Comics, Ghosts, and Venus Fly Traps

Like many of you, I usually have a couple of creative projects brewing. Currently, I'm working on a comic series with my friend Krista. She draws, I wrote, and we both brainstorm until wee hours of the morning about the virtues of vortices vs. the Mothman.

I don't want to say too much, as I'm a superstitious sort, but it's something like the child of Weird N.J. and Blue Monday with a touch of Boy Meets Boy and Coraline. Creepy, kooky, mysterious and snarky. As all roads lead back to Polyvore, I've been whipping up sets to help figure out just who these ghost chasers and folklore hunters are.

Come, meet the cast!


Stella only falls in love with girls she can't have, because it's easier to deal with unrequited crushes. She plans to write her thesis on the perils of psychic powers and teenagerhood in YA literature, and marks up her books with mysterious notations only she can decipher. Her dormroom houses a dollhouse full of lizards, and points to anyone who gets that reference. Japanese snacks and steampunk comic books make her happy, but don't tell anyone that she was a convention-roadtrippin' fangirl in her teens. Come midnight, you'll find her engaged in an act of bibliomancy or fighting with her favorite tarot deck.


Taylor finds that his case of synesthesia only aids his choice to major in art. He enjoys yard sales and thrift stores, especially when the objects start talking to him. He secretly wishes that Doctor Who will show up when he's walking to class and make him a new companion, so he always keeps his bag packed.


Eleanor doesn't have secret powers that let her blow things up with her mind, so she became a chem major. Those who spend a lot of time with her soon realize that everything she says comes true in the future, which leads to a rather empty dance card. The gummy 'staches are a gift for Taylor; he uses them in his 3D Design class, building a tiny carousel entitled "Mustache Rides."

I Will Do Something Unexpected: Cathedral Child and Clockwork Angels by Lea Hernandez

Cathedral Child, the first in Lea Hernandez's Texas Steampunk series, is the story of an analytical engine and the mysteries surrounding it, a political game and flowering romance. Sumner Nikola's father built Cathedral in hope that he and his childhood best friend, Glory, would take over programming someday. After Nikola Sr.'s untimely death, his business associate Parrish takes charge of Sumner and the Cathedral project, all going according to plan until Glory discovers a talent for communicating with the analytical device in a new and extraordinary way.

In Clockwork Angels, Temperance's Spiritualist magic is popular with the parlor set, but soon attracts the attention of those who would use it for darker purposes. Her companion, Amy, an orphan adopted into her family, never sleeps but soon wakes to powers neither had ever imagined. As friends and lovers, they come together to defeat an unspeakable evil being run amok in 1897 New Orleans. Clockwork Angels works best as a direct sequel to Cathedral Child; I read it on its own before CC was reprinted, but the story is far richer if you know the background story.

The Texas Steampunk world is richly detailed with singing computers, talking jackalopes, wereyotes and angels. Her female characters kick ass, beating the snot out of would-be kidnappers, communing with the spirit world, and saving the ones they love from darkness; they are strong and flawed and beautiful. I unabashedly love Lea Hernandez's style, manga-inspired with sketchy penwork and fantastic settings: opulent train cars, the mysterious peach-and-morning-glory filled town of Heaven, Texas. If the story is sometimes hard to follow, then her artwork is certainly easy on the eyes for repeat readings. Warren Ellis, in his introduction, coined the phrase "Scientific Romance" and these two are certainly that, with Glory and Sumner or Temperance and Amy defying family and convention in their pursuit of happiness and the glory of scientific and metaphysical discovery. They are deep, emotional, fantastical stories, and anybody with a love of Victorian magical realism with steampunk trappings would do well to seek them out.

*Though unfortunately out of print, they are easy to hunt down via online booksellers; Lea Hernandez offers the superior Cyberosia edition of Cathedral Child for sale on her website
*Dangerous Beauty: The Livejournal of Lea Hernandez
*Lea Hernandez on DeviantArt
*You can read the entirety of Cathedral Child at Webcomics Nation. Click on the first page to go forward. (It took me a few tries...) Don't forget to look up her other comics (available there and at Girlamatic)
*Interviews: Bookslut, COMICON.com
*Lea Hernandez will be in the upcoming Tori Amos comic anthology, Comic Book Tattoo, with a piece illustrating "Ribbons Undone." (Perfect!)
*Seeking more steampunk goodness? Brass Goggles is my favorite stop on the web for all things anachronistic, with cogs in
*Lady Ada Lovelace was a real enchantress of numbers. Her work in early programming was remarkable for its time, predicting the use of computers for artificial intelligence and procedural generation.
*Jennifer Perkins (of Naughty Secretary Club) spots Victorian ladies with tentacles instead of toes popping up everywhere

