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BLOGTASTIC (or all roads seem to lead to san fransisco)

Saturday September 15th 2007, 5:51 pm

HOLYBATGALLERY…
There is going to be a month long rotating gallery feature of the original art to my Batman work focusing mostly on the recent arc. This display will be held at The Isotope Comics Lounge in San Fransisco with an opening party to be held on saturday september 29th from 8pm to midnight. Come by and hang with us and let’s have us party!!! details can be found at…

WWW.ISOTOPECOMICS.COM

TEZUKAGOD…
Our trip to see the Osamu Tezuka exhibit last week at the Asian Art Museum in San Fransisco was brilliant. The exhibit was astounding. The amount of work that was produced by him was overwhelming. An absolute inspiration to see so many original pages from across his career. One thing that was a very nice surprise was that they didn’t let Astro Boy (Mighty Atom) out weigh his other, less famous, works to americans. There was a good representation of material that hasn’t had proper translation here in the states. Fortunately Vertical seems to be intent on changing that by bringing over more of the less mainstream oriented material, like they have done with Buddha. They are publishing several of his single novel length books over this next year. That makes me very happy. I’m not sure if Viz will have anything else come out other than the end of Phoenix. The pleasure of seeing so much original art from the master japanese comics was a genuine high for me and I probably will never have such an opportunity again. Since I had never seen original manga art before I was surprised by how small of a drawing size a lot of it was done. Which astounded me even more when seeing the precision of the tiniest details. If any of you haven’t read Tezuka’s works or are just familiar with Astro Boy I highly recommend that you pick up some his more ambitious works like Adolf, Buddha, or Phoenix.

OTHER PLEASURES AND TREASURES….
The Asian Art Museum offers quite a lot of beautiful art and historical artifacts from a multitude of cultures. I was very amazed at how big and extensive this museum is. There are giant tapestries dating back to times older than our nation itself, statuary and sculptures from all of Asia. Full japanese armor and plenty of other beautifully decorated objects of daily use from the histories of those varied lands and cultures. One of the most interesting things I noticed was even though all of this material was from asian origins there was a very distinct difference in styles, materials and palettes from one culture to another. Very fascinating and thought provoking.

We also went to Japan town. That was interesting as well with several shops purely dedicated to merchandise that was japanese specific. That area of the city was much smaller than I thought it would be. The next day we went to China town which is much much bigger than I thought it would be. An endless array of shops and interesting little restaurants where I bought a mah jong set. So I will be learning to play that soon.

LEONARD IS YOUR MAN…
just finished watching the film I’m Your Man. It’s about the songs of Leonard Cohen featuring performances by some very talented artists doing their renditions of his music. The film was intermixed with some insightful interviews with the artists sharing their feelings and influences from his songs along with interludes of Leonard himself sharing bits about his life. It’s a really good film and worth watching even if you are not familiar with his music (and if you’re not, shame on you). I’d say the only draw back to the performances given here is there are 3 that include Rufus Wainwright whose music and vocal style I can’t stand on a good day. So I really didn’t care for his renditions at all and couldn’t understand why there were 3 by him, overshadowing much better artists. Other than that you really should see this film if you haven’t already. His music and lyrical wit by far surpasses many of his peers. Truly one of the greatest song writers ever.

HIS INFERNAL MAJESTY…
Venus Doom, the new album by HIM is arriving this tuesday to a store near you. This is definitely one of best bands to come along in a very long while and the new material is amazing, as to be expected. My copies of the special and limited editions are already shipped and should arrive on my doorstep possibly the day before the official release date. CANNOT WAIT!!! I’m also purchasing my tickets to see them in SF in november at the Warfield.

A JESUS SURPRISE…
when looking for tickets for the HIM show I came across event ads for Jesus And Mary Chain to be playing 2 dates in october at the Filmore. These guys are one of the all time greatest and its awesome to see them back and working on a new album after many many years. I must go see them as well.

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