The Latest Stuff - Page 21 of 42

May 9, 2016 Bill Swislow

Review: The Family Circus: Daily and Sunday Comics, 1962-63

The Family Circus: Daily and Sunday Comics, 1962-63 by Bil Keane My rating: 5 of 5 stars I liked Peanuts as a kid but I loved Family Circus. Where Charles Schulz used his kids to make universal points, Bil Keane tried to be about real kids and real parents. It was a chronicle of post-war suburban life, and I could relate. It also was probably the greatest source of insight I had into the parental point of view (well, along with Dave Berg’s The Lighter Side comics in Mad Magazine, with had some similarities to Circus in style and point

April 29, 2016 Bill Swislow

Spam {comment|message|kudos} of the {day|week|month|year}

Every once in a while I take a look in my spam folder and find something really {awesome|amazing|very good|superb|fantastic|excellent|great}. This is one of the better examples — kind of a how-to for composing a spam comment. Really, it’s a template you could apply to writing almost any kind of message. I’m sure “samanthablanchette@—.com” would be happy for {other folks|folks|other people|people} to make use of it. {I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me. {In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website

One-of-the-best-restaurant-paintings-Ive-seen.-Up-In-Smoke-Rib-Shack-U.S.-12-Michigan-City-Indiana

April 23, 2016 Bill Swislow

Roadside Indiana

A roadside art trip on the gyros trail through northwest Indiana ended in Michigan City. Not so much gyros there, but some fine paintings, including one of the best wall signs I’ve seen, at Up-In-Smoke Rib Shack. Also some lovely constructions by Tim Bruce along the way.

March 26, 2016 Bill Swislow

Review: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine My rating: 5 of 5 stars I came of age around the same time as Viv Albertine and I was drawn to punk, so this memoir was bound to resonate for me. Much as I appreciated punk’s exasperation with the state of both society and popular music, though, I was far too inhibited, and more to the point way too square, to be part of the scene. Albertine was very much in the thick of it, however — friend and bandmate of Sid Vicious pre-Sex Pistols, close to

March 5, 2016 Bill Swislow

The Gyros Project

Rebuilt and Expanded More gyros signs, hundreds of them! Each a bit of vernacular art genius The Gyros Project started as a way of collecting fine examples of Chicago-school hand-painted business advertising. The gyros was a graphically strong object, with lots of sellers all over the city, and typically promoted via one-off signs. Hot dogs, the most commonly advertised product on Chicago streets, were less interesting since they tended to be merchandised via Vienna Beef-supplied printed materials (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t my primary interest). I also had a particular affection for the gyros in

Muffler man face detail, 3 Stars Auto Body sidewalk muffler man in November 2011. Lawrence Avenue near Sacramento, Chicago

February 25, 2016 Bill Swislow

Lawrence Avenue Vernacular, Again

Lawrence Avenue is a paradise for muffler men and auto parts, not to mention food images. Click here for an earlier installment of the Lawrence Avenue gallery of vernacular art.

January 27, 2016 Bill Swislow

Review: John Baeder’s Road Well Taken

“John Baeder’s Road Well Taken,” by Jay Williams, Vendome Press, 272 pages, 300 color and b&w illustrations, 2015. 978-0865653191. Hard cover $45 John Baeder is legendary among roadside architecture enthusiasts for Diners,” his book of photorealistic diner paintings that turned out to be one of the most culturally influential publications of the 1970s. Baeder, the subject of a new biography by art historian and curator Jay Williams, appreciated 20th century roadsides and the buildings that populated them before they became old, when they were just ugly rather than a source of popular nostalgia.Widespread fascination with highways like Route 66 and

January 27, 2016 Bill Swislow

Review: Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher My rating: 5 of 5 stars Interesting letters, most by notable people, through the centuries, well presented. What’s not to like?

January 25, 2016 Bill Swislow

Short Review: Sue Williams

An important book about an important artist. I confess I’m biased, since I collected Sue Williams’ art early in her career. But that art’s development, in its formal variety and conceptual complexity, has demonstrated a deepening of her talent and intelligence. This book is thoroughly illustrated, of course, and the essayists do a creditable job keeping up with the evolution it shows, especially the artist’s shift from explicit messages literally written into the work to an embrace of abstraction that is stylistically powerful and still intellectually challenging. You can find it here on Amazon.

January 23, 2016 Bill Swislow

The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist

A good survey of Daniel Clowes’ career, with plenty of biographical insights. I used to live for the next issue of Eightball. I found his drawing style engaging — not true for me with many comic artists — and his sensibility was exactly on target. The fact that he once drew the House of Boris sign, then a North Side Chicago landmark, sealed the deal. Clowes is near the top of my list of all-time favorite cartoonists, which for the record also includes (not in exact order): Charles Addams R. Crumb Ernie Bushmiller Gary Larson Bill Watterson Roz Chast Chris