Last night I went out to see “Helvetica“, a film about the font we all know so well. One of the art directors who spoke said Helvetica was like off-white paint… it’s just there. It’s permeated our entire culture and life. It’s like air or breathing. You can’t get away from it. Helvetica. And I [...]

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic savant artist who can draw entire cities from memory, down the the windows and doors. I saw a video of him drawing Rome from memory on YouTube, then found his web site which has a multitude of videos in various languages.  

In his [...]

Dave McKean, the illustrator of Mr. Punch and the director of Mirrormask, has collected 17 of his short films onto a dvd called KEANOSHOW. You can see a few of them on YouTube now: Reason, Me & My Big Ideas, and Sonnet 138. Look for the entire collection and the artist himself at the San [...]

Another watch-worthy artist demo–this time by Georgia watercolorist Jim Chapman (his color commentary, and the ambient sounds of crickets, locusts and crows ice the cake).
[Shortcut to the video itself].
After viewing his video, be sure to read his artist’s columns. Jim is a contributing editor to the Artist’s Magazine publications.
Speaking of which, there is an [...]

Thanks to a plea from Ira Glass to support This American Life’s free podcasts, I discovered Lost Buildings. The slide show, narrated by Ira and illustrated by Chris Ware, tells the sad story of a boy who loves old buildings.
You can view a preview of the slide show here. If it convinces you to support [...]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=KxsUiEds8BU[/youtube]
(above - The PBS Mystery intro, by Edward Gorey)
Edward Gorey (Wikipedia) is still inspiring wonderful, creepy creations, six years after his death. I think there are few pleasures in life equal to curling up by a window with a big anthology of Gorey stories and a cup of Earl Grey, and usually this leads to [...]

The first two episodes of Steven Spielberg’s reality show On The Lot will introduce us to fifty aspiring film makers including Abigiail Steinberg whose qualifying trailer, Jules, was animated entirely by my brother, Henry Hughes!

The episodes will air tomorrow night, May 22nd and, Thursday night, May 24th on Fox but you can see much more [...]

Big thanks to Drawn! for alerting me to the upcoming Persepolis movie.
It is with a mixture of hope and fear that I anticipate any film adaptation of a favorite book but this one is directed by the author and artist herself, Marjane Satrapi, which bodes very well! Check out the trailer on YouTube.