Month: May 2005

  • Hot Rods!

    Every year on Memorial Day weekend, there is a massive Hot Rod/Custom Car gathering  in Paso Robles (4 hrs drive from L.A.) On Saturday morning, Eddie and I drove north to check out the scene. It was awe-inspiring. According to Jim, there were close to a THOUSAND cars there. See photos HERE.

    …Also met the talented Keith Weesner and bought some prints!



    © Keith Weesner



    Lunch at KELLY’S (photo by Jim)


    Stereo Total

    And then we saw Stereo Total at the Knitting Factory.They are my current favorite pop band (and have been for the past year). As a live act, they were awesomely kooky! Brezel’s guitar was shaped like a box; Francoise’s was shaped like a loveheart. - fangirl Lili

    Eddie’s review:

    A guy, a girl, two homemade guitars, some drums, and sequencers.  So anti-rock star.  Francoise Cactus comes onstage with her bag, containing pages of lyrics.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if her knitting had been in there too. She looks like she’d rather be a home playing with her cats. During the second song, they started arguing with each other and walked off stage.  Then during  ‘Forever 16′  Francoise kept pausing the song while she peered at her notebook and tried to read the English translation of her lyrics.  The songs that relied on her drumming, felt like they could cave in any second.  And some of them did.  Awesome, totally awesome.  I love Stereo Total.

  • We did our first Mucha Lucha radio interview this afternoon, in downtown L.A. This is for WPR’s “To The Best of Our Knowledge” program on Lucha Libre. (Wisconsin-based) Not sure when exactly the show goes to air, though…

    Speaking of Wisconsinites, we’re looking forward to catching up again with Matt aka Mr. Bali Hai very soon! Evan Newby (fellow Fwakster) is also here in the City of Angels. Welcome Evan!

    Currently watching: The Seinfeld Story DVD

  • Lucha Animada report

    Even though it’s in español (and will take some time to translate), the “Lucha Animada” article from SuperLuchas magazine looks like fun. … Mucha Lucha, Tiger Mask, Kinnikuman , the CN El Santo series, Jorge’s El Macho, and our Rudo By Night!

    Click to enlarge (Pages 1-4)

    luchaanimada1 luchaanimada2
    luchaanimada3 luchaanimada4

    thanks, Oscar for sending this magazine!


    Bahooka Birthday

    Thanks to everyone who came to my birthday dinner last night!
    Photos are HERE. 

    *More pics - from Tony

  •    
       

    Elwee and The Treeweasels!
    (from The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse)

    Our Mighty Mouse DVD set has arrived…

    These pics are from the episode Mighty’s Benefit Plan, which is hee-lar-i-ous!  Apart from being a send up of David Seville and The Chipmunks, John K was absolutely allowed to run riot here, and the screengrabs above show some of his classic, inspired poses.  Too awesome for words…seek out, watch, copy, and learn!

  • ¡Los Medicos!


    ©2005 Lili Chin & Eddie Mort

    Our submission for an art show in Tijuana:
    “Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Dr. Doom”

    Remember the real life Mucha Lucha wrestlers from Mexico? I have just been informed that we can see them wrestle on the Llaves y Candados program at  www.multimedios.tv. (Last week, the Three Mascaritas beat the Teletubbies!) The showtimes are Saturdays 6pm and Wednesdays 8pm. (L.A.times) Gracias, Oscar!

    Cartopia - Check out Jim‘s new website on futuristic cars.

  • The Mod Squad

    Our friend and awesome artist, Dale Sizer, is part of a group show opening today at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle.  From the press release:

    Roq La Rue is pleased to present a show of artists who all take cues from retro and vintage commercial art, yet filter it through their own vision to create contemporary work.

    Bonjour Tristesse by Dale Sizer

    Too cool!  Dale’s backgrounds also grace such animated shows as Duck Dodgers, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, and Teacher’s Pet.  Also part of the group show is the supremely talented Andrew Brandou, and Keith Weesner, who draws and paints the greatest hot rods.  More images at www.roqlarue.com

  • Screengrabs!