Edit on 7/8/08 for extra links and good things

Puppets and Synchronicity

Who's seen the movie Labyrinth? It's one of my favorites; the scene where Sarah's friends come back to party with her never fails to make me tear up. (So right! So fitting! It spoke so much to my 16 year old self, who thought she'd have to leave her stories behind when she became an adult.)
Remember the baby, Toby?

Turns out that he's the son of Brian and Wendy Froud, famous fantasy artists and collaborators on both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.


And look what a handsome satyr he's become!

All things come full circle; Toby Froud is a puppeteer in his own right, and worked on the Scissor Sister's video for "She's My Man," using the same technique as the "Chilly Down" sequence in Labyrinth.

You can read about the making of this video in Toby Froud Returns to the Labyrinth.

Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore, by Elizabeth Bishop

This poem I found in the text used for my History of NYC class in my freshman year of college. I think that it sums up everything that I love about my wonderful city.


Photo by Swan-T

From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.
In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals,
please come flying,
to the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums
descending out of the mackerel sky
over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water,
please come flying.

Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The ships
are signaling cordially with multitudes of flags
rising and falling like birds all over the harbor.
Enter: two rivers, gracefully bearing
countless little pellucid jellies
in cut-glass epergnes dragging with silver chains.
The flight is safe; the weather is all arranged.
The waves are running in verses this fine morning.
Please come flying.

Come with the pointed toe of each black shoe
trailing a sapphire highlight,
with a black capeful of butterfly wings and bon-mots,
with heaven knows how many angels all riding
on the broad black brim of your hat,
please come flying.

Bearing a musical inaudible abacus,
a slight censorious frown, and blue ribbons,
please come flying.
Facts and skyscrapers glint in the tide; Manhattan
is all awash with morals this fine morning,
so please come flying.

Mounting the sky with natural heroism,
above the accidents, above the malignant movies,
the taxicabs and injustices at large,
while horns are resounding in your beautiful ears
that simultaneously listen to
a soft uninvented music, fit for the musk deer,
please come flying.

For whom the grim museums will behave
like courteous male bower-birds,
for whom the agreeable lions lie in wait
on the steps of the Public Library,
eager to rise and follow through the doors
up into the reading rooms,
please come flying.
We can sit down and weep; we can go shopping,
or play at a game of constantly being wrong
with a priceless set of vocabularies,
or we can bravely deplore, but please
please come flying.

With dynasties of negative constructions
darkening and dying around you,
with grammar that suddenly turns and shines
like flocks of sandpipers flying,
please come flying.

Come like a light in the white mackerel sky,
come like a daytime comet
with a long unnebulous train of words,
from Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.

Capsule Prize Reviews: She's Staring at Me

Like the little treasures in a gumball machine, here are mini-reviews of three titles celebrating the wide-eyed and wonderful.


Once upon a time, Blythe was an obscure 70s B-line doll, shunned for her eccentric looks. Along came Gina Garen, fairy godmother to a troupe of tiny plastic muses rescued from antique toy haunts. Blythe stole hearts and paved the way for an all-singing, all-dancing doll revival. This is Blythe is where it all began, dreamy vintage-toned photos that "embrace the rare and unique, the beautiful and funny qualities that are the true essence of who we are." See Blythe masquerading as produce, hailing a cab in a number reminiscent of Built by Hannah, and arguing with the angel and devil on her shoulders.

Big Eye Art: Resurrected and Transformed documents the rise of enormous eyes in pop surrealist portraits, from Margaret Keane to our own Gina Garan. Strange and eerie, cute and colorful, or whimsically subversive, Blonde Blythe introduces us to 22 big-eye-artists, who share what drew them to the style along with their best pieces. I heart Lisa Petrucci and her loving tributes to retro dollies with a modern twist, Misty Benson's gothic beauties with their insect collections and skeleton pets, and Elizabeth Victoria Knowles' surreal monsterscapes where miniature elephants frolic and Victorian poppets carve jack-o-lanterns.

