Mutterings of a Mad Woman

Tomorrow, March 25th, is the birthday of the woman whose head I live in. An early birthday gift was presented which has brought me much delight.

This is Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl and she is sitting on the desk as I type this. The poor soul in the snake's belly is Ragamuffin, her sidekick.

Roman Dirge is the artist. He's created both a comic strip and short animations of Lenore and friends.

I have a love/hate relationship when it comes to Lenore. I really enjoy the illustrations, but the online impressions of the artist leave much to be desired. I'd actually given up completely as a fan of this character because I couldn't find any good leads on new projects or even merchandise.

The big bad Sony copyright machine closed the only decent site where you could get a good sense of Dirge's work (speaking of which, not sure how long that link I posted above will be of any use). I can understand wanting to control how your work is promoted, but the webmaster wasn't making any money off the fan site. More importantly, the artist himself is but a scattered presence on the Web.

The folks over at Aksel Creations are doing some interesting things with fabric design.

We'll start with the simple and elegant organ tablecloth (pictured left). Understated creepiness is always a plus in my books. I like that it's subtle, and visitors may not recognize what the design is at first glance.

It's part of graphic designer Aksel Varichon's 2008 'Home Flow' household linen collection. You can buy similar oven mitts, aprons, place mats, and pillows.

Or you can skip the pillow and purchase an arm chair, choosing from 4 different designs (pictured below).

There wasn't any prices listed on the website, which indicates I can't afford it. But perhaps a rich bone-daddy out there might want to pick it up as, oh I don't know, an early birthday present for a certain ghoul?

When I first heard there was a movie being made of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are originally written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, I had mixed feelings. It would be exciting to see these creatures larger than life on the big screen, but at what price?

With today's film makers relying more and more on CGI (especially on big budget films and this one has cost $80 Million U.S.), one of my main concerns was how the characters would look. When it comes to monsters and creatures, I'll take a guy in a costume over full CGI anytime, so I was relieved to find out that most of the beasts were being created with a mix of puppetry and computer enhancement.

Reports and reviews on the Internet have been vague and contradictory at best. Some say the movie was too frightening for little ones to watch at a test screening, and that the entire film was to be re-shot from scratch (some reported the new version would use no puppets and all creatures would be generated using CGI). Many have speculated the film would never actually make it to theatres.

Camille Rose Garcia recently had a show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. As part of the exhibit, she promoted her fabulous new wallpaper. You can buy a roll that covers 30 square feet for the low, low cost of $200.

You'd think with those prices (not to mention small, standard paper-sized works going for $4000 like Happy Owl and Nervous House pictured below), she might be able to afford to hire someone to update her website for her. The only reason I was aware she had a new showing was because Bones over at Haunt Style blogged about it.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's great when an artist is successful and people are willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for their work. It just means that I'll never be able to afford anything more than a book of hers, and that makes my artist crush on her fade a bit.

Remember when I mentioned she's launching the toy company PITCO? My plans of buying one of her 'toys' has been obliterated. One of those Seymore Squidley Dolls (pictured below) costs $600.