'm looking at YOU, E is for Extinction
)... but now I'm rambling...
throws off all the limits the last 30 years of comics have placed on the Man of Steel and shows why anyone would (or should) like him in the first place. Morrison's Superman drips with all the nostalgia that people enjoy about the character, but his writing is so futuristic that it doesn't irritate me. This version of Metropolis doesn't feel like it wants to be 1950, and that helps a lot. Morrison's Superman stories lack the ham-fisted, thoughtlessness I hate and retain the feeling that anything can happen. His Lex Luthor is actually smart enough to match wits with Kal-el, the son of a brilliant alien scientist. 
is flawless. Like Morrison's script, Quitely's art walks the dangerous line between nostalgia and futurism gracefully and masterfully. I have often walked away from a Morrison/Quitely book wishing that Morrison would work with no one BUT Quitely, and this book made me feel the same way. Or at the very least, that when they collaborate, if Quitely is late with pages, just WAIT on him! Fill-in artists on a Quitely book never, ever measure up, and ultimately ruin the reading of the story as a whole (I'm looking at YOU, E is for Extinction)... but now I'm rambling... 
A lotta people would be disappointed to see this story as a video release instead of a live-action theatrical blockbuster, but not me. I've been unimpressed with movies lately in general, and certainly with comics-related films, so hopefully they will do a little small-screen justice to the Kryptonian on this animated feature...
holla!
samax.
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