the
fanboy book shop:
Fruits
by Shoichi Aoki
Fruits is a collection of Tokyo street fashion portraits from Japan's
premier street fanzine of the same name. 'Fruits' was established
in 1994, by photographer Shoichi Aoki, initially as a project to
document the growing explosion in street fashion within the suburbs
of Tokyo. Over the last five years, the magazine has grown to cult
status and is now avidly followed by thousands of Japanese teenagers
who also use the magazine as an opportunity to check out the latest
styles and trends.
The
average age of the kids featured in the magazine is between 12 and
18, and the clothes that they wear are a mixture of high fashion
Vivienne Westwood is a keen favourite and home-made
ensembles which when combined create a novel, if not hysterical,
effect. This extensive collection of portraits represents a unique
documentation of the changing face of street fashion throughout
the last decade. Colourful, fascinating and funny, this is the first
time these cult images have been published outside Japan.
Jimmy
Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Ware's
hero is a doughy, middle-aged loser who retreats into fantasies
that he is "The Smartest Kid on Earth." The minimal plot
involves Jimmy's tragicomic reunion with the father who abandoned
him in childhood. In abruptly juxtaposed flashbacks, Ware depicts
previous generations of Corrigan males, revealing how their similar
histories of rejection and abandonment culminated in Jimmy's hapless
state.
What makes the slight story remarkable is Ware's command of the
comics medium. His crisp, painstaking draftsmanship, which sets
cartoonish figures in meticulously detailed architectural settings,
is matched by his formal brilliance. Ware effectively uses tiny,
repetitive panels to convey Jimmy's limited existence, then suddenly
bursts a page open with expansive, breathtaking vistas. His complex,
postmodern approach incorporates such antiquated influences as Windsor
McCay's pioneering Little Nemo strips and turn-of-the-century advertising,
transforming them into something new, evocative, and affecting.
His daunting skill transforms a simple tale into a pocket epic and
makes Jimmy's melancholy story the stuff of cartoon tragedy.
Digital
Beauties by Julius Weidemann
This is the first book in a new series on digital culture focuses
on beauty and cutting-edge computer-generated female characters.
Whereas most books on digital creation concentrate on technique
and include detailed "how-tos," Digital Beauties is all
about exploring the artistic achievements of today's best designers
without a lot of complicated technical jargon.
Here
you'll discover a host of digital beauties from all around the world
and a dizzying array of styles and techniques-moody black-and-white
nudes, surreal portraits, Lara Croft-style adventure chicks, sleek
ultra-futuristic babes, etc. Both 2D and 3D design are covered,
with an emphasis on the latter; some images are so stunningly lifelike
it's hard to believe they're 100% computer generated.
Where
the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (Illustrator)
Where the Wild Things Are is one of those truly rare books that
can be enjoyed equally by a child and a grown-up. If you disagree,
then it's been too long since you've attended a wild rumpus.
Max
dons his wolf suit in pursuit of some mischief and gets sent to
bed without supper. Fortuitously, a forest grows in his room, allowing
his wild rampage to continue unimpaired. Sendak's color illustrations
(perhaps his finest) are beautiful, and each turn of the page brings
the discovery of a new wonder.
The wild things--with their mismatched parts and giant eyes--manage
somehow to be scary-looking without ever really being scary; at
times they're downright hilarious. Sendak's defiantly run-on sentences--one
of his trademarks--lend the perfect touch of stream of consciousness
to the tale, which floats between the land of dreams and a child's
imagination. This Sendak classic is more fun than you've ever had
in a wolf suit, and it manages to reaffirm the notion that there's
no place like home.
Supercade
by Van Burnham and Ralph H. Baer
The generation now in its 30s pumped innumerable quarters into free-standing
video consoles with protruding joysticks, steering wheels, and "fire"
buttons the quaint precursors of today's dollar-based sensory overload
and sleekly sophisticated home systems. Burnham, an L.A.-based Wired
contributing editor and a member of the Video Arcade Preservation
Society, lovingly collects screen shots of faves like Space Invaders,
Pac-Man and Q*bert, along with early games like Computer Space and
Pong, and home games from Atari and Nintendo. The chronological
organization holds the book's disparate games and players together
adequately, but readers looking for a straight narrative history
should look elsewhere: this is all about memory jogging and rapturous
description.
In
the Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn
In the Country of the Blind is a tense, complex, exciting conspiracy
thriller, highly recommended to all fans of suspense fiction, secret
history, alternate history, and science fiction.
In the 19th century, the British scientist Charles Babbage designed
an "analytical engine," a working computer that was never
built--or so the world believes. Sarah Beaumont, an ex-reporter
and real estate developer, is investigating a Victorian-era Denver
property when she finds an ancient analytical engine. Sarah investigates
her astonishing discovery and finds herself pursued by a secret
society that has used Babbage computers to develop a new science,
cliology, which allows its practitioners to predict history--and
to control history for its own purposes. And it will stop at nothing
to preserve its secret mastery of human destiny.
Michael Flynn is one of best and most interesting of the modern
hard-SF writers, combining rigorous extrapolation with skilled prose
and strong characterization. In the Country of the Blind is his
first novel, but it was somewhat overlooked when it appeared in
1990, perhaps because it debuted as a paperback original. Now Tor
has reissued the book in hardcover, the format it deserves.
