Phire Phoenix presents: Meago

[After Phire Phoenix sent in that incredible Litta'Bit fanart--and after she worked with me behind the scenes to put together that Loish post--I've decided to give her a regular feature here, where she can introduce her to some of her favorite artists. I tried coming up with a clever name for the series involving a pun on fire / Phire, but I gave up. (The best I could come up with was University Of Phoenix.) So for now let's just call it Phire Phoenix Presents.]

Hey guys! I'm totally excited about this guestblog. My tastes tend to lean towards anime-inspired illustration, but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, so I'll try to cover a wide range of different styles.

So, first up: Meago! She's an anime artist from Poland whose work is so polished, despite the frequency of her updates, that it makes me wonder how she's getting any sleep. This is my favourite illustration of hers...maybe because I can relate to the sentiment of struggling against "art block" in the wee hours of the morning:


One of Meago's greatest strengths is her ability to portray emotions. For example, in this illustration, you can really get a feel for the owner's sense of tender protectiveness towards her pet. She's also particularly good at depicting dynamic scenes, as seen in the light-hearted interaction between the two characters of this illustration.

But honestly, what really sold me on this artist was her charming line of clothing designs for girls. Here's an example, but don't miss the full line here. Isn't that brilliant? (Also, even if you're not interested in anime, you'll be won over by her ridiculously cute Zodiac chart.)

Interested in how Meago creates her illustrations? Here's a really cool "making-of" for this illustration. I'm a total sucker for these kinds of process-flow demonstrations.

So that's Meago. I'm really excited to share more of my favourite artists soon! If you'd like to see a larger selection of artists I like, check out this deviantArt wrapup I just posted on my website. Talk to you next time!

The Darling Budds Now On Twitter For Some Reason

I've created a Twitter stream to help you guys stay on top of updates to the main site, this blog, the wiki, and the swipe file. It'll be like an RSS feed, basically, except simpler, if that's even possible. Just follow @thedarlingbudds to get updated a few times a week about what's going on with The Darling Budds.

So now there's actually five ways to stay up-to-date with these sites:

RSS
RSS is a way to get updates to your favorite websites sent to you automatically. I'll get into this more in another post, but this video does a decent job of explaining it. All of my sites have an RSS feed you can subscribe to: here's the main site's feed, this site's feed, and the swipe file's feed.

Twitter
See above. Just to be clear, this'll only be used to alert followers to updates. I'm not gonna be spamming you guys with, you know, my feelings and stuff.

Follow On Blogger / Tumblr
For now, both this site and the main site are hosted on Blogger. If you already have a Blogger account, you can "follow" the two sites and be notified whenever they update. Similarly, the Swipe File is on Tumblr, which also has a Follow function. I don't know a whole lot about this--I prefer RSS--but it seems easy enough. Note that I'll be moving the main site over to a self-hosted Wordpress installation in a few weeks, so this isn't a permanent solution.

Email Updates
Whenever I update the main site, I email a list of people to let them know a new installment is up. It's not in-depth (maybe two sentences) and it's not official, but if you'd like to be on in, just drop me an email.

Bookmark The Sites And Visit Them Every Now And Then
C'mon...seriously? This is not really an option in 2010. Do you also churn your own butter?

Weapons-Grade Elegance

I sat down to write a long post about my father remarrying when I was 11, and my new step-brother's "game closet," full of all the games my bus driver father had never been to buy for my sister and me, and how the Mastermind cover had such a huge influence on my adolescent sense of who I wanted to be once I outgrew my baby fat and second-hand clothes, and left West Virginia.

But: too bloggy; didn't write.

However, without getting into the impressionable psyche of the Bobby Hill-like pre-teen that was yr pal Johnny, suffice to say that the box had almost a profound effect on my 13 -year-old self as Steven Tyler at the end of the Rag Doll video. (Don't ask.)

•

If you've ever been curious about the two cover models, who they were and what they're doing now, the University of Leicester, of all places, has an update.

