.
New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks is well known both in the realms of original and superhero comics, receiving acclaim for his Harvey and Ignatz Award-winning works Pickle and Hicksville and writing for both Vertigo and DC, just to name a few of his accomplishments. Over the course of a decade Horrocks has been involved in nearly all aspects of the comics process but had not put out an original graphic novel since Hicksville in 1998 (revised & reissued by Drawn & Quarterly in 2010).
| Recommended by Marie Anello | Friday, January 30th, 2015 | No Comments » |
South African artist Audrey Anderson loves stringing narratives out of the mundane things we do day-to-day. She does this by creating images that are inspired by graphic novels. “In graphic novels, there is always something magical about the characters,” she says, “something special that defines them and rises them above real life stories.”
Her project Roaming Joburg is another installment in her “graphic novels as real life” work. In the project, she asks friends to take pictures of their daily routine. She then takes the images and recreates them to look like panels of a graphic novel. Obviously she takes some artistic liberties here (we doubt any of her friends woke up to a bloody bathroom…we hope), but the idea of creating a narrative out of the daily banality of life is intriguing to see. And, on a superficial level, we find her inky style really cool. You can see all her projects on her Behance page.
| Recommended by The Absolute Staff | Friday, January 30th, 2015 | No Comments » |
I cannot stress this enough: do not text and drive. It’s a terrible idea, you’re 23 times more likely to crash, and you’re putting not only your own life but the lives of the people around you at risk. Don’t be that person.
So, with that dose of reality administered, let me talk about Text and Drive: Friendship Never Dies!
Dodge cars while sending texts to your friend, who takes the time to wonder whether or not texting and driving is a bad idea before abandoning her caution to send you updates on your personal life. To make matters worse, the phone obscures half the screen, so if you keep it up permanently then you have no idea if there are cars in the lane you’re dodging into. And, wow, there is some serious traffic on the bridge at this time of night.
| Recommended by Melody Lee | Friday, January 30th, 2015 | No Comments » |
Animator Don Hertzfeldt is obsessed with existentialism. His animations often tap into an intellectual foreboding of the meaning of life, while others are structure-less animations that are hilarious in their oddity. The animation he did for The Simpsons’ couch gag is another good look at his overall aesthetic.
His newest short, World of Tomorrow, won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year, but his last award-winning film (and probably his best known) is his 2007 short Everything Will Be Okay. The short follows the strange story of Bill, an average guy living an average, dull life until he gets an illness that affects his memory. There are two other shorts in the “bill” trilogy, I Am So Proud of You (2008), and It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2011), but Everything is my favorite. If you’ve never experienced a Hertzfeldt short before, just remember that his humor is dry, his narrative is surreal, and his take on life is weirdly fascinating, whatever your takeaway is.
| Recommended by Tiffany White | Friday, January 30th, 2015 | No Comments » |
DC comic The Royals: Masters of War is a fascinating tale set in World War II-era London that combines history and superheroes to create a really intriguing story. But instead of your usual crime fighters like Superman or Wonder Woman, the heroes in this comic are the British royal family. It sounds weird at first, but there’s a catch: in this world, the royal families have supernatural abilities that they keep hidden from the public. But it’s the brash Prince Henry who breaks the rules in order to save his country from Nazi Germany and use his abilities to end the war once and for all.
| Recommended by Amanda Ferris | Friday, January 30th, 2015 | No Comments » |
The game might be called Social Justice Warriors, and you might be playing as the titular character hero, but don’t mistake any of that for support. Social Justice Warriors is a satirical turn-based game about online interactions and the futility of engaging in them–on both sides.
Interesting things to note: both the SJW and the troll are genderless and appear identical; “rightness” is irrelevant, with health measured out by sanity and reputation bars; and the choices you make are a little more complex than “stand up for what you believe in.” As the developer himself points out, a lot of the ambiguity of online interaction is removed for the sake of gameplay in Social Justice Warriors, but the hero may want to watch what kind of attacks they use. Inflammatory character attacks deal way more damage, but is that really the route you want to take?
| Recommended by Melody Lee | Thursday, January 29th, 2015 | No Comments » |
Don’t get girl/boy electro-pop duo GRRL PAL mixed up with fellow girl/boy electro-pop duo Oh Wonder. They’re both releasing one single a month for 2015, but GRRL PAL is the poppiest of the two (and I haven’t posted a bona fide pop song in awhile, sooo). GRRL PAL’s newest single, “Dare,” is an energetic track that I could describe as “fiery,” but that would be too easy (the chorus is literally “we start fires/ only if you dare,” so I guess that’s already implied). At their best, GRR PAL is good at exploiting the art of repetition to create some obnoxiously catchy tracks that burrow themselves into your brain the way pop music is supposed to. If you like this track, check out the slightly better “Paradise.”
| Recommended by Tiffany White | Thursday, January 29th, 2015 | No Comments » |
