This weekend…
Sat 2pm: Alternative Wrestling Show at Frank & Sons, City of Industry. With a great card and El Matematico! (pic right)
Sat 7-11pm: The Munkylicious Show @ Munky King, Chinatown. “An homage to The Monkey King”.
I MAY be attending the New York Toy Fair this year, for the first time…. I have been told it’s bigger than the San Diego Comic-Con. Anyone here been to the Toy Fair? Tips? - Lili
A big package arrived yesterday from our friends in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Matt & Joyce have put together a fascinating bunch of souvenirs. “…to help you familiarize yourselves with some of the more eccentric aspects of life here in Americas Dairyland”.
) Here are some recipes from the cheese book because you just never know when you might need to COOK this stuff.
(click to enlarge)
Thanks, guys!!! A big road trip through Midwest America is calling!!! 
p.s. Can’t wait! I’m going to Chicago in April – Lili
Here’s an interesting thought via plasticbag.org – “I wonder how long it will take people to stop thinking of weblogs as publishing, and start thinking about them being people interacting to diminish the role of publishing”. And via the same site – Spandexman unitards.
Eddiemuerte is now also on myspace. (Elsewhere on the web, interestingly, he seems to be most popular with the Germans)
Jungle Larry Safari! (via eye of the goof)
Bedazzled! – a music/pop culture blog by the Scopitones guy.
I recently found out that Nova Express Cafe (sci-fi themed cafe, Fairfax neighborhood) has a schlocky movie night every Wednesday! This one’s on tomorrow: The Giant Gila Monster. I think we gotta go…
Amazon.com Review -
The tranquility of a small Texas town is ruined when an enormous rear-projection lizard begins to terrorize the place! At first, the adults dismiss the kids’ hysterics as nonsense. The sheriff is helpless and the adults fail miserably to defeat the thing, so it’s up to the teenagers to take it on. Though this movie relies a little too heavily on plot and characters and not enough on giant lizards, it’s still a fun slice of ’50s camp. The lead character (played by Don Sullivan) sings some wildly inappropriate and goofy songs for some unintended comic relief. Rock & roll, hot rods, teenagers, huge monsters… all the elements are in place for this faintly ridiculous ’50s funfest. –Jerry Renshaw —
*UPDATE - Nova Express made a mistake with the schedule. We arrived and there was a private party instead… The Giant Gila Monster will be showing NEXT wed!
Time for a new publicity photo…
Fwak! is being interviewed for a new book by Jennifer Clark on ‘Australian Creatives’ (lineup includes Adam Elliot, Crumpler, Animal Logic etc) and we need to submit something current. Thanks to Keith for taking this photo! (…seeing that he has already posted it on his blog)
Saturday night’s NINJA ART SHOW was an interesting experience. Who would have thought that Downtown Alhambra was such a thriving scene! Gallery Nucleus (also a cool toy and book store) was absolutely crowded. Some pics from the show:
Capture The Scroll by David Jien
…don’t know the artist
El Ninja by Robert Palacios
Big Ninja Blocks installation by Nathan Huang/David Jien
We know lots of people with birthdays in late Jan to mid Feb!! (All these Aquarians!) HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jorge, Lisa, Jim, Alonso, Keith, Eric W. and Evan!
More ¡Mucha Lucha! sightings in Mexico! Oscar has sent us some images of ML characters found in Mexican supermarkets…
Rudo Claus is a character from Season 3’s Christmas episode (which hasn’t even been aired yet, in Mexico!) and these circular ‘tazo’ thingies are found in Cheetos packets as pictured below:
Anyone going to Tijuana soon?
Could you pleeeeze pick us up some Cheetos?
*UPDATE: And also some DORITOS!
San Gabriel – Maskmaker
San Gabriel is only about half an hour away from Los Feliz, as we headed towards the magnificent snowcapped mountains in the east. It was great to meet with Juan Guerrero, maskmaker and owner of the new Lucha Guerrero store, who is a really nice guy, passionate about lucha libre and goes to the same shows that we go to.
