Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Yes - Starship Trooper
It's my birthday today and when I want to remember the college in Romford listening to Yes over a few pints (when I could still drink alcohol) with good friends and very long hair. I saw Clapton several times, but Steve Howe was the man.
Arthur Rackham - How Sir Launcelot was shot by a gentlewoman hunting
How Sir Launcelot was shot by a gentlewoman hunting, illustration from 'The romance of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table' by Alfred W. Pollard, 1910
Saturday, January 29, 2011
In the Shadow of the Dreamchild book by Karoline Leach
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild1.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lewis-Carroll-Shadow-Dreamchild-Understanding/dp/0720610443
Review (Amazon)
Charles Dodgson - aka Lewis Carroll, the author of the Alice books - was interested in photography, and his enthusiasm for photographing naked small girls has meant that he has come to be regarded as a passive paedophile. This new book sets out to show that this reputation is undeserved, and does so triumphantly. Dodgson's family appear to have tolerated the accusations of paedophilia in order to disguise a more enthusiastic interest in mature women - a less forgivable moral lapse! The book is a strange, fascinating and entirely original piece of research, showing considerable insight into Victorian social attitudes. (Kirkus UK) --.
In a vigorous effort to subvert the "potent mythology" surrounding Lewis Carroll, ne Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) - that he was a "Victorian clergyman, shy and prim, and locked to some degree in perpetual childhood," and, oddly at the same time a pedophile - Leach, a British playwright, claims that Dodgson had relationships with several mature women, albeit often selfish and cruel ones. These included the artist Gertrude Thomson and the writer Anna Thackery. The eponymous "dreamchild" is Alice Liddell, the daughter of Dodgson's dean at Christ College, Oxford, upon whom Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is based and for whom Dodgson assumed the role of attentive father figure. But by studying the "psychological crisis" evident in Dodgson's fragmentary journals (many pages were cut out and destroyed by relatives who feared scandal), Leach suggests Dodgson was more involved with Liddell's wife than with Alice and proposes that the seemingly suggestive photos of young girls that Dodgson took stem, in part, from "strange Victorian child-cult" in which "innocence was expressed ultimately through an affected and devotional love of children." As artfully told as a fine detective story, Leach's story of what truly seems a conspiracy among Dodgson scholars cogently argues that although new materials on Carroll have been released since the late 1970's (his unexpurgated diary, Leach says "is at present being prepared for publication"), the permanent sabotage of many of his papers has made it virtually impossible ever to attain a clear picture of this unusual individual. --Publishers Weekly
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/nonfic/dreamchild.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_1603_275/ai_55683947/
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sapphire and Steel - Overview
I remember how sophisticated and clever this seemed in the 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_and_Steel
Helen Oxenbury - So Much
Trish Cooke (Author) Helen Oxenbury (Illustrator)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Much-Trish-Cooke/dp/0744543967
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Layn Marlow - Little by Little #2
Amber Stewart (Author) Layn Marlow (Illustrator)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Amber-Stewart/dp/0192727354/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1295861622&sr=8-3
Axel Scheffler - The Smartest Giant in Town
Julia Donaldson (Author), Axel Scheffler (Illustrator)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smartest-Giant-Town-Julia-Donaldson/dp/0333963962/ref=pd_sim_b_6
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Huge Comics Event at Heritage Auctions
DALLAS, TX.- The Savannah Collection, a newly discovered grouping of more than 40,000 comic books, spanning from 1958 to the present, and acquired directly from the distributor, valued in total at more than $1 million – roughly $350,000 of which is in this auction – makes its debut in Heritage Auctions’ Feb. 24-26 Signature® Vintage Comics & Comic Art Auction.
“This collection has already been recognized as a pedigree collection by certification service CGC,” said Ed Jaster, Senior Vice President at Heritage, “one of few collections from this era to receive that designation.”