A warning, though: this link will forever dispel whatever mystery the cover image has built up in your mind. There's no shocking surprise--they're both decent and successful people, it seems, and happy--but perhaps they'll no longer be linked to the vision of badassedness wrapped in elegance that has become such an integral part of your make-up.

Um.

Les Incroyables et Merveilleuses

"The Incroyable first appeared around 1792. Known for their royalist sympathies, they re-emerged after the fall of Robespierre and were key thugs in what has become known as The White Terror, a backlash against Jacobin oppression, violence, and Robespierrean virtue. The jeunesse dorée roamed the streets of Paris drinking, toasting the monarchy and lashing out at patriots with sticks. And they looked fabulous doing it."

Les Incroyables et Merveilleuses: Fashion as Anti-Rebellion

The Song Of My Decade

I was gonna post a list of my favorite stuff from the last decade, but then I remembered: who gives a shit? So instead of pretending I'm Harold Bloom, I think I'll make it more personal and post the song that best sounds like what this decade has meant for me.

The song is LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends," (which actually I probably would have put at the top of an objective Best Songs Of The 00s list anyway), which I've uploaded for you guys. Just click the link to download it from zShare:

All My Friends
LCD Soundsystem

That's how it starts
We go back to your house
We check the charts
And start to figure it out

And if it's crowded, all the better
Because we know we're gonna be up late
But if you're worried about the weather
Then you picked the wrong place to stay
That's how it starts

And so it starts
You switch the engine on
We set controls for the heart of the sun
one of the ways we show our age

And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
And I still don't wanna stagger home
Then it's the memory of our betters
That are keeping us on our feet

You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan And the next five years trying to be with your friends again

You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can
Teah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend

It comes apart
The way it does in bad films
Except in parts
When the moral kicks in

Though when we're running out of the drugs
And the conversation's winding away
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision For another five years of lies

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can
And the next ten people who are trying to be polite
When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?

And to tell the truth Oh, this could be the last time
So here we go
Like a sales force into the night

And if I made a fool, if I made a fool, if I made a fool
on the road, there's always this
And if I'm sewn into submission
I can still come home to this

And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand
You can sleep on the plane or review what you said
When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks
You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead."

Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand
You look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said
And you always knew you were tired, but then
Where are your friends tonight?

Where are your friends tonight?
Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight

*

BONUS
A photographic metaphor for my decade:

Litta'Bit Fan Art!

Oh my god, you guys...look at this Litta'Bit fan art a reader sent me!

This was made for me by Phire Phoenix, an amateur illustrator in Ontario. Go check out the rest of her artwork at her website. In her email, Phire explained why she was inspired to draw Litta'Bit:

There's such an empathetic quality to your storytelling, and it's particularly noticeable when you write about Litta'Bit's private life. I desperately want to know her better, to be part of her imperfect lives, to see what happens next and if she ends up living happily ever after the way I want her to.

Also, she seemed like the one I was least likely to mess up totally while drawing.

I think this is totally great, and I'm so humbled that someone took the time to draw one of my characters. Here's something else neat: Phire also sent in these design presentations of Swipe File images...


...and that DB logo is now the one used at the bottom of the main page (scroll down).

Once again, I'd like to tell Phire that I'm completely blown away and grateful for this. Thank you so much.

Readers: If any of you would like to see your own Darling Budds fan art featured here, feel free to...ah, who am I kidding?

The Original Of Laura cover by Chip Kidd

Here's Chip Kidd's cover for Nabakov's recently published posthumous "novel," which is really just the notes towards a novel he was working on when he died. I've seen book covers that have impressed me, but this is the first one that actually choked me up. What a poignant cover.


In his review, John Banville (see below!) called the design "a triumph of the book maker's art". The interior cover of the book is rather touching as well:

In other Nabakov Book Cover news, all the design blogs are losing their shit over these reissues, but I think they're so tacky and dated. To see a simpler and much better take on the same concept, look here.