Springtime in Paris (1923) by Georg Kretzschmar.
• I’ve been asked to mention that the tribute book put together for Alan Moore’s 70th birthday, Alan Moore: Portraits of an Extraordinary Gentleman, is still available. As before, the book features contributions from many well-known comic artists, a foreword by Iain Sinclair, and this piece of my own.
• “I never posted any lecture of mine on Tumblr, even though Tumblr would seem to have plenty of elbow-room for hour-long, learned, European public lectures (with many lecture slides).” Utopian Realism, a speech by Bruce Sterling.
• Reading the Signs: John Kenny in conversation with Mark Valentine about Mark’s new collection Lost Estates.
There remains something suspect about blotter, a stain that is both a blessing and a curse. As the blotter producer Matthew Rick, who started selling sheets as non-dipped ‘art’ collectables at festivals in 1998, puts it: ‘[B]lotter is the last underground art form that’s going to stay underground, simply because you’re creating something that looks like and functions like a felony.’ In other words, blotter is ontologically illicit; it is, as Rick says, ‘drug paraphernalia by its very existence’.
Erik Davis (again) on LSD and the cultural history of the printed blotter
• At Colossal: Uncanny phenomena derail domestic bliss in Marisa Adesman’s luminous paintings.
• Standing stones, urban hellscapes and male nudes: Andrew Pulver on Derek Jarman’s Super-8 films.
• “ [breaking news] An anomaly on earth has brought the cats to over 150 meters. Please be patient.”
• At We Are The Mutants: Alien Renaissance: An interview with illustrator Bob Fowke.
• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…René Crevel My Body and I (1926).
• At Public Domain Review: The Little Journal of Rejects (1896).
• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Sandhouse.
• RIP Steve Albini.
• Sandoz In The Rain (1970) by Amon Düül II | Bon Voyage Au LSD (2001) by Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. | Careful With That Sheet Of Acid, Eugene (2019) by Jenzeits
RIP Roger Corman
Bob Fowke: master of the gravid alien lobe and the distended pastel pod. His art illustrating Aldiss’ Hothouse in Holdstock and Edwards’ ‘Alien Landscapes’ was jarringly brilliant, Richard Dadd in the 31st century.
He also did the covers for the late ’70s/early 80s school favourites, the Armada SF compilations with Jim Cawthorn on interior illustrations. (The ISFDB seems to think James C. may have done the covers, too…).
RIP Albini. I only saw him live once, with Big Black in 1987. I’ve seen lots of praise this week for his engineering and production skills, but he was a master of directed/integral/ visceral live feedback.
Stephen: Yes, indeed.
PaulK: Fowke was another of those peculiar artists who got picked up for genre covers in the 1970s. One of the paintings that Science Fiction Monthly reproduced was a full-on piece of authentic Surrealism bearing the title “Shrewsbury Station When You’re Not Looking”.
I’ve still got my original vinyl copy of Atomizer. I used to have the notorious bagged edition of Big Black’s Headache EP but I sold it to a collector.