links/2024w07

At around age 60, with her 3 children all grown up and out of her hands, Sugiyama decided to relocate from Saitama up north to Iwate prefecture where she had relatives, and was closer to her birthplace of Aomori. She obtained her chiropractors license and opened a small practice where she served the local community for over 10 years. 

One day, Sugiyama found a pack of discarded colored markers near a dumpster. Noticing that they were still in good shape, she decided to take them home and begin doodling. Soon, images of trees and rivers all inspired by the nature of Aomori began pouring out of her and onto the pages of a sketchbook. After a year or so of sketching with the markers, Sugiyama remembered her mother’s colorful kimonos that had been stored away. There was no use for them in storage so the artist, whose creative juices were now flowing, decided to begin incorporating them into her work, which eventually led to a style she has coined as “Kimono Reborn Art.”

the collection: recent additions

Been in a bit of a collecting lull of late, mostly sticking with new comics releases and the occasional “ok I can’t pass this up” splurge, this sheet of Walter B. Gibson’s memo paper being among them…

Been on a Spectre kick lately, too…

spectre action figures

Scratch one off the “comics I must own before I die and even then” list…

With No. 6, DICK TRACY SMASHES THE BOMBING RACKET, I’ve now only one more to go to complete my set of the 1934 Goudy Big Thrill booklets…

And, finally, in “I’m sure I’m now on a list somewhere” additions...

THE LOBSTER (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)

Input trend of "catch up from the last 10-80 years and finally explore" – see: Cassavetes, The Safdies, Chester Himes, et al – continues with Yorgos Lanthimos (the cinematic Gogol?) and this gem: darkly hilarious in its exploration of the stupidity of extremes (no one here is immune – everyone seems to have the emotional capacity of schoolchildren at recess (which, when it comes to love, I suppose we all do), to wonderful – and horrifying – effect) and far more moving than its weird would lead one to believe. All of Lanthimos’s work duly added to the "must-watch" list.