The collection is particularly notable for coming replete with significant comic books of the silver age, with a particular emphasis on key DC issues, such as a CGC-certified 8.0 Showcase #22 Green Lantern, estimated at $17,000+.
An Archie Comics #1, CGC 8.5 – the highest-graded copy of the issue, and the only known copy graded above 7.0 – hailing from the “Pinnacle Hill” collection, which produced the 8.0 certified copy of Detective #27 that sold for $1,075,500 in February of 2011, will have collectors of everybody’s favorite carrot top sitting up to take notice. The comic carries a pre-auction estimate of $50,000+.
On virtually the flip side of the comics spectrum from Archie #1, but no less valuable and important, is a rare high grade copy Fantastic Four #1, CGC 8.0, the nicest unrestored copy of the issue that Heritage has offered in five years. This comic, which essentially started the Marvel Age in 1961, carries a pre-auction estimate of $50,000+.
The Kerby Confer Collection, which has held collectors enthralled for the last two Heritage comics auctions with its amazing depth of original Carl Barks Scrooge McDuck paintings, continues to yield more top examples of this highly sought-after Disney artist with Barks’ July Fourth in Duckburg leading this auction.
“This painting, which features the largest cast of characters that Barks ever painted, was a onetime record-setter for a piece of comic art when it sold for $6,400 in 1976,” said Barry Sandoval , Director of Comics Auctions Operations at Heritage. “When it comes up for bid this time later in February it’s expected to bring $150,000 or more. Most people would agree that’s a pretty good return.”
Also from The Kerby Confer Collection comes what is easily one of the most important Mickey Mouse items in existence, The Band Concert Animation Cel, thought to be the only existing production setup from Mickey Mouse’s first color cartoon, The Band Concert, made in 1935. It is estimated at $100,000+.
Great original comic art is in large supply in this auction, with several examples from some of the most important artists, and titles of the 1970s and 1980s leading the charge. John Byrne’s original cover art for X-Men #116, 1978 is the first among equals in these offerings, just the fourth X-Men cover the legendary artist drew for the popular title, and it is expected to bring $75,000+. An artist of equal fan renown, none other than Frank Miller, is also represented in the original comic art section of the auction as Heritage offers the original art from Page #3 of The Dark Knight Returns, a title whose original art rarely appears at auction; in fact, this is only the second time a piece of art from the title has shown up in a Heritage event. It is estimated at $40,000+.
Rounding out the top original art offerings, and fresh on the heels of the November 2010 sale of Watchmen Issue #1, Page #1 for $33,460, Heritage presents four pages of original art from the influential series, including a page of Nite Owl and Rorschach from Page #24, Issue #3 (estimate: $25,000+), a stunning page of art featuring Ozymandias in his lair from Page #8, Issue #10 (estimate: $20,000+), Nite Owl and Silk Spectre from Page #5, Issue #8 (estimate: $20,000+) and another page featuring Silk Spectre in the Owlship from Page #2, Issue #7 (estimate: $20,000+).
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=44423
[An Archie Comics #1, CGC 8.5 – the highest-graded copy of the issue, and the only known copy graded above 7.0 – hailing from the “Pinnacle Hill” collection, which produced the 8.0 certified copy of Detective #27 that sold for $1,075,500 in February of 2011, will have collectors of everybody’s favorite carrot top sitting up to take notice. The comic carries a pre-auction estimate of $50,000+]
Marmeduke
I always start my day with the news headlines and the Comics of which Marmeduke always makes me smile - a good start to the day!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Arthur Rackham - 'And there I learnt what love was like'
illustration from 'Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods', 1924
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Dick Gaughan - Workers' Song
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Workers' Song
Words & Music : Ed Pickford
Lyric as sung by Dick Gaughan
Come all of you workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead
In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed
But when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
When we've never owned one handful of earth?
We're the first ones to starve the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about
All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can
Arthur Rackham - The Rhine's fair children, Bewailing their lost gold, weep
illustration from 'The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie', 1910
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