Thanks, Seb....

Here's another PJ Harvey poster. Very nice indeed.

PJ Harvey at the Sydney Opera House last night?

IN A word.....

SUPERB.

You can read all about the gig in the next issue of BP Jr, out soonish.

Yes, I know this is the wrong gig poster, but the illo's soooooo cool, I just had to run it here

Long. Distant. Lover.

COOL as cool friend Nicola Hardy (secretenvelope.blogspot.com) is an extremely talented artist. She has a new exhibition titled Long. Distant. Lover. in Hamburg. If you happen to be passing through Germany soon, I suggest you go check it out. Here's the blurb about Nicola's event at Facebook.com:

"Long. Distant. Lover. is a series of 100 drawings by Australian artist, Nicola Hardy, who is currently an artist in residence at Vorwerkstift in Hamburg. The drawings are in a comic/cartoon style and are based on self-portrait photographs taken by the artist over a two-month period in the winter of 2007 in Berlin. The drawings form the basis for a stop-motion animation, which will be available on a DVD, along with short films made from photographs. In this work Nicola has adopted a persona, in a Cindy Sherman-esque fashion. Some people call it burlesque, others call it porn, but she likes to think of it as a bored chick taking her clothes off in her bedroom. The photographs employ the visual language of the interweb – DIY, low budget, real life style – and were taken with the built-in camera on her laptop.Previously, Nicola has self-published comics and zines, mostly of an autobiographical nature. Unlike her other work, Long. Distant. Lover. is devoid of text, leaving the story up to the imagination of the viewer. The work depicts a classic striptease and banana eating scenario, influenced by short films starring Bettie Page. Nicola invites you into a fantasy world of a candy-coloured bedroom where you can become more than just a casual observer, you can project your own ideals and ideas onto the situation. The title of the exhibition refers to the original intention of photos and films: as a visual love letter to a long distance lover. Perhaps this is a real or imagined situation, perhaps the recipient is you. . .If you can't make it to the opening, don't worry, the exhibition continues until March 22 and it's also going to be shown in Melbourne (when I get my shit together)."

A piece of my childhood is gone

COMIC book writer Steve Gerber is dead at age 60. Fuck.

He wrote some of my favourite titles in the 1970s, particularly The Defenders, where he gave Doc Strange and company such oddballs to deal with as the Elf With A Gun (below).

His satiric, oddball run on titles like Man-Thing and his most famous creation, Howard The Duck, were also pretty cool. Howard was the first "adult" comic I read - I'll always fondly remember the cigar-smoking fowl's run for US President in 1976.

Apart from Howard, Gerver created and wrote a bunch of titles for various companies including Omega The Unknown, Destroyer Duck (drawn by Jack Kirby) and Void Indigo. They were hit and miss.

I communicated briefly once with Steve via e-mail in the late 90s. Having found his web site, I raved about how I loved his Marvel work and he quickly (and politely) responded about how I should check out his new series Nevada. I did and, sadly, I didn't like it - frankly, I always preferred Gerber's early Marvel work and thought a lot of his later stuff was out of step with the changing comics world.

I think he lost his way a bit in the late 70s when he sued Marvel over ownership of Howard The Duck, and he never fully recovered.

Go to his blog at http://www.stevegerber.com/sgblog/ and be kinda weirded out. Steve wrote his last post on February 4: "Nothing new to report medically. I’m up in the middle of the night, working on Doctor Fate. Will let all of you know what’s going on with that in a day or so."

The next entry is on February 11 and says, "I am not Steve Gerber. I’m a friend of his named Mark Evanier. Steve died yesterday at that hospital in Las Vegas. It was not a surprise but it was a shock…to all of us who knew him."

Mark has his own obituary for Gerber at http://newsfromme.com/, which is worth a read.

As for me, I feel another shadow creeping across my grave. I'm getting older, friends.

More merry Marvel art...

...from the recent Los Angeles exhibition titled UNDER THE INFLUENCE - A Tribute to Stan Lee.


Marvel's characters have never looked cooler.