Return with us now to a time before Garbage Pail Kids, when lockers, Pee-Chees and lunchboxes were festooned with Wacky Packages. If you were a kid in the early 70's, Wackies were very likely your first exposure to Pop Art and (subliminally) anti-consumerism (who'd've guessed people like Art Spiegelmanwere behind it all). Beautifully photographed, with two great essays, this one makes an awesome gift for the big kid inside us all.
The best of the Powers trilogy, introducing (but not overusing) Vern Troyer as Mini Me (though the faithful may remember him as mini Napeoleon in Bruce Campbell's "Jack of All Trades" TV series). Heather Graham is delicious as Austin's CIA love interest, Felicity Shagwell, and Mike Meyers outdoes himself as Austin Powers, Dr. Evil and...Fat Bastard. A wonderfully silly homage to Bond films and London in the Swingin' 60's, this is one durable Spy you'll want to watch again and again...yeah, Baby!!!
Ellis' masterwork of a violent, bleak and all too plausible postcyberpunk society is as relevant now as it was when Vertigo first published it as a series of 60 comics books between 1997 and 2002. Warren's scathing commentary on politics and consumerism, channeled through his heavily-tattooed alter-ego, journalist Spider Jerusalem, will resonate with the cynic in us all after eight years of "W." Darick Robertson's detailed artwork is the perfect visual match. Funny as hell...in a very dark fashion.
In the early 90's, Brite was a hungry young horror writer whose first two novels were set in the ficticious North Carolina town of Missing Mile. While the protagonists varied, each featured recurring characters, two friends/bandmates, Steve, and the enigmatic Ghost. If you don't have a problem with homo-erotic themes, these are great horror novels, filled with lush imagery and Brite's love of prose. I've always held that in an alternate universe Poppy, rather than eschewing horror, would have continued writing Missing Mile novels and gotten as big as Anne Rice. Poppy and I parted company after her fiction took a more mainstream direction. While her Liquor novels are fine, they just don't have the fire of those first two works.
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There's a famous line in "A Hard Day's Night" spoken by Paul's grandfather (Wilfred Brambell) that perfectly captures the allure of touring, "I thought I was supposed to be getting a change of scenery. But so far I've been in a train and a room, a car and a room, and a room and a room."
Substitute plane for train, and you pretty much have the content of this slim volume, which isn't so much about their four Rome concerts in June 1965 as about the photographer who shot these largely unremarkable photos. In the roughly two dozen photos reproduced, we see the group arriving at the airport, wandering the halls of their hotel, seated at their press conference, and finally onstage at the Teatro Adriano. The text by and large is devoted to lauding Geppetti's candid photographic style, which we are reminded (again and again) gave birth to the paparazzi.
This is the kind of niche Beatles book you could actually browse in five minutes and never miss reading again. Marcello's photos would have been much better served illustrating a booklet accompanying a CD of their Rome press conference or (better yet) a Beatleg of their four concerts. Save your money.
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(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
Read the INK Q&A with Nikolai Grozni and save 30% on Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk.
Michael Hockinson has commented on (8) products.
Wacky Packages with Sticker by Topps Company
Michael Hockinson, June 30, 2008
Return with us now to a time before Garbage Pail Kids, when lockers, Pee-Chees and lunchboxes were festooned with Wacky Packages. If you were a kid in the early 70's, Wackies were very likely your first exposure to Pop Art and (subliminally) anti-consumerism (who'd've guessed people like Art Spiegelmanwere behind it all). Beautifully photographed, with two great essays, this one makes an awesome gift for the big kid inside us all.Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Widescreen)
Michael Hockinson, May 15, 2008
The best of the Powers trilogy, introducing (but not overusing) Vern Troyer as Mini Me (though the faithful may remember him as mini Napeoleon in Bruce Campbell's "Jack of All Trades" TV series). Heather Graham is delicious as Austin's CIA love interest, Felicity Shagwell, and Mike Meyers outdoes himself as Austin Powers, Dr. Evil and...Fat Bastard. A wonderfully silly homage to Bond films and London in the Swingin' 60's, this is one durable Spy you'll want to watch again and again...yeah, Baby!!!Transmetropolitan #01: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis
Michael Hockinson, May 11, 2008
Ellis' masterwork of a violent, bleak and all too plausible postcyberpunk society is as relevant now as it was when Vertigo first published it as a series of 60 comics books between 1997 and 2002. Warren's scathing commentary on politics and consumerism, channeled through his heavily-tattooed alter-ego, journalist Spider Jerusalem, will resonate with the cynic in us all after eight years of "W." Darick Robertson's detailed artwork is the perfect visual match. Funny as hell...in a very dark fashion.Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite
Michael Hockinson, June 6, 2007
In the early 90's, Brite was a hungry young horror writer whose first two novels were set in the ficticious North Carolina town of Missing Mile. While the protagonists varied, each featured recurring characters, two friends/bandmates, Steve, and the enigmatic Ghost. If you don't have a problem with homo-erotic themes, these are great horror novels, filled with lush imagery and Brite's love of prose. I've always held that in an alternate universe Poppy, rather than eschewing horror, would have continued writing Missing Mile novels and gotten as big as Anne Rice. Poppy and I parted company after her fiction took a more mainstream direction. While her Liquor novels are fine, they just don't have the fire of those first two works.(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
The Beatles in Rome 1965: The Photography of Marcello Geppetti by Marcello Geppetti
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1-5 of 8 nextMichael Hockinson, November 27, 2006
There's a famous line in "A Hard Day's Night" spoken by Paul's grandfather (Wilfred Brambell) that perfectly captures the allure of touring, "I thought I was supposed to be getting a change of scenery. But so far I've been in a train and a room, a car and a room, and a room and a room."Substitute plane for train, and you pretty much have the content of this slim volume, which isn't so much about their four Rome concerts in June 1965 as about the photographer who shot these largely unremarkable photos. In the roughly two dozen photos reproduced, we see the group arriving at the airport, wandering the halls of their hotel, seated at their press conference, and finally onstage at the Teatro Adriano. The text by and large is devoted to lauding Geppetti's candid photographic style, which we are reminded (again and again) gave birth to the paparazzi.
This is the kind of niche Beatles book you could actually browse in five minutes and never miss reading again. Marcello's photos would have been much better served illustrating a booklet accompanying a CD of their Rome press conference or (better yet) a Beatleg of their four concerts. Save your money.
(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)