     

    Samurai Champloo - We’re hooked!!! Volume 2 is arriving from netflix this week. Here are some screengrabs from the opening titles(Flickr photoset) We LOVE the color-styling.

     

    Coonskin – I have been wanting to do this for years. And finally, the technology exists. Here are screengrabs from the movie (Flickr photoset). We LOVE the character designs.

    And if you LOVE Bakshi’s and Scatman Crothers’ “I’m a Nigga Man” (Coonskin opening song) as much as we do, HERE IT IS.  <– REPOSTED 7.1.06

    Can’t wait! The Mighty Mouse DVD set is due to arrive any day now….

    P.S. You may need to sign in to a Flickr account. To download images, click on the pic, then the “All sizes” link above it.




    (Ruido Blanco = White Noise)

    Eddiemuerte’s new album is almost done! We are still deciding on a distribution outlet. Maybe CDBaby

  • *UPDATE

    The ¡Mucha Lucha! episode ‘The Magnificent Three’ has been nominated in this year’s Imagen Awards for Best Children’s Programming. 

     

    Cool Links of the day…



    © Jonas Bergstrand

    Jonas Bergstrand’s illustrations/designs are amazing. (via Drawn!)

    Gallery of Space Suits (via Give, Get, Take and Have)

    Toi Protocol is a cool new blog about Toys and other stuff. Thanks for the link to Cute Things!

    radiodd is a groovy internet radio station. Wish the tracks were available for download…

    One Man Safari – pop culture links

    Found on eBay – a half-half Santo & Blue Demon hood!

  • AAARRRGGGHHHH!



    Anyone who can send us this issue is a friend for life!  Man, first the cover of Luchas 2000 and now Super Luchas…maybe we should quit on a high note


    *UPDATE -  More ML wrestlers!!!! (from one of the pages of Super Luchas  – thanks, Oscar!)


  • Thank you so much to everyone who sent in Web Host suggestions! After comparing the different plans, we’ve settled on webintellects.com’s Platinum Plan and we have 30 days to move everything over. (no easy feat!)


    Bakshi Tribute @ The Egyptian

    The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse – “Night of the Bat Bat”. Freakin’ hilarious! You can see John K. all through this. The pacing, the humor, the exaggerated poses… Awesome.  This actually may be the perfect cartoon.


    Wizards BG via the Ralph Bakshi blog

    Wizards. While it was interesting to see Bakshi do a very art-school-collagey movie with different styles and media, the very Lord of the Rings-inspired story was slow and tedious.  It also lacked the great ‘physical’ drawing style of ‘Heavy Traffic’ and ‘Fritz The Cat’.

    Coonskin
    Is Coonskin awesome or what?!? We had already seen this blaxploitation cartoon several times on video, and here it was on the big screen – can we say how much we LOVE the character designs, the character animation, the soundtrack, the mindblowingly trippy violent sequences… everything!  And to think that there were NO PENCIL TESTS, no retakes. The Scatman Crother’s song at the beginning of the movie – “I’m a Nigger Man” – was also written by Bakshi. Our respect and admiration for this animation legend is reaffirmed.

    Favorite bits:

    • Black Jesus!!!
    • Cop’s death – hallucination sequence.
    • His portrayal of the Mafia and The Godfather is trully weird.

    Link: Interview with Bakshi about Coonskin

    Eddie: Seeing this film (which IMHO is the greatest animated film ever) and hear Bakshi speak reminded me why I got into animation.  His approach, attitude, and the way in which he said FU to the way animated features were made, made him my hero.  Not only that, but the films he made were different from anything else out there.  Can you imagine the big hole in animation if Bakshi hadn’t done what he did?  He’s still my hero. 

    Thanks to Jon M. Gibson for organizing the program at the Egyptian.

    Tonight is Lord of The Rings and American Pop. After enduring Wizards, we might skip LOTR.

    MORE BAKSHI…

    Whatever happened to Spicy City? We saw a few of these ‘cyber-noir’ shorts years ago (on DVD; no HBO in Australia) and we remembered that a few of the stories were quite interesting, conceptually. And most of the character/BG stylizations were reminiscent of European comic books…

         

    images taken from Gary’s ‘Spicy City’ page