Juan tells us that SoCal is a great place to be: there are MORE lucha matches here than in his hometown Michoacan, Mexico. He then showed us his collection of custom masks, sparkly capes, boots, tshirts and posters/photos autographed by wrestling legends Rey Misterio Jr, Huracan Ramirez, Mil Mascaras etc. The store is only tiny and the vibe is warm and friendly. For those of you who want a custom lucha hood – this is the place to go! The price for a custom hood (your own design) starts at $80, which is amazing.
Two custom hoods for feature movie Hombre Kabuki; Lili with Juan Guerrero;
Where the maskmakers work; A gorgeous Fray Tormenta Mistico mask;
Mil Mascaras special mask; Luchador modelling a Guerrero creation
More pics on Keith’s blog
More Unseen Mucha Lucha! This Buena Girl (left) was found on a wall at WBA. Artist:??
*update – A little birdie tells us that the drawing is by Kyle Neswald!
New store – DEPORTES GUERRERO is opening this Saturday! Juan Guerrero, reknowned mask maker, will be selling pro and custom wrestling masks, wrestling & boxing gear etc. There will be plenty of masked wrestlers there so we’re bringing our cameras! When: Jan 15th. 10am-2pm. Where: 926 E. Turner Dr, San Gabriel. (thanks, KR)
Pixeltees – Pretty cool.
Mr. JAGO illustrations and paintings.(via ektopia)
Lili: Finally finished LOCAS at 4.30am last night. (Memo to self: Insomniacs should never drink coffee at night!) I read the Love N Rockets/Whoa Nellie comics years ago back in Oz, and loved them then. But now that I have a new point of geographical/cultural reference (the ‘Southern California’ setting of these stories) I love this book even more. Really really awesome. So beautiful, inspiring, bittersweet sad.
P.S. I haven’t been able to log into my Bloglines account for several days now. In other words, I have lost the links to 100+ blogs. Bloglines say they are investigating the problem, but it has been a whole week!!! 
Links
Jeremyville’s SKETCHEL project! - the customised satchel show
The Ninja Art Show @ Gallery Nucleus, Jan 22nd. “The ninja show is a group show composed of ninja-related and ninja-inspired artwork from graphic designers, motion designers, illustrators, animators, and a variety of other artists. Anyone who is dressed in Ninja attire will recieve 10% discount on store purchases.”
www.audio1.org - Music downloads! (Note: the site can be a bit slow & buggy.) I’m not sure how this compares with iTunes which I have never used, but what’s cool here is that I am finding artists or albums that I can’t find on Amazon. Like -
Galerie Grafiekvaria – art posters
S.Britt illustrations (thanks, Lisa!)
Gangland Restaurant (via sweetandsourstories)
Urban Vinyl/3D…
URBAN VINYL FIGURES aren’t new. As any toy-freak would know, they have been around for years (starting with Hong Kong’s ‘Crazy Children’ series by Michael Lau… and now, the US “Art Toy” phenomenon spearheaded by people like Kidrobot & Strangeco). Interestingly, several Hollywood animation studios have now caught on to the concept and become enamored with the “Urban Vinyl” style (whatever this means, exactly) as the next hot thing in Animation.
I discovered a while ago that Michael Lau’s characters already exist in animated form (above pic). Now, this hiphop video by French team, Shut Up & Dance Productions.
The New Deal, © Baba 3000
Even though The New Deal‘s design influences are glaringly obvious, what’s cool is the idea of a more contemporary, subcultural and music-inspired approach to animated storytelling which is something we’ve always been interested in and have been working on… Is this the future of 3D animation character design (and licensing)? Could it apply to 2D animation?
Eddie’s sketches (via our scrap-blog)
Hensons
On a related note, we visited the Henson studios this afternoon and received a quick tour of the very cool Creature Shop. (monsters, realistic props & animals, naked Miss Piggys etc.)
The Original Home of the Muppets… and demons.
We were also introduced to something called “HDPS“ - Henson’s proprietry software that enables LIVE rendering/in-camera animation of 3D characters. Apparently this is a huge improvement on the type of Motion Capture process that was used in The Polar Express.
An HDPS performer is capable of producing five minutes worth of CG performance in five minutes’ time. The very first publicly broadcast HDPS performance was produced in two hours.
