The Creative Review interviews Richard Littler, the man behind the absolutely bloody terrifying Scarfolk:
For me, the desired effect can only be achieved if the images are visually authentic. The seriousness of presentation and form is absolutely crucial. It lulls the viewer into a false sense of security so that the gap between expectation and reality – the juxtaposition of staidness and absurdity – is as wide as it can be.
The fictional authors, designers and archivists of Scarfolk’s public information material must sincerely believe in the gravity of the message that the subject matter wants to convey and deserves, such as rabies. In addition, the whole concept of Scarfolk has to be internally consistent. There has to be a credible, believable identity.
Greatly Exaggerated — Salon’s Laura Miller on technology, self-publishing, and why publishers and bookstores are still matter:
If print could talk, it would surely be telling the world, Mark Twain-style, that reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated… New self-publishing enterprises are a godsend for traditional publishers because they can take much of the uncertainty out of signing a new author. By the time a self-published author has made a success of his or her book, all the hard stuff is done, not just writing the manuscript but editing and the all-important marketing. Instead of investing their money in unknown authors, then collaborating to make their books better and find them an audience, publishers can swoop in and pluck the juiciest fruits at the moment of maximum ripeness…. [That’s] exactly what happened with erotica blockbuster E.L. James.
Epitaph — A smart take on the end of Google Reader by Paul Ford for The Financial Times:
This is the downside to apps: when everything is online your ability to labour along in familiar ways is contingent upon money coming to the app provider. This works when we remain consumers, for example of media objects such as paywalled newspapers, Netflix and Spotify. We lease access to the databases, own nothing, and the access makes it worthwhile. But when we work inside these systems we increase our levels of risk. When Google Reader goes away, it will not be like a television show being cancelled – much work is lost, and the ability to access that work is also lost.
The Exploded Mind — A big interview with artist, illustrator and picture book maker Oliver Jeffers at The Great Discontent:
Balancing integrity versus income is tricky; when I make decisions, sometimes I know that I might not be as well off the next year, but I’ll certainly be making the best work. I figured out early on that there are certain things I don’t want to do when it comes to how I’m perceived. I try to stay away from advertising, even though that’s where the big money is. In the visual arts, you are often only as good as your reputation and associations, so you have to think ahead and be smart. As far as commercial commissions, I’m not just a gun for hire; I actually have something I’m trying to accomplish and a way of making work that I want to continue and be known for. Although some lucrative offers came in for illustration work, I realized that taking them would be shortsighted and could possibly stunt other aspects of my practice.
See also: ‘Maurice Sendak’s Jumper and Me‘ by Jeffers at The Guardian:
Sendak was trying to satisfy himself. He was telling these stories, as much a way to make sense of the world around him as anything else. He was using them as a poet uses poetry and a painter uses paint. He was making art that ultimately transcended himself and neat classification. Perhaps as a result he was one of the first contemporary picture-book makers to discover the power of picture book as a way of storytelling for everyone. Perhaps this might go some way to explain why his books have won over so many, regardless of geography or decade – because he is putting himself, and the way he views the world on paper, darkness and all.
And finally…
Dr. Jazz — James Hughes on Stanley Kubrick’s unmade film about jazz in the Third Reich, at The Atlantic:
Kubrick’s interest in jazz-loving Nazis… represents his most fascinating unrealized war film. The book that Kubrick was handed, and one he considered adapting soon after wrapping Full Metal Jacket, was Swing Under the Nazis, published in 1985 and written by Mike Zwerin, a trombonist from Queens who had performed with Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy before turning to journalism. The officer in that Strangelovian snapshot was Dietrich Schulz-Koehn, a fanatic for “hot swing” and other variations of jazz outlawed as “jungle music” by his superiors. Schulz-Koehn published an illegal underground newsletter, euphemistically referred to as “travel letters,” which flaunted his unique ability to jaunt across Western Europe and report back on the jazz scenes in cities conquered by the Fatherland. Kubrick’s title for the project was derived from the pen name Schulz-Koehn published under: Dr. Jazz.
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