Kitty Ballerina hasn't been the same ever since she traveled to Abby Denson's Dolltopia, a tiny city where toys can live and love as they please. After breaking free of her dream house and going AWOL with her new best friend, pacifist Army Jim, she finds herself questioning her identity and the nature of freedom, tempted by a whole new set of beauty standards, and ultimately willing to fight to bring more dolls to the light. It's deceptively simple and endlessly cute, and bonus, uber-queer-friendly. Hand it to your younger siblings till they're old enough for But I'm a Cheerleader, and then give them a hand with the ensuing Barbie makeovers.

Extras:

*Gina Garan is webmistress of This is Blythe, your destination for everything you've ever wanted to know about the dolls, her photos, and their fandom
*Want more? Check out SuperJunk's Blythes and monsters running amock in an ultra-mod dollhouse , JamFancy's circus girls and forest elves run away from a theme park, and Boopsie Daisy's Technicolor dreamland
*Big Eyed Art Bonanza is your guide to vintage big-eye-art, with an upcoming print companion Big Eyed Masters
* Lisa Petrucci, Misty Benson, and Elizabeth Victoria Knowles all have online galleries--as does Blonde Blythe.
*Read the first issue of Dolltopia online
*Abby Denson, as well as creating several other excellent comics, pens a bi-weekly comic in The L Magazine dedicated to the "sweet and sugary wonders of NYC." Don't miss the past columns!
*Abby was a Lulu of the Year for 2007; read her interview with Friends of Lulu here

Next Exit, Wonderland: A Blog Soundtrack

If you've ever asked the burning question "What exactly is she listening to while she composes those posts," wonder no more.

Brought to my attention by the lovely Dayna Desastre, Mixwit allows you to make cute little mix tape playlists for your blog, easy as anything. (Also, it uses one of my favorite streaming music apps, Seeqpod.) I've made a folky, summery little grrl-filled mix of my most heavily rotated tracks.

1. White Rabbit - the murmurs
She woke to find that her bunny slippers had turned into many tiny white rabbits, in rainbow hats, playing the drums. Cold feet are a minor inconvenience, as is a too-slow shutter speed.

2. Crimson and Clover - Joan Jett (<3!)
In her daydreams, the bride always wore deep red with crinolines and American Beauty roses, and walked down the aisle blessed by the Goddess of Rock.

3. You Could Be - Mixel Pixel
There was nothing in her contract against bringing in animatronic dinosaurs to help with storytime.

4. Open Your Heart - Lavender Diamond
"The skates are from a thrift shop, and the little piano is from my childhood," she told me, "but the dance troupe sprung up of its own accord."

5. As Cool As I Am - Dar Williams
Work at the magazine was much improved by falafel pitas with avocado and dance parties in the bathroom.

6. Siren Song - Sweet Soubrette
There was no other explanation for it: her best friend was a ukulele-playing mermaid vaudeville star in another life.

7. Grass Skirt - All Girl Summer Fun Band
Everyone went bobbing for squirting rubber goldfish in the Tiki Punch.

8. 32 Flavors - Ani DiFranco
They met over the street vendor selling sock puppet portraits; it could have been true love but damn if she would let Mr. Freckles get away this time.

9. Raspberry Swirl - Tori Amos (Storytellers Remix)
The former lover would be missed, but a mango lemonade, a good bass line, and a particular shade of neon red light were almost as good as sending a thrill up her spine.

10. No Rock and Roll Fun - Sleater Kinney
The perfect outfit: white button down, fitted black pants, shiny sky-blue shoes. Accessorize with a skinny tie and the blond with the guitar quoting Anais Nin.

Layout Update and Some Questions

Hail, bright spirits!

Leaving Shangri-L.A. got a little makeover, with help from Pyzam. I'm not crazy about using premade templates, so this is just temporary until I learn a little bite more about making Blogger layouts. The header image, however, is my own. It's taken from a photo of The Tarot Garden in the Tuscan countryside, one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited.

While I've got your attention, I'm curious as to how many people are reading this blog. Even if you've never commented before, it would be awesome if you could drop me one here, and tell me what I've got right. Should I do more capsule reviews? More link drops? I'm not one for short articles, but I could give them a try. Would anyone be direly offended by Polyvore Phridays? Inquiring minds would love to know.

(Though I do kindly entreat you to be gentle, as the Puberty Fairy is visiting and my moods are roller-coaster like.)

And always, always feel free to email me at devilinpetticoats AT gmail DOT com with books you'd like to see reviewed.

Ciao,
Rie