The HDPS is a breakthrough in the field of Motion Capture, where sensors record the body movement of a live performer, reflecting real world physics. HDPS can be combined with traditional MoCap to provide a complete live, full body CG character that can be interacted with and directed. (link)
Seems to us that HDPS is closer to Live Action because the puppets/characters are *directed* in real time. Is this the future of CG animation? Fascinating stuff.
P.S. People who work on the Henson’s lot can bring their dogs to work!!! How cool is this!
Zagreb!
In a previous post, we mentioned that we had seen very stylishly-cool stills of Cowboy Jimmy and the Oscar-winning Surogat in an animation book, and wanted to get hold of some 1950’s-1960’s animated shorts by Dusan Vukotic and The Animation School of Zagreb.
… born after the Second World War, together with the foundation of the new production Company, Zagreb Film. The Zagreb School’s aim is to produce something that crops up straight from the culture of its own country.
As for their graphics, they refer to an aesthetics influenced by the Surrealist art.
Therefore, while the traditional animation tries to reproduce life, in the most realistic way, the Zagreb School prefers bidimensional figures and spaces, drawn as sketches.
Even the contents they deal with are rather original; indeed, their works are about socially committed themes such as violence, sex and loneliness. (link)
Amid responded to our post by sending us a DVD of some of these rare films: The Happy Robot, Cowboy Jimmy, Great Fear, Concerto for SubMachine Gun & Piccolo.
The shorts are a visual treat – all without dialogue and animated to modern jazz. Perhaps because we have been conditioned to accept the frenetic pace of US Saturday morning cartoons as the norm, the humor and pacing of these Eastern European cartoons at times seemed very drawn-out and slow. Nevertheless, the layouts were beautiful and amazing in their monochromatic simplicity, with stylized characters moving like abstract shapes.
Our favorite was Concerto for Sub-Machine Gun! If Disney’s objective was to create the ’Illusion Of Life’, then the Zagreb school wasn’t under any illusions. Zagreb characters behave like drawings, and as a result create their own kind of life.
Some screengrabs below – (click on images to enlarge) -
THE HAPPY ROBOT (1956)
COWBOY JIMMY (1957)
CONCERTO FOR SUB-MACHINE GUN (1958)
Just found this- The Best of Zagreb Film on VHS/DVD
“It’s a Wrap”
Today was Mucha Lucha‘s final audio post session of the season. Fifty two half-hour episodes done and done. The good people at Salami Studios brought out the champagne and awesome-looking ice-cream cake which I almost couldn’t bear to slice into. So, on behalf of everyone who has worked on the show and hopes to continue working on the show, I have made a big fat wish …
ML in Mexico! Thanks to Oscar for sending me this cover for Eres Niños magazine:
Random things that we are excited about:
This week, Eddie and I have been busy working on a mini-bible for a brand new show idea for kids TV. I was going to share a picture on this blog but well… since we are pitching this one next week, we don’t want to jinx things! (MAY post some artwork later)
Eddie has received an email from Guitar Wolf‘s agent! If you haven’t seen Wild Zero, you must. It’s our new favorite film. AND we are definitely going to Guitar Wolf’s concert next month!
Customized posters at Cafepress! Upload an image, choose poster size, purchase, and it gets delivered within a week! What’s cool is that you can order these posters/prints for yourself without having to sell them in a Cafepress store. We decided to experiment with this pic of The Beehives (from another *top secret* show that Fwak is developing) and were quite impressed with the results.
Blue Demon Jr. and El Hijo Del Santo are going to be wrestling in Las Vegas! This was something we heard through the grapevine and it could be happening as soon as next month. We’ll let you know as soon as we have details. (Link: Websites of these two lucha legends) P.S. Blue Demon Jr. will also be at Lucha Va Voom – Feb 10th.
Just received a DVD of Zagreb animated shorts from the late 1950′s which we can’t wait to watch. THANKS, Amid!
I was planning to walk to La Luz tonight where Andrew Brandou has an exhibition opening. But with this horrible rain and freezing cold weather, hmmm… might go tomorrow instead.
“Breakdancer” and “Pink Wrestler”
… by my new favorite Plush artist,
Natalia Gianinazzi aka GRÜSLI.
Recent Comments