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the
fanboy DVD store:
The
Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993
The surreal visions of the Brothers Quay, identical-twin animators
from Minnesota who have since made London their home, are
an offbeat mix of clockwork mechanics, wire, thread, and 19th-century
curios, all set to life in a series of beautiful but elusive
set pieces. Directed in a highly stylized manner, with a shallow
plane of focus that intentionally keeps certain objects blurred
and a camera that moves with conspicuous mechanical precision,
their works have a dreamlike quality about them. This is directly
alluded to in the subtitle of one of their most handsome films,
"The Comb (From the Museum of Sleep)," where scenes
of a latticework of ladders shooting through an angular construction
are intercut with shots of a sleeping woman. "Street
of Crocodiles," their most famous short work, references
turn-of-the-century cinema as a man peers through a Kinetoscope
to watch the nightmare-tinged fantasy of a figure overwhelmed
by mysterious forces on the deserted streets of a city after
dark.
In
addition the tape contains other spellbinding works, from
the early "The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer," a tribute
to the great Czech animator and the Quay's spiritual godfather,
to the inventive art history documentary "De Artificiali
Perspectiva, or Anamorphosis," to the four short works
in the "Stille Nacht" series. These films, along
with "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and "Rehearsals
For Extinct Anatomies," showcase a vision of quivering
objects and surreal narratives in a shadowy, self-contained
dream world.
Jason
and the Argonauts
Arguably the most intelligently written film to feature the
masterful stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen, Jason
and the Argonauts is a colorful adventure that takes full
advantage of Harryhausen's "Dynarama" process. Inspired
by the Greek myth, the story begins when the fearless explorer
Jason (Todd Armstrong) returns to the kingdom of Thessaly
to make his rightful claim to the throne, but the gods proclaim
that he must first find the magical Golden Fleece. Consulting
Hera, the queen of gods, Jason recruits the brave Argonauts
to crew his ship, and they embark on their eventful journey.
Along
the way they encounter a variety of mythic creatures, including
the 100-foot bronze god Talos, the batlike Harpies, the seven-headed
reptilian Hydra, and an army of skeletons wielding sword and
shield. This last sequence remains one of the finest that
Harryhausen ever created, and it's still as thrilling as anything
from the age of digital special effects. Harryhausen was the
true auteur of his fantasy films, and his brilliant animation
evokes a timeless sense of wonder. Jason and the Argonauts
is a prime showcase for Harryhausen's talent--a wondrous product
of pure imagination and filmmaking ingenuity. The DVD contains
an informative interview with Harryhausen by filmmaker John
Landis.
The
Simpsons - The Complete First Season
America's first family of dysfunction, the Simpsons, appear
in all their depraved glory in this wonderful DVD compilation
of their show's premiere season. Fans accustomed to the slick
appearance of the later episodes will be delighted by the
rougher nature of these earlier episodes when the animation
was still evolving. This only adds to the charm of these 13
episodes, which begin with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open
Fire," the December 1989 Christmas special in which a
down-and-out Simpson family adopt Santa's Little Helper. Throughout
the season, familiar faces are introduced, as we catch first
glimpses of Smithers, Mr. Burns, the Flanderses, and Patty
and Selma.
This
set is chock-full of extras, the original scripts--complete
with side notes and margin drawings--will be intriguing to
diehard fans. The original skit from The Tracey Ullman Show,
"Goodnight Simpsons," is a must-watch, and it's
impressive to see how much the Simpsons have changed. Of course,
Matt Groening's (and some of the show's producers') commentary
is fascinating, as he picks apart the animation in an unaired
version of "Some Enchanted Evening." Also included
is "The Making of The Simpsons"; foreign-language
clips (hear what Homer sounds like in French); and Albert
Brooks's audio outtakes from "Life on the Fast Lane,"
which is simply hilarious.
Once
Upon a Time in China Collection
This DVD set contains Once Upon a Time in China I, II and
III. The series stars the charismatic and athletically adept
Jet Li. Li plays legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hong, a late
19th century southern Chinese healer and kung fu master. The
story begins with Western powers (American, British, and French)
encroaching on the city of Canton. Wong is asked by the Black
Flag army to safeguard the town by creating his own militia
of kung fu experts. His assistants include the butcher "Porky"
(Kent Cheng), a Chinese-American named Bucktooth So (Jacky
Cheung), and his westernized "Auntie" Yee (Rosamund
Kwan), a non-blood-related childhood friend for whom he holds
a special affection. But the Westerners aren't the only problem
in Canton. The Sha Ho gang terrorizes local businesses and
has begun dealing with the Americans in exporting Chinese
for slave labor and prostitution. A down-on-his-luck kung
fu master named Iron Vest Yim (Yan Yee Kwan) has decided he
needs to defeat Wong to open a school and Leung Fu (Jackie
Chan contemporary Yuen Biao), a traveling opera troupe groupie,
just keeps getting in the way. This epic martial-arts film
showcases Li's amazing fighting and acrobatic skills and established
Tsui Hark as a top-notch action film director.
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