The Fantod Pack (1995): a Gorey take on the Tarot deck.
• A happy 100th birthday to Edward Gorey. I was hoping to link once again to Gorey’s appearance on the Dick Cavett Show from 1977 (a rare TV interview) but it’s one of those things that’s no longer available at YouTube. You can always browse Goreyana instead. Meanwhile, there’s this in Scotland: In Gorey Detail: Celebrating An American Friend At Custom House, Leith. A tribute exhibition which is running in Edinburgh for this week only.
• “A blisteringly frank and triple X-rated chat with Peter Berlin”. A blisteringly hyperbolic headline for a discussion between Ted Stansfield and Peter Berlin, the self-invented sex object of the 1970s.
• This week in the Bumper Book of Magic: Smoky Man posts my replies to his questions about the creation of the book’s Rainy Day and Kabbalah sections.
• Tricky’s Maxinquaye was released 30 years ago this month. David Bennun revisited the album five years ago.
• At Colossal: Felines evoke ‘A Floating World’ in Tùng Nâm’s whimsical illustrations.
• New music: Gloam by Emptyset, and The Mount Hibiki Tapes by Mount Shrine.
• Mix of the week: A mix for The Wire by Polonius.
• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Steam.
• Last Of The Steam Powered Trains (1968) by The Kinks | Steam Megawatt (1979) by Tod Dockstader | Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt (1996) by DJ Shadow
I completely missed it until now but back in September, Mountbatten Press, a publisher who specializes in hardcover reproductions of comics and graphic novels, released Lord Dunsany’s Dreamcatcher: The Artistic Odyssey of Sidney Sime. It’s been so long since there was a book devoted to Sime’s work that I was excited to see it. I have not read it but judging from the response online it appears to include graphics reproduced from online sources of varying validity. So it is not the definitive work fans of Sime would prefer. There was a hint in one of the reviews of a biography planned for release later this year. Of that I have heard nothing. A Sidney Sime retrospective is long overdue.
Most of their books, including the Sime collection, seem to be written by the same author who I’d guess is also the publisher. That doesn’t inspire confidence, especially when the rest of their titles are nothing but old comics characters.
I’ve already got three Sime books: the Master of the Mysterious collection from 1980, From an Ultimate Dim Thule (odd illustrations from periodicals), and Bogey Beasts which is a collection of silly songs. That’s most of his best work but I think there’s more of his art in magazines which has yet to be reprinted.