I always loved Freddie Hubbard’s energetic and authoritative, yet airy and tender trumpet playing. His vigorous playing on the classic Ready for Freddie (1961), the way he takes the lead on Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage (1965), his strong, equilibrist, if still outshone compliment to Coltrane on Ascension (1965), and his early somewhat fluffy but […]

For lovers of Italian Renaissance art, this has been a pretty stellar year in terms of exhibitions. Amongst the major ones, the Rome/Berlin Sebastiano del Piombo show over the summer was an eye-opener, and this autumn’s double whammy of Andrea Mantegna in Paris and Giovanni Bellini in Rome offered strong contributions to this museum-goer’s sweet […]

If anything, this has been a year of top name releases in mainstream hip hop, with one heavyweight after the other dropping marquee-style albums they all seem to hope will be game changers for them. Earlier in the year, we had Lil Wayne making his superstar status official (pity he hasn’t been up to much […]

I know it’s been everywhere today, but I just can’t resist posting it. There’s something fitting to the fact that presumably one of the last memorable images of the lame duck president is him having a pair of shoes thrown at him in a small room. I mean, what could be more pathetic? Well, I […]

Når tegneserierne i disse år også herhjemme så småt er ved at finde fodfæste på parnasset, skyldes det i ikke ringe grad den massive indflydelse, som japansk kultur i almindelighed – og japanske tegneserier og –film i særdeleshed – har haft på de seneste årtiers kulturelle output i Vesten. Mangaens egenartede æstetik og emblematiske dynamik […]

The picks of the week from around the web.
Slightly slim pickings this week, owing to the fact that I’ve been on internet-free holiday. I do however have these recommendations for you:
Warren Craghead: “A Flame Expelled.” Top Shelf hosts this short lyrical comic from one of the most compelling experimental comics makers at the moment.
Prospect: “A […]

T. Thorhauges seneste tegneserie “Jørgen Leth”, udsendt som del af Aben Malers 676-serie, har vakt en del opsigt i den danske tegneserieblogosfære. Ovre på Serieland har Kim Larsen interviewet manden selv om tankerne bag værket. Læs hele herligheden her.

Foreningen af danske tegneserieskabere har pga nye regler vedrørende uddeling af Copy-Dan midler stiftet en fond, der har til hensigt at støtte tegneserietegnere og -forfattere økonomisk. Af foreningens hjemmeside fremgår det, at “støtten hovedsagelig skal uddeles som arbejdslegater til danske tegneserieskabere, men kan også i mindre omfang uddeles som støttebeløb til tegneseriefaglige seminarer, varetagelse af […]

I remember a film critic who once compared Robert Altman’s Gosford Park to Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game (Regle du jeu). The critic found each film more or less equal in terms of ambition, craftsmanship and themes, but nevertheless argued that one was clearly superior to the other. To that particular critic, the […]

Having forgotten to ask Brad Neely for permission to use his work as illustration, we must make do with a sketch of the man himself.
Brad Neely’s drawings work, because you read them in an instant.
The images tend to move, but Neely isn’t really an animator. His drawings are all single instances, flashing by, at a […]

I was never a fan of Party Arty of the NYC crew Ghetto Dwellas, who sadly passed away a few days ago due to undisclosed health complications. An long-time affiliate of the legendary conglomeration Diggin in the Crates (D.I.T.C.), I first heard him on Show and AG’s Goodfellas, and he was pretty much the fly […]

The picks of the week from around the web.
The New York Times: Bill Ayers responds. Op-ed piece from the recently much-maligned former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Succint and to the point, with plenty of things to disagree with. The comments section by the way contains some excellent discussion.
A couple of great comics links. “The Fourth Dimension […]

“O freedom, O freedom, O freedom over me, And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave, And go home to my Lord and be free.”

The New York Times‘ obituary. The clip above is from a performance of “Waterboy” as excerpted in Scorcese’s No Direction Home.

If you’re in LA you should really, really consider going to Anders Nilsen’s first solo show, which opens at LitteBird Gallery this Saturday. Nilsen himself says that it’s “a bunch of big drawings, a few gouache paintings and a few covers from Big Questions. Included are Batman, Captain America, The Archangel Gabriel, Adam and Eve […]

Danish cartoonist Ib Kjeldsmark is currently doing a strip called Mongo Business for the bi-weekly branch mag Markedsføring. It’s worth a look — Ib is a great visual stylist the hollowed-out bullshit Buddishm metaphor he makes use of works well for his irreverent anti-authoritarian satire. It’s in Danish, unfortunately, but check it out anyway, for […]